Over a year ago now, I started helping a couple family members with marketing their brand online. It was a way for me to provide for my wife and I as we were in Mexico and not bore myself with doing little to nothing. At the end of January of last year, we flew to the US where I was planning to continue to do marketing part time, while working in my dad's nursery full time.

We got to the border where my wife was detained, then sent back to Mexico on the first flight. We had misunderstood the rules of traveling to the States on a tourist visa and found out that we would be moving to Mexico.

That afternoon, I did some quick thinking and decided that I would expand what I was already doing part time into a full time business. Over the next few months, I formed an LLC and let my customers know I would be doing marketing on a full time basis.

Within a couple weeks of our lives changing, my brother told another business owner from Indiana about our situation and what I was doing for them. The business owner wanted to learn more, so my brother gave me his contact info. I gave him a call and he became my first customer that was not a family member.

My second customer came in much the same way, and to this date, not one of my customers have came from a source other than referrals from current customers or family members.

I have decided that I want this to continue.

I will trust a friend about a company way more than I will trust what the company says about themselves. Relationships matter.

I want to continue to have good relationships with my current customers, so that they will refer me to my future customers.

I do very little advertising, partially because I do not want to spend anywhere close to 10% on that right now, and because I want my first priority in our business to be serving our current customers well. I want each one of them to feel that I truly care about their business and that we keep their brand at the center of our efforts.

Our goal from the start was integrity

When I created our LLC, I wanted to create a brand that signified something. I chose the Spanish word, “sol”, because it is their word for the sun. Like the sun, we want to be the light in the world through our business.

Integrity is one of the biggest aspects to this. I cannot be a light through my business if I am not first fair, work only with great companies, do what I commit to doing, and do my work to the best of my ability. I not only want to make sure I take on the right customers, but also serve them in the best way possible.

A month ago, I was searching for a software developer for a customer. I had to review over 50 applications and check the developers work before hiring. One developer had in his profile a website that he had built, which was a porn site. Simply because he built that site, I will never work with that developer. I don’t care how good he is at what he does, it shows me plenty when someone is willing to create something like that.

I believe if we continue to do this, our future customers will hear, and will see the difference.

What do you think? Are there any ways you exemplify integrity and relationships in your business? I’d love to hear about them.