How Honest Business Help Me

[happykeeper]

Lately it has occurred to me that our decision to apply a high degree of ethics in our business practices has influenced me in a very positive way across my life. These ideals have become ingrained in many of my personal habits and the two appear to operate in a healthy tandem.
A personal example of that was I was in need of a little conditioning and my usual self-motivators weren’t kicking in as they did ten years ago. At the same time, we were assessing our business image and I noticed that I was projecting a little more image than I would like to see. I felt that perhaps it could impair our business image that we have worked so hard to develop. It motivated me to do something about it and provided the cross benefit of improving my health.

Other examples are that I almost never spread gossip and I use more tact in my personal relationships.

How have your excellent business practices had a positive impact on your life and family?

 

[Penelope]

knk, I absoulutely love reading your posts. Your attitude is positive, yet realistic. It's honest, yet humble. It seems that in your next life (after innkeeping) you could be a wonderful motivational speaker.

 

[gillumhouse]

I was brought up to "fess up. You have to be willing to take responsibility for your mistakes if you want credit for your successes. In one of my jobs, because i would admit when I screwed up I guess the foreman of that department liked me because if I screwed up he let it go but if the dayshift screwed up, he wrote a problem report.
If you do not lie you do not have to remember what you said to whom. Much of what I have achieved in my personal, business, and public life has been, I feel, due to the fact that good, bad, or indifferent, I am ME. Besides I do not have a good enough memory to even fib, much less lie.

 

[wendydk]

knk asked "How have your excellent business practices had a positive impact on your life and family?"
For me, it's been the other way around. My life has always been an open book. I always look for the greater good, take good care of my family, always be honest, forgiving and helpful. I give to strangers, smile at everyone and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This has in turn positively affected my business, and I perceive these things to be the reason we are so successful in innkeeping.

 

[EmptyNest]

knk asked "How have your excellent business practices had a positive impact on your life and family?"
For me, it's been the other way around. My life has always been an open book. I always look for the greater good, take good care of my family, always be honest, forgiving and helpful. I give to strangers, smile at everyone and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This has in turn positively affected my business, and I perceive these things to be the reason we are so successful in innkeeping..

I think guests can "sense" when an innkeeper really cares about their guests. Honesty, caring, positive, smiling, you name it.....etc etc etc....That is why people return....for the innkeeper...not the inn.

 

[happykeeper]

knk asked "How have your excellent business practices had a positive impact on your life and family?"
For me, it's been the other way around. My life has always been an open book. I always look for the greater good, take good care of my family, always be honest, forgiving and helpful. I give to strangers, smile at everyone and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This has in turn positively affected my business, and I perceive these things to be the reason we are so successful in innkeeping..

I love that! It's a wonderful thing to transfer those qualities into your business practices.
In my early years, I did a fair amount of muddling through and the principles I was taught growing up were a little more flexible than they should have been. I struggled to manage that in my occupational world and it wasn't until I became a business owner that I began to understand how important it was to get them right as often as I could.

 

[Somewhere in Paradise]

Since I am very picky about the cleanliness of our guest rooms I have extended that to my quarters as well. It helps to keep my quarters my sanctuary.
Also this business has forced me to become much more organized that I used to be. I have to be. My worst nightmare is someone showing up and to be overbooked because I forgot to mark off thier reservation.
One more thing. Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I gotten a much thicker skin all around. When you bite your tongue so many times because a guest may accidently say insensitive things I have learned to take other situations less personally.