my dad told me something about business when i was 16 that i thought was stupid. i'm 34 and it's the truest thing i know.
he said "the businesses that last are the ones that are easy to be a customer of."
i was sixteen and thought business was about innovation and disruption and being the smartest person in the room. his dry cleaning shop in croydon seemed small and unambitious and i wanted to do something that mattered.
his shop lasted 31 years. he retired in 2022 with enough money to never worry again. not wealthy. comfortable.
the businesses i see struggling, including mine for the first two years, are the ones that are complicated to be a customer of. confusing pricing. slow responses. processes that prioritize the business over the buyer. friction everywhere disguised as professionalism.
the businesses i see winning are the ones where buying feels easy, paying feels painless, and getting help when something goes wrong feels natural rather than adversarial.
my dad never read a business book. he answered the phone on the first ring, charged fair prices, and remembered peoples names. his business was easy to be a customer of. that was the whole strategy. 31 years.
im still trying to make my business as easy to be a customer of as his dry cleaning shop was. im not there yet. but at least i stopped thinking the advice was stupid.