Lessons in Business Success - Mark Phooi

Rule No. 1 - Commit to your business
Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you will be out there everyday trying to do it the best you possibly can, and very soon everybody around you will catch the passion from you — like a flu.

Rule No. 2 - Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners
Remain a corporation and retain control, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage staff and associates to hold a stake in the company.

Rule No. 3 - Motivate your staff & partners
Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and interesting ways to motivate and challenge your staff and partners.

Pay them fairly but treat them superbly.

Rule No. 4 - Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners and staff
The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them.

Rule No. 5 - Celebrate your successes and failures
We inject humour in our failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun and show enthusiasm — always.

Rule No. 6 - Swim upstream
Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If you see the bandwagon, you are too late.