Anything You Want

Care about your customers more than about yourself

At a conference in Los Angeles, someone in the audience asked me, “What if

every musician just set up their own store on their own website?

Since that'd be the death of CD Baby, how do you plan to stop that?”

I said, “Honestly, I don't care about CD Baby. I only care about the musicians. If

some day, musicians don't need CD Baby anymore, that's great! I'l just shut it

---

down and get back to making music.”

He was shocked. He had never heard a business owner say he didn't care about

the survival of his company.

To  me,  it  was  just  common  sense.  Of  course  you  should  care  about  your

customers more than you care about yourself! Isn't that Rule #1 of providing a

good service? It's al about them, not about you.

But even wel -meaning companies accidental y get trapped in survival mode. A

business is started to solve a problem. But if the problem was truly solved, that

business  would  no  longer  be  needed!  So  the  business  accidental  y  or

unconsciously keeps the problem around so that they can keep solving it for a

fee.

(I  don't  want  to  pick  on  anyone's  favorite  pharmaceutical  company  or  online

productivity  subscription  tools,  so  let's  just  say  that  any  business  that's  in

business to sel you a cure is motivated not to focus on prevention.)

It's kind of like the grand tales, in which the hero needs to be prepared to die to

save the day. Your company should be wil ing to die for your customers.

That's the Tao of business: Care about your customers more than about yourself,

and you'l do wel .