Risk & Business Magazine Atlas Insurance Risk & Business Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 23

BUILDING A GREAT BUSINESS
I
most definitely could not have listed
all 12 of these tips anywhere near
as clearly back when we opened in
’82 as I did when I wrote this piece
25 years later. But the truth is that
these “natural laws” really are all things
that we did to get going back in the early
’80s. I think they’re as true now as they
were then and will still be true 20, or 220,
years hence. They are very much the same
sort of behind-the-scenes attitudes and
approaches that have guided us over the
years. And, although I haven’t run any other
businesses, I’m pretty confident that every
successful organization would likely have
followed many of these same approaches.
Each organization will, of course, have its
own applications, but the laws themselves
will, naturally, remain the same. I hope
they help you as much as they have us.
1. AN INSPIRING, STRATEGICALLY
SOUND VISION LEADS THE WAY 
TO
GREATNESS (ESPECIALLY IF YOU WRITE
IT DOWN!)
What’s a vision? As we define it here, it’s
a picture of what success looks like at a
particular point in the future. If you’re
starting a business, I’d suggest that you
pick a time at least three to five years in the
future, and longer might be even better.
Your vision will talk about what your
business does, and why it’s special. How
the people who work in the business feel
about being part of it. How your business
relates to its customers, and about how it
fits into the community. It could even detail
what you as owner will do, and how much
money you want to make. To be effective
the vision needs to inspire the people who
will be doing the work. It also needs to be
strategically sound—i.e., while your goals
should be ambitious, you want them to be
realistic, too. To that end, the vision should
also have some key measurables so that
everyone involved has some sense of what
you’re aspiring to.
2. YOU NEED TO GIVE CUSTOMERS
REALLY COMPELLING REASONS 
TO BUY
FROM YOU
This seems exceedingly obvious, but I’ve
encountered a lot of businesses that don’t
get it—they seem to think that people ought
to buy from them “just because.” But from
the day we opened at Zingerman’s we’ve
always taken the approach that we need
our customers way more than they need us.
We’ve always assumed that we have nothing
to offer that anyone really needs. If you don’t
think the reasons your company is offering
are all that exciting, they probably aren’t. If
that’s the case, I’d say start working to come
up with more as quickly as you can—the risk
of offering too many compelling reasons
would be what we’d consider a “good
problem.” (More on that in a minute.)
3. WITHOUT GOOD FINANCE, YOU FAIL
This one is so widely accepted that I almost
didn’t include it on the list. But you know
what happens when you “assume,” right?
Plus it’s quite possible to fulfill most or all
of the other natural laws as they’re laid out
here and still not have a sustainable b