It can feel counter-intuitive at first, but when a company focuses on service over revenue they likely earn even more money than if they had flipped that.
Back in 1997 when Barnes & Noble seemed to be catching up to Amazon, Jeff Bezos gave a talk to his company to make sure they were focused on the right thing, saying in part:
“Look, you know, it’s OK to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, because they’re never going to send us any money. Be afraid of our customers. And if we just stay focused on them, instead of obsessing over this big competitor that we just got, we’ll be fine.”
At the end of the day, you can choose to obsess about your competitors or obsess about your customers, and one of those will have a far better outcome than the other.
When building Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford was equally obsessed with his customers and put them ahead of profit, famously saying that “money comes naturally as the result of service.”
This can certainly be taken too far; if you lose money on every customer, you’re going to go out of business. Generally speaking, though, if you obsess on giving the best possible service to your customers, the money will take care of itself.
