Charge as much as you can and pay as little as you can. This is my philosophy and business practice.
Now, reading this you will likely have just had one of three responses. If you are like many regular business folks you will read this and say “of course, that’s what business is all about.” If however you are a non-psychopathic human being you will be disgusted and be saying “what about XY and Z!”. If you are a regular reader or anyone who knows me at all you will likely be thinking I have gone insane, sold-out my principles or am about to make a clever turn luring readers into a cunning game of mental naked Twister as is my habit 🙂 The later is true – here’s why:
The rub here is the word “pay.” If all you value is money in the short term it “pays” to screw everyone over as much as people. Charge as much as you can possibly get away with and pay suppliers as little money as possible. The best form for this is slavery and violent domination, the second best is many modern corporations and businesses involved in “unfair trade”, sweatshops, environmental degradation, and general nastiness 🙁
The next step up from this is to build a business that looks for more sustainable profits by thinking longer term and building more mutually beneficial relationships. Happily many people who have been in business a while operate this way, simply because it is good for profits in the long-run. In this way I may want to charge as much as I can without pissing my clients off and pay as little as I can to my suppliers to keep them happy. Relationship is taken into account and the world is a slightly better place than the dog-eat-dog mindset of before.
Note that this development is both moral and intellectual, and also more profitable. If you are thinking “yes, but nice guys finish last”, I’d agree (though “nice people” may judge the race by different criteria which means in their eyes they still win). Being “nice” is not true moral developmeent but just violence with cherries on top. Truely compasionate powerful people finish first.
The third stage of development in business is where “multiple bottom-lines” are taken into account. This means that people considering what is being “paid” in wider terms than just money. Other things such as human and environmental factors become important in their own right (what it means to “win”) and not just as means to profit or as a marketing exercise. By considering my core values when I pay as little as I can and charge as much as I can I work in a way that is in-line with my deepest self and the kind of world I’d like to help create. It also not only still get the job done but gets it done better than just looking at £££. This is the future of business. Come join us, we’re having WAY more fun 🙂