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Small Business Lessons

One thing that I've found over the years is that you should always be prepared learn. Despite what some people try to suggest you are never going to know everything and you are always going to offered new lessons to learn.

Sometimes those lessons will come from the gurus of the industry that you are working in. Sometimes those lessons will come from people in other industries that you deal with. And sometimes they will come right out of the blue from a client when you least expected it.

Sometimes the lessons are good, sometimes they're bad. Every small business person is taught sooner or later that not everyone they deal with is as honest as they seem. And sometimes the lessons are very helpful.

Today I was taught a very good and valuable lesson by a guy less than half my age who runs a very different sort of business to the one my partner and I run and who lives on the other side of the planet.

I won't go into the details because some lessons are best learned privately but you should always be prepared to learn because you never know when important lessons are going to come your way.

At the same time you too can teach others. It doesn't have to be by words, spoken or printed. Just your actions are enough to get the message across.

At the conclusion of our discussions he sent me a message that in part read:

"Your conduct is some of the most professional I have ever witnessed. You seem to me to be a more charitable, moral person, than so many of the "holier than thou" types I have come across here"

I guess that's what you get when your basic approach to life is 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

It works in my personal life and it works in my business life too.

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