Long-Term Business Relationships: Clients for Life et. al.

Small Business Tip: "Don't Cut the Roots!"

Committing ourselves to our core business

Most often, a small business owner starts a business with his
family, a small core group of friends and associates, and some
small town business contacts. To those business owners who see
the wisdom of keeping and committing his business still intact
with these roots, most often than not, their business grows
and bears much fruit. The growth of the business certainly
depends also on other factors, but if this one factor is kept
intact, then it is likely that a small business will grow and
expand more than what it was when it started. It may not grow
into a full-blown corporation, but it will nevertheless grow
into something that would serve more people and be of
substantial service to the small town community or to society
in general.

* * * He who is faithful in small things will be faithful
in big things * * *

True story

This is the story of a Chinese businessman who came to the
Philippines to start his own business. Since he did not know
the native language, which was Tagalog, he wanted to study it
in order to run his business. He soon met a Tagalog woman
who was selling some wares, and made a business deal with her.
He told her that he would give her some place in his business
if she on her part would teach him Tagalog. The woman agreed.
The businessman soon learned Tagalog, and he always let the
woman sell her wares in his main business establishment. This
Chinese business owner soon started a small company in which
my father was one of the pioneers. My father was a hard-working
man who was very faithful in all things. He stuck and
committed himself to this company that this Chinese
businessman was building. Soon, the department my father was
in was divided into many more departments, and the company
steadily grew. It was like a biological cell that kept on
dividing and multiplying. Now, this Chinese businessman is the
owner of a big corporation that extends its business to many
nations in Southeast Asia.

A commitment to build

In general, there is the temptation to burn bridges - to cut
off relationships that could otherwise have been rejuvenated,
revived and saved. But this story of the Chinese businessman
teaches us that keeping our core and root relationships in the
business will help the business to grow (among other factors),
be productive, and bear much fruit. What if the Chinese
businessman suddenly severed the ties with the woman who was
teaching him Tagalog? What if he suddenly dissolved the whole
department in which my father was working and laid off everyone
in it? What may probably resulted is not what we see today:
that woman who taught him Tagalog still lives and is given high
privileges in the main building of the corporation. And that
big Chinese businessman also rewarded and gave honor to my
father with a 30-year service Bayanihan award (Bayanihan
is the Tagalog term for "helping one another" - the image of
bayanihan is people carrying a small nipa house and
transferring it to another place in the village)
and the retirement money which my father used to start his own
business. And much more than this, his business is not only a
national business but became a multi-national corporation in
Southeast Asia.

Everything starts small. Growth takes time. We need to prune
prudently. And there is a need to stick to the end

• Everything starts small

We cannot create something big all at once. We need to start small. And everything must be taken step by step. No shortcuts. There is no wisdom in overnight successes. Usually, when we get money easily, it also is spent speedily and lost overnight. The harder we earn our money, the more it is saved, and kept for rainy days and emergency purposes. So we have to stick to the wisdom of starting small, and to decide and act conservatively - changing things as little as possible so as to keep to our direction and the vision of our enterprise.

• Growth takes time

A fruit tree does not grow overnight. It takes a lot of days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. And before it reaches maturity and full height, it will also take time before it bears fruit. It needs a lot of rain and sunlight.So it is with our business. We must learn to wait and to patiently tend it, so that it may grow to full maturity and be productive and bear fruit. If we can make our business like the olive tree, then all the much better. Do you knowthat the olive tree can subsist on only a small amount of water? And that they live for centuries on? Some of the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemani when Jesus was in agony before facing his execution on the cross, is still alive and present there! If our business were like the olive trees, that despite the hard times when there is so little to live upon, it can still grow and bear fruit, then indeed our business will survive all sorts of trials and difficulties.

• We need to prune prudently

Not all of our root and core relationships in the business may be beneficial for the business. There are some relationships that must be pruned prudently in order for the business to grow. We need to really study well what these are, in order that we do not damage, or stunt the business. Vine growers know the wisdom of pruning the vines in order that they would bear more fruit. So it is with our businesses. We need to see which relationships are damaging not only the business, but also damaging the other parties concerned. If by severing or 'pruning' the relationship, both parties will grow: the business and the client or employee - then though it may be painful - as in all cutting experiences - it must be done so that there may be growth and progress.

• There is a need to stick to the end

There is a wisdom in "never giving up". It was said that when Winston Churchill was asked to make a speech to a group of graduating students, he only said a few words: "Never, never, never, never give up!" Imagine such a persevering and a very determined attitude in so great a man. All we thus need to do is not to give up on what we decided ourselves to do. We must look always towards the vision that inspired us. We must relish always the dreams that inspired and spurred us on to undertake the enterprise we feel is a kind of a mission we have to fulfill - for the sake of our family or for the greater good of our society. Probably the greatest example in our time of a person who never gave up and who stuck it to the end, was the late Holy Father, John Paul II. He showed us how it is possible to follow Jesus, who "never came down from the Cross!"