People are the core of every business. Businesses are based on relationships, and relationships are based on people. I would go to an average restaurant run by amazing people over an outstanding restaurant run by awful people.
Interpretation
People and relationships are vital to the success of any business.
This quote emphasizes that the true strength of a business lies in its people. While product quality and services are important, the relationships and interactions formed by the individuals within the business are what truly drive success. A business run by passionate and dedicated individuals can outshine its competitors, regardless of the superficial qualities of the establishment itself.
In practice
In a team meeting discussing customer service strategies.
Usually, you can figure out where a person's mistakes came from if you ask them the genesis of their thought process: 'Why did you do it this way?' As opposed to telling them they did it the wrong way. Understanding their thought process will ultimately help you be able to communicate with them and navigate around them.
It's okay to work for someone else; not everyone is cut out to own a business, and even so, working for someone else is a chance to learn how to both be an employee and an employer.
Those who enter to buy, support me. Those who come to flatter, please me. Those who complain, teach me how I may please others so that more will come. Those only hurt me who are displeased but do not complain. They refuse me permission to correct my errors and thus improve my service.
Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do.
When you are making a decision about how best to serve your customers, your own experience is often a better guide than a more sophisticated analysis of the market.
If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.
Explore this next great frontier where the boundaries between work and higher purpose are merging into one, where doing good really is good for business.
Time is the friend of the wonderful business. It's the enemy of the lousy business. If you're in a lousy business for a long time, you're going to get a lousy result, even if you buy it cheap. If you're in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little too much going in, you're going to get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.
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