As business owners, we spend our time following  ” the rules.”

There’s the 80/20 rule, where 80% of our business comes from 20% of our customers. Or we spend 80% of our time doing 20% of our task list. There are many ways to actually interpret and apply the 80/20 rule.

There’s the rule of thirds: spend 1/3 of your time attracting new business, 1/3 working with your current customers, and 1/3 doing what it is that you do in your business. Often, we tend to do one or two of these three concepts well instead of paying attention to all three.

There are other rules, laws and ethical standards that we follow such as copyright laws, not poaching clients or being upfront about policies. But what about the “Golden Rule?”

Often in our quest to be on top of the most current trends and to follow the advice of business sages, we forget about this basic rule that has guided humanity for thousands of years: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

In modern times, the golden rule in business looks a little something like this:

• Don’t send unsolicited emails to potential clients if you don’t want others to do the same to you.
• Share great resources and information with others if you’d like others to freely share their great resources with you.
• Resist bombarding those who follow you on Facebook with too many posts if you get annoyed when others clutter your inbox and wall with posts.
• Contact your clients at an hour of the day when you’d be willing to be contacted.
• Think about the perspective of your client instead of how you think your client thinks.

Take a moment to reflect on how your business uses advertising to connect to your potential clients. Are you reaching them where they are when they need you, or where you think they should be? Do you use social media in a way that invites them to participate and get to know you better, or do you assume that they already know who your business is and what it’s about?

Are you ready to take the next step in your business to find out what “rules” apply to your potential customers? Sign-up to receive Bellagurl’s great tips for business owners by clicking here!