Two Rules for an Entrepreneur

If there were exactly two rules to live by to be a successful entrepreneur, what would they be?

If anybody has earned the right to tell us, it would be John Mann, president of Embroidered Corporate Image (ECI) in Hayden Lake, Idaho. John founded his custom embroidery business eight years ago with a single sewing machine in his basement and the stories of his early days include driving alongside a trucker at 60 mph, talking on his CB, holding up examples of his work against his passenger-side window.

ECI now employs nearly 70 people in a modern facility, applying embroidered logos and graphics to shirts, hats, and jackets for companies such as JanSport and Nike, and for teams such as the San Francisco 49ers.

John’s “Two Rules of Entrepreneurship”?

1. “Do great work”

2. “ALWAYS keep your promises”

So, who wouldn’t aspire to these goals? What makes John different is that he does not treat them as goals, but as personal laws, and as a constant, daily discipline in his work and his life. He applies them to the big as well as the small, personal as well as business, whether it’s a book he said he’d return in a week, a phone call he promised to make, or an $8000 order for 120 embroidered jackets scheduled for delivery next Saturday.

Notice he doesn’t just say “Keep your promises”. He emphasizes the “Always”, by saying, “That’s ALWAYS. No exceptions, no matter what happens”.

Is it possible to really live by this maxim in this day and age of interdependence, surrounded as we are by those who may not live by the same principle? Wouldn’t it just make John overly cautious, never pushing the edge? To hear John tell it, it’s just the opposite.

He once had a super-rush order for 800 golf shirts with a custom “Masters Tournament” logo. On the day of the tournament, he called the Augusta National Golf Course to make sure his shirts had arrived at the pro shop, and found them in a panic. His shirts had not arrived, even though the shipper had guaranteed a morning delivery that day.

John got on the phone to the shipper, and was told that their truck was stuck in grid-lock traffic, and there was nothing that could be done. Guarantee or no guarantee, they would still not get there until later in the day. With persistence and his characteristic charm, he got them to determine the exact location of the truck, and then got immediately on the phone with the pro shop. Fortunately, the truck was very close, and they sent four employees in golf carts to the site of the traffic jam, returning with the shirts barely in time to meet the flow of spectators coming onto the course.

If the shirts hadn’t arrived in time, it wouldn’t have been his fault, but that wouldn’t have mattered, because John’s rule was “ALWAYS, no exceptions, no matter what happens.” Who wouldn’t want to do business with someone who lived by this principle?

Originally published by the Lewiston Tribune - Business Times, October 1997, Lewiston, Idaho