Professionalism

It pays to be professional in your business dealings. Doing business in a business like way carries with it certain protection young professionals might not know. Doing business in a business like way means 1. Paying attention to the details of business, 2. Supervising employees properly 3. Maximizing profits and minimizing potential problems. Staying true to your personal work ethic 4. Sticking to standards and avoiding arbitrary decisions. 5. Following professional codes and keeping an eye on the rule of customary business practices (standards of the industry). When business people;e become arbitrary in their judgments, maximize their profits without regard for rules and customs they are following the path of un professionalism wherein the business person sees their business as their own personal sandbox, and their clients as toys to play with. What cannot be overstated is the power that cunning people have to entice business people into deals that end in recrimination, time and profits lost. They can do this with a bag of tricks. They can extract more concessions by going side ways and claiming that terms that were left up in the air were actually offered as part of the deal. Here professionalism requires a certain precision in clearly stating the terms in unambiguous ways.

A policy of professionalism arise that professional are straight forward and do not play games. There are masters and grandmaster's of games out there waiting to take advantage of unwary business people. Being informal in ones business practices has its rewards and it has its risks. It is easier to be sucked into a game being informal. There is a reason ethics exists by defining safe paths of conduct for people who do not play predatory games. In business one often strikes a balance between congenial formality and tight legal precision. A building contractor can be friendly but firm at the same time by giving a home owner a contract defining the terms exactly, and the proper lien notices to back up their claims for payment. A large department store went out of business in San Francisco. A roofing contractor that was a close personal friend of the management did not file a preliminary lien notice. Once in bankruptcy, the contractor's friends could not help him. When bankruptcy was filed the roofing contractor could not lay claim to money owed them, loosing $250,000 in the process.

Doing business in a business like way is an ethic that works. The professional gets things in writing because participants in a contract forget after a time what exactly the terms are. Clients die or are hospitalized leaving no clear claim to money owed. It is not uncommon for the rule of professionalism to be violated. Contractors file informal contracts, or none at all with people they trust. This speeds along the business process without annoying paper work. The contractor in this situation knows the risks and is willing to accept a loss if the client does not come through with payment. Moreover, the clients reputation might be at stake if he or she does not pay. This can be seen in the New York diamond business where hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds is given in trust. A culture of trust can be a highly profitable strategy, but it is only for people who have mastered business. Even sharks trust other sharks in a little game to see who will defect first.

Having Fun
Having fun might make the day be more pleasant but it can lead to conflict rather than profit. If a person personal ethics is to maximize profits its better to be professional than social. This is because some people respond like a wild animal to insignificant statement made by the business owner. Suddenly, without warning they turn on the business person. Once that happens the business is sometimes left wide open for trouble because in their friendliness they gave the client too much information; information that can be uses against them. Being professional minimizes the type of conflicts that spiral out of control as each party seeks advantage, whether that advantage is ethical or not. A conflicted business is a mismanaged business.

keeping memos, efficiency

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