Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit . . . then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence.Why are we here? I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists solely to make money. We have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being. As we investigate this, we inevitably come to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution
that we call a company so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately—they make a contribution to society, a phrase which sounds trite but is fundamental.There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down,simply by spending his money somewhere else.There is never a good sale for Neiman-Marcus unless it’s a good buy for the customer.
All of these entrepreneurs built businesses that still exist by focusing on the customer, not profits. Put simply, profit is merely the oxygen for the body; it is not the point of life. Profit is nothing more than a lagging indicator of what is in the hearts or minds of your customers.