Complain All You Want!

As the CEO of a small publishing corp for 33 years, I ultimately got fed up listening to people complain. So I finally took a stand and wrote a new mantra: “You have a request I’m all ears, you wanna complain I’m not listening!” Life and business changed after that and I learned a valuable lesson: Complaining provokes reaction, however requesting invites resolve. A “request” guarantees one of three responses: an acceptance, a counter-offer, or a denial. A complaint prolongs the debate and inevitably invites a combative reaction—which costs time and money. Make sense? Therefore, when dealing with your staff, customers, fans, bandmates, manager, agent, publisher, producer, partners, distributors, investors…even friends and family, YOU be the one committed to resolving the dispute, not the one trying to win it—so that you can finally get back to running your company, working on your art and creating something worthwhile!