1. Commit to your business. You have to believe in it more than anyone else. You have to have passion. Love your work and do it the best you can every day.

2. Share your profits with all your associates and treat them as partners. This will make the people who work for you perform beyond your wildest expectations. Behave as a servant leader.

3. Motivate your partners. You have to constantly think of new ways to motivate your partners.

4. Communicate everything you possibly can to your associates. The more they understand, the more they'll care.

5. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.

6. Celebrate your successes. Have fun. Find humor in your failures. Loosen up.

7. Listen to everyone in your company. And more important, try to get them talking. The ones who really talk to the customers are the ones who really know what's going on.

8. Exceed your customers' expectations. Give them what they want-then give 'em a little more.

9. Control your expenses better than your competitors. You can survive a lot of mistakes if you're efficient.

10. Swim upstream. Ignore the conventional wisdom; find your niche by going another direction.