If you pose this question-what is a bottom line in life? you will probably get one million and one answers. My answer, however, is simple and straightforward. Being honest and always honoring one’s commitment are my bottom line in life.
Recently, I was quite pissed off by the fact that the factory I am dealing with raised price in spite of the fact that they agreed to lock in that price for one year. It is clearly written in black and white. Their reason for price increase is because the cost of raw material in China has been surged. But at the end of last year when we negotiated price, we already asked the factory to take into account the cost fluctuation and they said they felt quite comfortable with one-year commitment. This situation puts my American customer and me in a very difficult position as we had been committed to our end customers in the States. But both my customer and myself are reasonable and fair-minded persons. We did listen to the factory and sit down with them working out a deal to split the increase.The factory did appreciate our sympathetic consideration and thanked us a million times. Of course, we will think twice about doing business with this factory in the future because what they did runs counter to what I believe the bottom line in life.
A couple of years back when I was in Los Angeles selling plush toys, I made a mistake by screwing up my pricing. That was a deal introduced to me by a friend of mine in LA and I promised him 5% commission. But in the end the company did not make any money because of my miscalculation. After a lot of thoughts clashed and crashed in my mind, I finally decided to pay my friend commission out of my own pocket. That was USD2000 something, which was my one-month salary then. Of course, when my friend knew the story, he stubbornly refused to take it. But I insisted on paying him by saying" please give me an opportunity to safeguard my bottom line in life without which I cannot sleep well!" Needless to say, we became very good friends and our friendship remains strong even of today. Whenever he comes back to China, he calls upon me sharing with me news, stories and particularly his life experience in the States.
I will certainly uphold this bottom line in my life. One can be far greater thanjust honoring one’s words. But one can be far more miserable if he eats his words from time to time.
Dave
