I find that, sometimes, owners of maturing businesses can overly concern themselves with gross margin, overheads, efficiencies, cash-flow and various other accounting measures. I think most owners would agree that this is not why they started-up in business in the first place. Words like passion, belief, focus and innovation are more usually associated with young businesses and I think it’s a shame that the rigmarole associated with running a business can dilute this over time.
I believe that long-term business success (survival) requires only mild attention to some basic mathematics and business should be never centred around it. Period. Lose the love for your business and it will fail, eventually, as those feeling permeate through the structure and people in the business. So, to continue the drive and innovation requires an element of love, trust and giving and if done in the right measures rather than costing money it can actually improve all aspects of the business from greater work satisfaction, better client relationships and closer team working.
As a business we have strived to share that passion, trust and love both inside our organisation and with our clients. I firmly believe that is why, over the last 13 years, we are able to build long-term, mutually profitable relationships with over 100 clients. It sounds simple. Keeping the love going is the tough bit. I promise we’ll try harder in 2011 to share the love.
