Monday 19 July 2010

It’s not the size but the result that matters


I read a wonderful statement made recently by Doug Richards, the former Dragon, and thought it must be repeated here. Doug said:

“A business success can be measured on the bottom line. A business success is not measured on its top line. I have heard celebrity entrepreneurs brag about their businesses, calling out their total revenue as though the sheer volume of cash that their business touched was somehow meaningful. I picture them skinny dipping in all that cash as it washes by, cackling irrationally and not realising that the flow of cash is not the same as the stickiness of profit. The reality was that they made a skinny one per cent profit on all that cash. A business with one tenth the revenue that makes ten per cent on its money is precisely as successful. Revenue is just not profit.”

“It [success] is not measured by the number of people it employs. Over and over I hear people talk about the size of their organisations. All I hear is the cost of their payroll. Is this just a man thing? Are we really comparing size still as adults? Get over it. In business size doesn’t matter.”

I agree passionately with Doug about profit but both revenue and profit would be excellent and doubly exciting!

Gareth, APA

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