The 10 Commandments for Business Owners

Over the years, I’ve found that certain principles consistently separate businesses that thrive from those that merely survive.

They may not have descended from on high, but they’ve been hard-won through experience and observation. Think of them not as rules, but as guiding lights for building a resilient, profitable, and fulfilling enterprise and an enjoyable balanced life.

1.  Make a plan you can actually deliver

Goals are meaningless without a roadmap to achieve them.  A practical plan should spell out the journey in terms of what needs to happen, who’s responsible, and how the resources (especially people and cash) will be used.  Keep it concise: a dozen pages at most, ideally with a simple visual that helps everyone see the story and their part in it.

2.  Focus everyone on customer success

When your people are aligned around what success looks like for your customers, everything starts to flow.  Tools like OKRs help connect daily actions to the bigger picture.  Clarity on how each role supports both the business and the customer experience turns good effort into great results.

3.  Manage with insight, not just instinct

Passion is a great motivator but it can cloud judgment.  Pair it with data and discipline.  Understand the commercial, operational, and market implications before making big calls. Measured curiosity beats emotional reaction every time.

4.  Price for profit, not just for volume

Revenue without margin is vanity.  Know your real costs by product, service, and customer and price accordingly.  Too many businesses quietly subsidise the wrong things.  Profit is what funds growth, not turnover.

5.  Be disciplined with personal drawings

It’s tempting to draw more than the business can sustain, but that short-term comfort often creates long-term pain.  If you’re constantly plugging cashflow gaps, it’s a sign the model needs work.  A healthy business should fund both itself and your lifestyle not one at the expense of the other.

6.  Use debt wisely

Debt, used well, is a lever for growth; used poorly, it’s an anchor.  Low-margin operations and high interest rarely mix.  Before taking on new obligations, be sure the business can comfortably repay them and that the risk aligns with your goals.

7.  Hire for attitude, develop for skill

Skills can be trained; values can’t.  Surround yourself with people you’d gladly spend time with outside of work.  Shared beliefs and trust are the glue that hold high-performing teams together.  A good cultural fit is worth far more than a dazzling CV when you are looking to hire.

8.  Build a workplace that runs on trust

People perform best when they feel safe, valued, and heard.  A trusting culture doesn’t happen by chance.  It’s built through fairness, consistency, and genuine care.  The leader’s first duty is to create the conditions where others feel safe so that they can do their best work.

9.  Treasure your customers

Customers pay everyone’s wages.  It’s at least five times more expensive to find a new one than to keep an existing one, so treat loyalty as your most valuable asset.  Listen, serve, and nurture relationships.  When customers succeed, so do you.

10.  Let integrity guide every decision

Reputation takes years to earn and moments to lose.  Conduct yourself and your business with honesty and fairness even when it’s hard or inconvenient.  Integrity quietly compounds into trust, and trust is the currency that outlasts everything else.

Optional No.11 – Think “outside in”

When growth slows, resist the instinct to cut your way forward. Most revenue challenges start with the customer, not the cost base.  Focus on understanding and meeting customer needs, stretching your sales capacity, and building demand before you expand internally.  You’re not just running one factory you’re building two: one that delivers what you do, and another that creates demand for it.

You can’t shrink your way to greatness.  Put customers first, and profit follows as a reflection of their success.

Conclusions

These principles are drawn from years of learning in the field, and sometimes the hard way. They’re not commandments to obey, but reminders to return to when the noise of business gets loud.  Apply them thoughtfully and consciously adapt them in your style as you do, and they’ll serve as steady companions on the road to leadership fulfilment, prosperity, and long-term success.