290. Making mistakes in kindness

Mother Teresa said: "I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than to work miracles in unkindness."

Surprisingly, this is excellent business advice. Perhaps the best business advice I ever read (it comes from a little book called Revolutionary Kindness.)

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart and whose five children are among the 10 richest people in the world, also had legendary love for his customers. He said that the only boss is the customer, and he can fire anyone in the company simply by bringing his business somewhere else.

The success secret I found was that when you truly care about and LOVE your customer, your business begins to work miracles. Yet, there are so many people going into business without any idea of who their customers are, and without caring about them at all. They want an MBA, they want the latest technologies, the best websites, etc. and yet they don't feel anything for their customers.

(A great book I recommend is Love is the Killer App, by Tim Sanders, former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo!).

The test to see how close you are to your customers is simple: Would you invite them over for dinner with your family (or boyfriend / girlfriend)?