Million Dollar Question

What is the purpose of business? If you were to ask a business professional “what is the secret ingredient as to why they were successful or unsuccessful?” you would get a number of different responses, including marketing and innovation. I know this, because I am a business consultant who specializes in developing professionals to become more productive and profitable through strategic planning. Although I concur that “two purposes of business are marketing and innovation”, I respectfully disagree that they are among the top of the list.

Without a product or service a business does not have anything to market and sell. Without a plan, innovation is only a word that describes forward thinking, but does not address the goal of every business which is to earn a profit or operate within budget. The question “what is the purpose of business?” is simple for me to explain with my experiences in successfully starting, developing, and selling several businesses. You must have something to sell, whether it is a product or a service; and you must have a plan to develop the process to maximize profitability.

The perception that businesses are much more complicated today than they have been in the past, in my opinion is completely false. I believe that we all have the same purpose. The purpose of every business is to sell a product or service in the most productive and efficient way possible to earn a profit. Any time that you add innovation to this simple formula all you have done is confuse your business for an empire, and marketing is the only way to overshadow the underlying issues.

I believe that all businesses should start with written goals. The first goal should be incorporated into the vision statement, which is to be profitable. In order to increase profitability a business must first systematically improve production and the efficiencies within production. I do not feel that marketing is a key factor in the way that you develop a product; rather marketing is a way to create warm leads in order to sell a product or service.

What I have experienced in my career thus far is that we all have a plan, but many times do not have it in writing. I have found that many businesses hide behind clichés, gimmicks, and customer service, but lose sight of what it is that they are actually selling. When meeting with my client’s for the first time, my first question to them is this: “what is it that you sell?” I rarely get the actual product, but rather the “innovative idea” or the best “marketing slogan”. Profitability is a direct result of the productivity within all businesses, marketing and innovation is only part of the plan.

Professionals vs. Sales People

Finances are by far the most complex daily chore that we have in each of our lives. Finances can destroy a marriage, they can end friendships, and they can cloud our decision making processes. However when financing is done methodically, and with a purpose it can alleviate much of the stresses that come along with it. Financial decisions are one of the most lucrative businesses to be in. Think about it, think about the nicest buildings within your community: The banks, insurance offices, financial advisor's, realtor's, attorneys, and accounting firms, all of them can be found in prime real estate locations. However when we take a closer look at them, they are built in very different ways. Some of them deserve to be in the locations that they occupy, because of the level of Professionalism that they have. The others however are only there because they have what I call the "gift of gab" or the "when their lips are moving, they are lying" abilities. These people are called Sales People. They are able to come across as if they have your best interest in mind, when really they have their own interest in mind, and have systematically talked you into something that you didn't need, and sold you more than you bargained for only to find out tomorrow that you can't get a hold of them to cancel. Do I sound bitter? The moral of the story is to find someone whom you can trust, and is not recommended by a radio personality (because guess what? that is a paid endorsement of some kind or another), or has a vested interest in the referral (because now all of the sudden that person is working to keep more referrals coming in, rather than looking out for your best interest). Work with someone that asks the really uncomfortable questions, the questions that make you dig deeper, the questions that require logic, not emotions. Begin the quest to find true Professionals to work with, and I will see you at the top.