Passion for Profits

Business owners and managers are busier than ever. As their businesses grow and become more complex, they find that they don't have the time to be all things to all people. In the early stages of a business, the owner or manager waits on customers, does the buying, collects past due accounts, supervises just about everyone on staff and may even stay late to stuff the monthly statements.

At each stage of business growth, managers must muster the discipline to delegate more and personally perform fewer and fewer job functions to give them time to think and plan. This is not easy. After all, the business is their baby. They oftentimes gave birth to it and have nurtured it to this point, so trusting someone else to assume accountability for key jobs can often feel somewhat like separation anxiety.

The problem in life is that it's too short to be good at a lot of different things. How many things can you be really good at? If you're great at sales, odds are you are not terrific at collecting. If you're entrepreneurial, odds are that you're not attentive enough to detail to be really good at administrative tasks. And so on.

An observation I have made from performing over a hundred consulting assignments is that most owners, managers and salespeople are quite good at the things that they're the most passionate about.

If managers are passionate about profitability, I've noticed that they almost always generate a top-notch bottom line.

If salespeople are passionate about new business, they bring a lot of new accounts. Or if they are passionate about producing above average gross margins, they find a way to effectively deal with pricing issues.

When executives and salespeople are passionate about golf, skiing, tennis, travel, community or church-related activities, then they tend to excel in those areas, and sometimes to the detriment of their accountabilities on the job.

If you are serious about excelling at something - at anything -- the main question you need to ask yourself is: "Where does my passion lie?"

I have one client whom I especially admire. He is extremely passionate about two things: his business and his family. He spends the great majority of his waking hours dedicated to these two passions.

Like many owners and general managers, he often puts in ten-to-twelve-hour days. But he rarely misses any of his kid's activities. Whenever possible, he manages his business appointments around his family and their needs. On several occasions, I've heard him make appointments around hockey games, school plays, Little League baseball games, etc.

But when it comes to business, he is incredibly passionate about earning a satisfactory return on his investment. To show you just how profitable he has been, over the past five years he has funded the assets required to support a substantial sales increase -- well in excess of 20% compounded annual growth -- out of internally generated profits. WOW! Quite an accomplishment, wouldn't you say? Let me give you a couple of other examples of how this owner's passion for success has resulted in so many achievements.

1. Each of the years I have worked with this entrepreneur, he has asked me to recommend several businesses in his industry that I believe do an overall better job than he does. He runs such a good operation that this was always a tough assignment, but he always budgeted the travel time to gain exposure to highly profitable businesses. "I want to visit operations that can teach me a better and more profitable way to service our customers," he will always say.

2. One year, he told me that he thought he could benefit from gaining more exposure to businesses outside our industry. I recommended that he join a local TEC (The Executive Committee) chapter. He allocates one day each month to meet with his TEC group. Then last year, he joined Young Presidents Organization (YPO) to even further expand his exposure.

3. A couple of years ago, he invested in a right hand man to take over the operations end of his business so he could concentrate on another of his passions - sales. While he would admit that he found it difficult to relinquish control over operations, he knew that his business could not continue to grow if he resisted delegating authority.

The moral of this story is to concentrate on doing primarily what you love to do - which is usually what you do best - and delegate the rest.

Bill Lee is a consultant who works with owners who want to improve their bottom line and author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line. $29.95 + $5 S&H. http://www.mygrossmargin.com

Email: blee@mygrossmargin.com