Love based business

Mike Bosley, SeatbeltPlanet.com

We run our business, SeatbeltPlanet.com, on love. How we relate to people, including customers, vendors, and employees, all comes back to love.

The Greeks had something pretty cool figured out. They had four different words to talk about the different kinds of love.

The one we show at our company is agape. That’s an unconditional love. It’s where you show love, even if someone has wronged you.

Customers

It’s one thing to say you love your customers when there’s a good transaction going on. You give them a service, they pay you. Of course you love them!

But what about more difficult situations? Our mantra is, “No matter what, help the customer walk away happy.”

Even if we have messed up royally, and it will cost us a lot of money, we make sure to give customers every reason in the world to be happy.

The hardest situations are when the customer isn’t working with us, and is being disrespectful. But again, we’re going to take care of them as best we can.

Vendors

Vendors mess up. It’s going to happen. But when it happens, how will you treat them?

If love is your guiding principle, you give them grace, even in their mistakes. You don’t hammer them and really come down on them just because doing so is justified.

Employees

This is where we show a lot of love. There are many ways that our love for our employees manifests itself.

We pay 90% of health benefits for employees and their families. Is that expensive? You’d better believe it! But it’s out of love.

We do a monthly nonprofit donation, where employees get turn to pick a nonprofit that we donate too. They get to share who the nonprofit is, why they love them, and why they picked them. You get to find out what your employees are really passionate about!

Of course, sometimes you have to love employees into a new employment opportunity. But we take the attitude that 95% of employee performance problems are probably a problem with the company and systems, not the employee. So we always examine those first.

The idea with our love based business is to make meaning, not money. Money will probably come, although there are no guarantees. But if your principle is to make meaning regardless, you can’t lose.

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