Care about your customers more than about yourself

Care about your customers| more than about yourself

By Derek Sivers

At a conference(ˈkänf(ə)rəns) in Los Angeles(lôs ˈanjələs), someone in the audience asked me, “What if every musician| just set up their own store| on their own website? Since that’d be the death of CD Baby, how do you plan to stop that?”

I said, “Honestly(ˈänəstlē), I don’t care about CD Baby. I only care about the musicians. If some day, musicians don’t need CD Baby anymore, that’s great! I’ll just shut it down| and get back to making music.”

He was shocked(SHäk). He had never heard a business(ˈbiznəs) owner| say he didn’t care about the survival(sərˈvīvəl) of his company.

To me, it was just common sense. Of course you should care about your customers| more than you care about yourself! Isn’t that rule #1 of providing(prəˈvīdiNG) a good service? It’s all about them, not you.

But even well-meaning companies| accidentally(ˌaksəˈden(t)(ə)lē) get trapped(trap) in survival mode. A business is started to solve a problem. But if the problem was truly solved, that business would no longer be needed! So the business| accidentally or unconsciously| keeps the problem around| so that they can keep solving it for a fee.

(I don’t want to pick on anyone’s favorite pharmaceutical(ˌfärməˈso͞odək(ə)l) company or online productivity subscription(səbˈskripSH(ə)n) tools, so let’s just say| that any business that’s in business| to sell you a cure(kyo͝or)| is motivated(ˈmōdəˌvāt)| not to focus on prevention(prəˈven(t)SH(ə)n).)

It’s kind of like the grand fables where the hero needs to be prepared to die| to save the day. Your company| should be willing to die| for your customers.

That’s the Tao(dou,tou) of business: Care about your customers| more than about yourself, and you’ll do well.

https://sivers.org/caremore