Og Mandino, in The Greatest Salesman In The World, starts scroll 2 with the following phrase, I will greet this day with love in my heart.
This is the greatest secret of success in all ventures.
Just thinking about this phrase this morning made me want to go back and read this book again.
What brought it to mind is an even better book, the Bible in the book of Luke.
Before I go into that I want to let you know this won’t be a religious discussion however the Bible has a lot of accurate information about life and business and it thoroughly applies here.
In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus is being questioned by a lawyer.
The lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus replies, what does the law tell you?
The somewhat sarcastic response of Jesus shows that He knows the answer but wants the lawyer to answer the question for himself because the motive of the question is self-justification.
The lawyer responds to love God and love your neighbor.
Jesus tells the man, do this and you will live.
The lawyer continues to question Jesus and Jesus tells a story which explains that everyone is considered our neighbor in God’s eyes.
I don’t just want to blow by the statement of Jesus.
He established all of religion, all of Christianity, all of Judaism, all of business and all of life in one statement by affirming the lawyers’ description, Love God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
All theology, all human laws, all of life can be summed up by love.
You would never intentionally harm someone you love.
In Matthew, Jesus puts it this way, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
It’s the ending, all of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or any other religion, if you incorporated these two laws as your basis for life, you will enjoy life and prosper.
So what does love have to do with business?
It is not possible to intentionally wrong someone that you love.
In business, the goal is to help your customers solve a problem or make their life better.
You provide more value to your customer than the money they give you in exchange for your product or service.
When your motives are right, you do this in love.
I get so sick and tired of those that want to paint business people as greedy, money hungry and evil because it just isn’t the case with most of us.
Sure there are some greedy business owners but there sure are a lot of greedy politicians as well.
Greed is based in jealousy and is the opposite of love.
This is why love is so powerful in business.
A client of mine was struggling to make ends meet.
I won’t use his real name so I will refer to him as Mike.
After many years in business, Mike had incurred a fairly substantial amount of debt.
He had 12 employees and his costs of operating his business had gotten so high that his business had taken over his life and it was making Mike miserable.
He was terrified because he cared deeply about his employees, his customers, and his family but he knew if something did not change he would go bankrupt.
This story is far too common in business today.
There are literally millions of business owners who are in this very same boat and these are the very same people I look to help because I was one of them several years back.
I know what it feels like down to the chest pounding sleepless nights.
From the outside, these business owners look like they are prosperous but inside there are many fears and concerns, mostly based on the love for their families, employees, customers, and their business.
So what did I do to help Mike?
The first thing Mike had to do was raise prices.
Mike didn’t want to raise prices because he cared about his customers and was concerned they would leave.
I had to make Mike realize that if he did not raise his prices he would no longer be able to serve his customers because he would go out of business.
So if he truly loved and cared for his customers he had to assure them that he would be around for many years to come and the only way to do that was to charge more for his products and services.
Additionally, I helped Mike increase the frequency of times that his customers made purchases.
We did this by offering products that solved a big problem for his customers and had higher than normal margins for Mike.
Additionally, Mike offered a long term service contract that was very unique to his business.
The high margin products were sold to new and existing customers without bidding and the service contracts allowed Mike to lock in customers for many years to come.
Finally, I helped Mike create automated systems to talk to existing clients regularly and bring in new ones like clockwork.
Mike’s life is very different now.
It didn’t happen overnight but Mike is back to loving his business, his customers and his family because he is no longer a slave to his business.
He is able to pay his bills, he is paying down his debt and is on the path to freedom.
If you’re struggling, get some help.
This doesn’t end well if you ignore it, I experienced it firsthand.
I know what you are going through and I changed my entire life to help people who are struggling in business because I know what causes the pain and how to make it go away.
I know the hurt and I get great satisfaction in helping others to make that pain go away.
Are you ready to get rid of the pain?
Action is the first step.
If you want my help you have to come to me, I don’t knock on doors.
There are several ways you can get in touch with me.
You can schedule a confidential business assessment call with me by clicking this link.
You can attend a live webinar where I will show you how to get more customers in your business.
To attend the live webinar click on this link for details.
Finally, there are lots of articles to help you in business at my blog at DavidMulvaney.com
I wish you tremendous prosperity so you can love those around you in the best way you know how.