The sole reliance of a business man should be in the integrity of his
transactions, and in the civility of his demeanor. He should make it
the interest and the pleasure of a customer to come to his office or
store. If he does this, he will form the very best "connections,"
and so long as he continues this system of business, they will never
desert him.
No real business man will take advantage of a customer's ignorance,
nor equivocate nor misrepresent. If he sells goods, he will have
but one price and a small profit. He will ere long find all the most
profitable customers--the cash ones--or they will find him.
If such a man is ever deceived in business transactions, he will never
attempt to save himself by putting the deception upon others; but
submit to the loss, and be more cautious in future. In his business
relations, he will stick to those whom he finds strictly just in their
transactions, and shun all others even at a temporary disadvantage.
The word of a business man should be worth all that it expresses and
promises, and all engagements should be met with punctilious concern.
An indifferent or false policy in business is a serious mistake. It
is fatal to grasp an advantage at ten times its cost; and there is
nothing to compensate for the loss of a neighbor's confidence or good
will.
The long-established customs and forms of business, which in these
times are assumed to be legitimate, already have within them enough of
the elements of peculiarity, commonly termed "tricks of trade," or, in
the sense of any particular business, "tricks of the trade." Therefore
it does not behoove any active man to make gratuitous additions of a
peculiar nature to the law of business. On the contrary, all should
strive to render business transactions less peculiar than they are.