Before I started Skooba Design, my family owned The Saunders Group, a photographic equipment manufacturing company. In the 23 years that my family owned the company, it grew from five employees to 100. My father's secret was simple: Treat customers well, treat employees and suppliers well, and sell a good product. It sounds simple, but the dying art of customer service really does set a company apart.

My family enjoyed running a hands-on small business, but when The Saunders Group got big, we spent more time dealing with tax issues, personnel and real estate, and not as much dealing with products and customers. My father said it's better to sell your business when you want to than when you have to, so we accepted an offer for the business in 1998.

During that sale, I witnessed what can happen when a buyer and seller don't believe in the same set of values. For example, when my father turned over the keys to the new owners of the business, they started calling our suppliers "vendors" and assigning them numbers instead of names. I know this sounds silly, but it took the humanity out of the relationship: It seems to me that a vendor number has no humanity, but a supplier with a name is someone with whom your mutual success is intertwined. The buyers ultimately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003, and many people who'd worked for us lost their jobs.

 

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Source: BNET