I've been examining business trends and have seen that the most common practice and what has become the American practical course of action for nearly every business owner and what they often consider their reason for getting into a business is to grow it and make it as large as possible then sell it or retire with a life of ease.

What many of us do not realize is that by focusing on growth and sales we miss the heart of our customer and begin diluting our business as we continue in pursuit of expansion. I've noticed that the businesses that focus on customer care and becoming the most quality restaurant and truly give the customer a form of hospitality than simply good service are small in size and have tight ownership from their founders. Even the employees at these places seem to have a sense of ownership as they work and treat the customer as a distant friend of a friend who has stopped in on their journey through life.

Why I bring this topic up is because we as business owners and entrepreneurs often feel the pressure to become large quickly. If we are not growing we are dying but there is another choice. You can choose to increase your profit and quality without expanding your size or opening up a new location. You will feel pressure to inevitably sell, expand, and move towards a larger audience but if what you do is sell the best widget X and you could not effectively create widget X in any other form or fashion in good conscience at a new place with new management and eventually a whole new personality then you should consider helping your competition fill the demand. Then as you help them they will in turn help you by reducing the overflow of sales and not polluting your good name as you might have hired them to go further with your product and it would not be your grade in quality.

This ideology might seem insane to the world around you but there are business owners like myself and others who pride themselves on the quality of products and services they render their target audience and have a terribly hard time thinking and duplicating the irreplicable way I service my clients.

Another question that you must ask yourself is why are you in business anyway? If it was to get big and sell then do it, but if you started in business because you wanted to make something of high quality that maybe bears your name or you want to pass on your business to your children in the future. Whatever your reason to get in business may have been you must ask yourself "why am I in business now?".

If it is because no one made a really Widget X then this quote is for you by William A. Foster

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, since effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives."

This article is for your encouragement as well as for mine as we continue to grow and press the envelope to produce a high quality marketing service but try to limit how many people we can handle at one time while continuing to have a grade of quality that truly maxes out our abilities and keeps all of us on our toes. I hope you feel relieved to know there is other options to growth and they can be far more satisfying than continuing to work yourself to death and miss your family's important times and sports events for work.

Sincerely,

Brian Fanslau