Running a successful business has no relation whatsoever with your age, gender, cast or ethnic background, formal education, your family heritage or financial capacity to invest huge sums, your level of intellect or even your geographical location.

You will be successful only when you provide your customers the value for money they spend, provide them with what THEY need and not what YOU want to sell.

There are many examples of successful individuals, who are high school dropouts. On the other hand there are also examples of persons who are extremely brilliant, but live a life full of poverty and misery. There are heirs of millionaires, who lose all their fortune while there are many born in very poor family and rise to be successful entrepreneurs.

Our education system is designed to produce only job seekers and not entrepreneurs. Our traditional schools of business management also focus on preparing you to manage someone else’s business and not how to start or sustain your own. In business schools you learn more about administrative skills and profit & loss accounts rather than human relations. In financial jargons you learn more about present value and future value of physical assets rather than living or human assets in the form of customer relations or relations with your employees.

Remember, a satisfied customer, who gets more in value than the dollars he spends, will act as your brand ambassador or advertiser to fetch more sales. Even sympathetic listening to a customer’s needs and providing a solution in tune with these needs also gives him a sense of satisfaction.

Similarly a satisfied employee will always work with more enthusiasm and zeal to give higher output. Employees’ satisfaction comes not only from the pay package they receive; it also reflects working conditions, respect or a few words of appreciation that they get for the management or peers.

In short, it is the principle of Give and Take. In order to gain business success, you should be ready to give what the remaining stake holders really expect form your business.

If you fail to give what they need, they are going to desert you and you business will not be able to sustain. The profit you earn in terms of real dollars is not enough. You should also earn the goodwill of all the stakeholders in each business transaction.