The first goal of most small businesses is to make a profit. Even non-profits need profits to fund their cause….in their case the profit may be called donations or cash flow.
But for most entrepreneurs, even Christians in business, we not only want to make a profit, we need to. It’s okay to want to make a profit.
[Tweet “It is the love of money that can be evil, not the making of it in itself.”]
Where the slippery slope comes in is once you start making a profit. Where do you go?
Keeping Profit Healthy
Here are suggestions that keep profit in a healthy perspective:
- Pay off any debt your business may have.
- Invest back into your business for growth. This will keep your business healthy and growing and hopefully provide more jobs and more great products and services to the world.
- Start a savings account. Yes, even for business. You never know when something outside of your control can happen that impacts your earnings one year. Having proper savings will help you weather any storm and keep your employees with a job through tough times.
- Give to your community or another charity. Find a need that you believe in and help.
- Invest in your own office or building. If you are renting, a good investment is in your own building. It is preferable if you can save and pay cash for it. But it may still be better to pay yourself and build equity in an asset than to be renting forever.
- Take a period of time to work on quality rather than growth. This can take the form of building a stronger foundation for your company that will support future growth. It may be working on improving processes so you provide a better service to your current customers. It might be developing your team so that they continue to grow professionally and can benefit your customers even more in the future.
- Add benefits to your employees. The more you can give back to your team, the more they can focus on doing work that glorifies God. Life can be difficult and we all work first to support our families. The more we can do to support our employees, the more they will be achieving their goals of supporting their families.
- Invest in research and development for a new product line, new service or even a new business. Many times an entrepreneur becomes a serial entrepreneur. New businesses provide new jobs.
What Profit Means for Christians
All small businesses want and need to profit, however, the difference between a Christian in business compared to maybe a publicly traded company is what happens after the business is profitable.
A publicly traded company many times has a primary goal of maximizing shareholder value, otherwise stated as ‘profit is everything.’
In our own Christian business, hopefully profit means:
- supporting our families
- doing work that honors God
- helping others and making an impact on our communities, in people’s lives, and in the world
My prayer is that you have a profitable business built on a foundation of your Christian values and that you are able to help others and make an impact in your community and in the world.
Hi Sue.
My problem presently is that we have sort of reached a plateau in sales. And where we plateaud at is not so encouraging. Please i need your advice, what can we do?
Thanks.