Is your work about putting money on the table or finding out who removed it from the table?
Everyone can remove money from the table. Spending is easy. The challenge is always how to put money on the table. Granted, managing the procurement process requires skill. But not to the level needed when it comes to finding opportunities and optimizing them. It is not easy to sell and put money on the table.
If you are an auditor, investigator, or finance, you are likely to focus on how “keep money on the table and who removed money from the table.”
People in marketing and sales, their work is about “how to put money on the table.” Growing revenue is so important to the business. Reducing costs is important too, but not as growing revenue. It does not matter how much costs you cut, if revenue is not growing, your business will not have any means of paying the bills. It will close.
For this reason: all staff must be involved in sales. How to put money on the table. The finance professionals of the future add value to the business through advising on growth and business development initiatives. In fact, the role is no longer called CFO or chief financial officer. It is called the CGO or chief growth officer (CGO). Times are changing fast indeed.
What concerns you most: how to put money on the table or who removed it? For more value, impact, and relevancy, first, focus on how to put money on the table, then protect it.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2019. All rights reserved.
