GROWING YOUR BUSINESS – 16 simple rules of business: and of life

by Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

No matter what anyone tells you, business is not hard, being a good business person is not hard. Being a person who is respected and sometimes even esteemed is not that difficult. Being someone that others turn to in their time of need is easy. Being that person that people respect, even if they don’t always agree with her/him is something that everyone can afford. It does not cost a lot of money to be a good guy.

And to show you how easy it is, here are 16 simple rules for being a good guy and also a good business person.

Are you ready? Don’t worry there is nothing here that you can’t handle:

1. Treat everyone you meet with the respect you feel you deserve. Treat them well.

2. Be polite, be courteous, say please and thank you, make room for others in this world space.

3. Don’t worry so much about who wins and loses, but rather find solutions where everyone wins, at least a little bit.

4. Return phone calls promptly. Or as promptly as you can. Everyone is guilty of messing this one up once in a while but try your best.

5. Try your best, speaking of which always try your best so that at the end of the day you can tell your self that you did the best, the very best you could do. As the athletes like to say, “At the end of the game make sure you left everything out there.”

6. Return emails promptly. I know, I know another one that is not that easy to do…but, yes, you’ve got it, do your best.

7. Listen to people when they are talking to you. Look them in the eye and focus on what they are telling you. This is for your own good as well as the person talking. It is amazing how much you miss when you are not really listening. Ask your spouse or partner.

8. When you decide you hate a certain group of people, whatever that group might be, there’s a lot to go around, think how you will react, be honest, when you meet one person from that group at a time. It is much harder to hate one individual at a time than it is to hate an entire group.

9. Find ways to help people, your customers, your suppliers, your bosses, the people you work with, the people who work for you. Whatever they are doing. Whatever their job is, try to help them do it better.

10. Along those same lines, always leave people better than when you found them. Look for ways to make their lives better for having met you, either for the first time or the first time that day.

11. Be inspirational. No, you don’t have to give them a Knute Rockne, “rah rah” pep talk, But you can inspire them to take that next step in whatever they are doing. To show them that what they are doing is important and they are the better for doing it.

12. Be generous. I like to say, “allow me to be generous” when I work with people. All I mean by that is if we work together and if we are not concerned about who does what because we are confident that together we will succeed, then we will succeed and have a true win/win partnership. Remember that old adage, “It’s amazing what we can do when we don’t care who gets the credit.”

13. Be honest. Always tell the truth no matter how much it hurts. If you are selling something and it is going to be late, then tell them as soon as you know. Remember those words of wisdom, “The Godfather insists on hearing bad news immediately. Deliver both bad news and good news, but deliver the bad news “more quickly”

14. Take the heat if you have done something wrong. Stand up and take it on the chin…and then start fixing it as quickly as possible.

15. Listen to other people’s ideas. Don’t be so stuck in your ways that you are not willing to hear other’s ideas, especially those people who are not from your own generation. It’s amazing how much you can learn when you open your mind up to other’s ideas.

16. And finally and my personal favorite. Always help out those who have done you wrong at one time or another. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s fun, and the best part is that… it freaks them out!

There you have it. I told you they weren’t hard. Follow these 16 simple rules of business and people will love working with you…and, of course, you’ll grow your business.