Pushing To Business Success

As I travel the country speaking to groups of entrepreneurs, there's often one person at the end of my time who wants to play "stump the speaker."
These are usually good natured people who aren't trying to raise a big fuss. But they do want to see if they can trip up this "expert" with the microphone.

Over the years, like a stand-up dealing with hecklers, I've heard most of the comments meant to throw me. By far the most common example is something like,"Steve, you've talked a lot today about growth.
What about profit? Don't you think profit is more important than growth?" So here's the answer I give them: an emphatic"yes"and"no."
Yes, in this sense: For those people who don't want to grow, maximizing profitability is the most important thing. Big businesses often milk their brands for profit when growth becomes too difficult or expensive.
Many small business owners also have good reasons they might not want to grow. They may be happy with their current level. They may have other interests outside the business that keep them busy. They might not want employees.
Whatever their reasons, they, too, look for ways to milk their business for profits. I have no problem with that stance. It's a perfectly reasonable way to go about managing your business. I caution only against the potential for undernourishment that might cause the milk to dry up sooner then anticipated. However, for the privately held business determined to grow, profit is not more important than growth. In fact, you simply can't divorce one from the other.
Growth cannot be achieved indefinitely without profit. Profit becomes increasingly difficult to perpetuate for any length of time without growth. Throughout this book, I use words like sustainable and successful to modify the word growth. When I use those words, you can assume I'm talking about profitable growth.
Profits are a great way to measure success. Profits are often the best way to fund organic growth. Profits help us measure our performance. Profits matter, but not more than growth. Indeed, they are ultimately the same thing.