Team

Ten Rules of the Spartan

I found this in a faded photocopy on the wall at a client's office in about 1995. These precepts are translated from Japanese, hence the inappropriate but original title "Dentsu's 10 Rules of the Demon". Clearly these precepts represent guidelines we could all do well to follow. Recently I found the more accurate title "Spartan", which makes sense coming from same society as the Samurai.

In sharing these rules with you, let's also take a moment to pay our respects to Japan in their time of earthly challenge.

Don't go It Alone In Your Business

My favorate quote of late.

"How do you make an apple pie from scratch?"

"Well first you have to invent the universe!"

I don't know where it comes from, but it illustrates a very good point. Everything we do builds on the work of others.

Opportunity Cost of Hiring in Your Business

It is important to hire help to do the tasks that we don't need to do ourselves. In fact, it is important to hire others to do tasks that take our time away from what is important in our business. There are plenty of resources out there to choose from. Local service companies that can be our administration arm. Overseas Virtual Assistants that can do tasks at a much lower cost given the lower cost of living in 3rd world countries.

Do You Hire A Plumber To Paint Your House?

All tradespeople are the same right? If someone is a successful plumber then they should be able to paint my house, right?

Wrong. Usually I say there are no right and wrong answers but in this case I'll make an exception.

Take two people who care about their work. One may be a plumber who is a good painter too, but someone who has done lots of painting will be better if they both take pride in their work.

The same thing goes for business. We use the word "business" like it is all the same, but that is not true. There are so many different businesses and they all have their differences. Some of those differences are based on scale/size, some are based on industry, and some are based on business models.