The Strange Inequality of Treating Everyone Equally…

I’m not sure when I first encountered the notion that if you treat all your customers equally you’ve managed to treat them all unequally. All I am sure of was that it was within the context of business management and that I was horrified to consider that treating everyone equally was somehow wrong.

Simply considering this idea went against everything I believed to be true and right. That was until I stopped long enough to consider the caveat—the exception or explanation—that makes this simple statement a reality. And, that is, because everyone isn’t created equally!

When you put these two concepts together suggesting that—When you treat everyone equally, you manage to treat everyone unequally because not everyone is created equal—the concept actually makes a lot of sense. Especially, in business!

And, for whatever it’s worth, the same holds true in life. In fact, you need to look no further than the 80/20 Rule—the Pareto Principle—for validation. Within the context of business, the Pareto Principle suggests that 20% of your clients account for 80% of your revenue. Conversely, it also suggests that 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your aggravation!

Back to the basic premise of equality. Is it reasonable to treat all of your customers equally when the Pareto Principle suggests they are anything but? Does it make any sense to treat a client responsible for 80% of your aggravation the same as someone—one of your 20%’ers—responsible for contributing more than 80% to your bottom line?

While I was in business, I realized that treating everyone equally made no sense at all.

But this isn’t really about what I think. It’s about what you think! So, what’s it going to be? What do you think?