People Are Who They Are

In all my 44 years on this earth, I have come to realize that people are who they are. There are people who are good and people who are evil. Now I'm not attempting to judge anyone, I'm just stating a fact. The majority of people are often good law abiding citizens. They go to work everyday. Run their businesses. Take care of their families. Pay their bills. And would generally never dream of committing a crime.

But then there are the people who are up to no good. These are the people that keep law enforcement on their toes. These are the people who keep prisons over crowded. The people that make you afraid to walk the streets at night. They make you afraid to leave your children alone for even a second. They steal from businesses. I could go on, but you get the picture. These people are called criminals. Most have no regard for anyone.

I bring this up because of scams that happen to businesses. I won't post the details here about the various scams going on, let's just say any business small or large often ends up losing a lot of money. And most have no recourse of ever recovering lost funds. I get e-mails daily from so-called businesses asking me if I take credit cards and if I ship to overseas countries, for products I don't even sell.

Understand this, I'm not saying that this a common thing that happens to business owners, but it does indeed happen. Often service small-business owners neglect to really investigate a potential client thoroughly, because they don't want to lose the client. Some don't do credit checks, or get a signed contract, they don't ask for half or all of the payment before beginning work. This oversight happens because they are just happy they got a client.

So I say to you. Get to know your clients or potential clients. Find out about them and their business. Don't be apprehensive about asking financial details before doing business with them. If they have a problem with the questions, let them know why you're asking them. The good thing is, we humans have instinct just like animals, so we can tell when we're walking into a lion's den. Because, people are who they are.