Still a Dirty Word

I had an interesting conversation this morning when I felt that my colleague was sounding apologetic for making a profit. He replied that he felt he had to be. He said that he felt the general tone of the media painted the picture that making profit was socially unacceptable in 2026.

I believe that the current government seem hell bent on making it ever more difficult to make a profit but this is not a political blog. We need to be very careful that everyone on our team understand how, and especially why, profit is made and are not embarrassed by it.

Our views on both money and profit are individual, personal, complex and intensely biased. Whatever we think, I know for certain that running a profitable business is a lot less stressful than running one which isn’t making a profit.

We need everyone committed and working towards the business being highly profitable, because the alternative is just not an option.

In my experience the vast majority of people do not know what profit is or understand its importance. So it is imperative that we educate them otherwise the populist media misinformation will prevail.

So the questions for today are:

• How well do your team understand profitability and why it matters to them?
• How well do your team understand their obligation to optimise profitability and the ways they can do that?
• When we talk about profit, are we embarrassed, and if so, why?
• Do your team have clear visibility of their profitability?
• And if not why would they care about it?

If you need any help, reach out