Can you care about customers too much and still be a good business
Anaita discusses her mother's medical practice, where deep, genuine care for patients rather than a business-first mindset ended up driving success through word of mouth. She argues that focusing intensely on making customers leave happy isn't the opposite of good business -- it can be the strategy itself.
The lessons
Obsess over making every customer leave happy -- word of mouth will do your marketing for you.
Don't assume customer-first thinking conflicts with running a good business; sometimes it IS the growth strategy.
Questions people ask
Is caring too much about your customers bad for business?
Anaita disagrees with that idea, using her mother's medical practice as an example. Her mother focused entirely on fixing patients' problems and making them smile, which generated strong word-of-mouth referrals in a tight-knit community and made the business highly successful.
Transcript
Do you know immigrant parents? We— yeah, it's— we're never able to just be ourselves. I was working in that business from such a young age, and it's so interesting because she didn't see herself as a business owner, and she saw herself as a doctor who cared so deeply about the people that she was seeing. And there were times where I was basically not a good business owner.
She's a business owner but not a good one. She's a great business owner, and I think now— but I think people who think too much about their customers and not great business owners because they're not thinking about the business. They're thinking about everybody else. I think, I think I actually disagree because what she did was she said, I know it's going to be word of mouth that bring people.
So all I do is I focus on the people who come into my room and leave with a smile. And if I can fix their problems, they're going to go and tell everyone else. And in Parramatta, everyone's got big families. Everyone goes and tells everyone else.
And that's exactly how she became a successful business owner.
