The secret to making money is creating value and sharing it with everyone else.

I was going to write this week's newsletter on practical legal stuff (i.e. what costs more: paying your managers hourly or salary). I changed my mind last minute, though, because something unexpected happened this morning. The lawyer in the neighboring office got hit by a car while walking to work. In typical lawyer style, though she was seriously hurt, she was protesting that she needed to get up and go to court. The EMTs wouldn't let her go, so she pulled out her cell phone and called me. Even though Nichoel (my Firm Administrator) mercilessly schedules my day, I pushed it all aside and took over my poor neighbor's workload (with Nichoel right alongside me).

So here's the funny thing. In court, her opposing counsel actually fought against the continuance that I requested from the judge. The eternally optimistic part of me (aka the entreprenuer part of me) was horrified at this lack of common decency. The lawyer in me was... not that surprised. Lawyers are contrarian by default.

The reason I like working with entrepreneurs is because businesspeople are creative and seek cooperative ways to work with their customers and partners. The reason I like being an entrepreneur is because it is a yin to my lawyer yang. Successful businesses seek to create value (whether manufacturing a product, creating a service or promoting a joint venture) and then share it with everyone else (by marketing and selling what they have to offer). Of course there are businesspeople who suck. But none of them are my clients.

If you are struggling in your business, there is one main piece of advice I can give you: Get back to basics in your business and figure out who you serve, exactly. As Bob Dylan says, you gotta serve somebody. So you might as well know who. This is a figurative, not literal, concept of an ideal customer (a customer avatar). Drill down on their demographics, beliefs and values. Then identify the particular problems of your ideal customer that you are solving.

Once you know this, scrutinize your product to see if it is truly addressing your customers' pain points at a price that makes it less painful than the problem they are facing. In other words, make sure you have value. If, after looking at your customers and your product, you aren't creating awesome value, then it's time to be honest: can you adjust your product, business processes or prices to create better value for your customer? If not, your business is not likely to survive.

Once you are assured that you offer value, look at your marketing materials to see if they clearly spell out, in human terms, the problems that you are solving for your prospects. Share your value propositions authentically but shamelessly.

I think that any one of you would have gladly helped their neighboring small business owner like I did my neighboring lawyer this morning, without question. That's because there is a genuine desire to help others in the successful entrepreneur's psyche. Keep that desire sharpened and focused so that you provide awesome value -- even in the tough times -- and your business will survive while others fail.

I'll try to do the same, which is why the next newsletter will have useful lawyerly stuff on how to save on employee costs without breaking the law. In the meantime, so that you feel that you've gotten your money's worth, please check out my poorly lit web cam video on "What does 'Wrongful Termination' and 'At-Will' employment mean?". It will hopefully help you clear up one important concept when it comes to terminating employees: "wrongful termination" does not mean "unfair, mean, disloyal or rude termination." Just so you know.