Simon Sinek argues businesses should work only with people who share their beliefs, not just anyone who needs their product. He turns down work when values don't align and says selectivity builds deeper trust and better relationships, though he notes it's a choice, not a requirement.
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One thing that you've said that I know that really hit me was the goal is not to do business with everybody that needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. Now, I love that, right?
So believe me, the emotional part of me loves that. The practical part of me says, but what about when people say, well, that's cute, that's nice, but can I really be that picky? Business is that easy, that I can just do business with the people that believe what I believe?
Yes.
Why? How?
Okay, so I do believe that. I believe that to the core of my being, that we should work very, very hard to only do business with people who believe what we believe and reject business from people who don't believe what we believe. And I'm sometimes accused of being naive and have been told, yes, but you can afford to do that, Simon. I can't afford to do that. And the answer is, I've been doing this for. Since the beginning, when I didn't have two pennies to rub together, I would turn down business. And the reason is, and don't get me wrong, it's hard. And sometimes you do have to take the business because you have bills to pay. The goal is not to get it lopsided. I had a real experience. It's a true story of somebody who'd heard about my work back in the early days of Start With Y. And he called me up and he says, I've heard good things about you from whoever recommended me. He says, these were the exact words he said. He says, convince me why I should hire you. And my answer was, don't.
And the reason is simple. Anybody who says, convince me.
Is not somebody who believes what I believe.
And the ones that I would say yes to are people who came up to me and said, you know, your stuff is interesting. I don't think it's all right. I think some of you got some things wrong. But I think it's really, really interesting. I think we could do something together. Those are the people I want to work with. There's an old Zen Buddhist saying, which is, how you do anything is how you do everything. So if somebody is going to force me to convince them why I should work with them, then every piece of advice I give them, they're going to force me to convince them why I am making this recommendation. Where does trust come in? Whereas when there's a shared set of values and beliefs, trust builds.
Deeper. So that when I say, I think you should try this, they go, huh? If you say so. There's trust. And it also keeps me to a high standard because I know this person does trust me. So not to mention the fact that those people are just more fun to work with. I work with fantastic people because I chose to work with fantastic people. I don't have any clients that suck the life out of me because I said no right from the get go.
And I'll add one more point. You don't have to do this. I'm not telling you everybody has to do this. It's simply a choice.
If you want to say yes to everything, be my guest. It's not my business. It's your business and do what you want with it. This is how I've chosen to live my life and run my business.
