There are lots of reasons business exist. Sometimes they exist for profit. Other times, they exist for their employees. Many businesses exist for stockholders.
But you are not in business to create jobs for your employees or dividends for your stockholders. You are not even in business to earn a profit.
The reason you are in business is “to supply goods and services to customers.” That’s it.
What about the other things? What about employees? What about stockholders? What about profit?
Peter Drucker writes in The Essential Drucker that “profit is not the explanation, cause, or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity.”
In other words, if you work for profit, you may marginalize your customers. But if you work for your customers, you will always be profitable.
Care about your customers first, and everything else will take care of itself.
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