One of the biggest problems within business is that people throw words around to try and boast their business, impress people and try and get more profit from doing so. However, there is one big problem, all it does it not tell us the truth and therefore it is creating a false representation of your business which in turn will worsen your brand image.

Revenue vs. Profit

Before I go into the main content of this post, I would like to present you with the definitions of both ‘Profit’ and ‘Revenue’ as this will hopefully make you think of the two words whilst you are reading the remainder of this article.

Revenue: The income received by an organisation because of their activities.

Profit: The difference between the income a business receives and the total costs. Profit = total revenue – total costs

The Difference Between Profit and Revenue?

Revenue doesn’t take into account any of the costs a business has, when the profit does. Read more on Wikipedia.

What Problem Am I Talking About?

Revenue. The word is used so freely to try and assess how a business is doing;

Company x have today announced that their 2009 revenue has grown to £6 million

But it doesn’t really tell us anything. Yes revenue is important, it’s important to have money coming into a business, because a business needs money to run. It also shows us how much business a company has, the more revenue the more the company is selling, the more clients it has etc. However, it has no link to how successful a business is doing. Many businesses out there will have massive revenues each quarter, but then when we look at their profits it may be nothing compared to that revenue. Profit is what shows us how well a business is doing; it proves to us how well they are using that revenue to propel the company into prosperity. Now let’s finish the above quote;

Company x have today announced that their 2009 revenue has grown to £6 million. This makes the profits for x rise to £250,000 for 2009, an improvement of £50,000 based on this quarter last year

The big ‘£6 million’ makes us think that the company has money flowing in, when the second, profit, figure shows us the real success of the company and shows us that even though they do have money flowing into their bank accounts, they also have a lot of money flowing out of the company, meaning that costs are high and profits are lower.

What I am getting is that if you want potential investors etc. to invest in your business, tell them your profits, and then tell them your revenue. Use the figures which tell more truth about your business’s you may think that it will look worse, but in the end you want someone to invest in your business who has faith in the real figures, not ones which are there just to look better.

Image – Google UK Profits by Will Lion

Not everyone is brimming with confidence. Most people will have little insecurities which can take control of their lives, or just little ones which cause a problem every now and then.

I’m not a person who can happily talk to anyone that walks up to me, I have to know the person, know what to talk about and hopefully have them help me out. However, when it comes down to the right situation, a subject which I am interested, I can talk about it for as long as possible.

This is how I know that I will do fine in the world of business, because if it’s a subject which interests me and if I’m put in a situation which involves new people then I will happily interact with them if there is a common interest and goal. This is compared to if I was just stuck in a room with some random people for no reason, I would then be shy and have no idea of what to put out there.

As I know this about myself it gives me more confidence, not only do I know in what situations I will cope in, but it also allows me to be sure that I know myself, which is a bit part of having confidence. If you know your strengths and weaknesses you can use them to your advantage and therefore reap the rewards in whatever you are doing. Consequently this will build your confidence levels because instead of being scared of your weaknesses you can always be evaluating them and in turn improving on them. Not only will this help to make you an overall stronger person, but it will also make you easier to work with and be around, therefore improving your likeliness of succeeding.

My Confidence

To illustrate the points I have made above, I would like to look into my mind and my level of confidence.

My confidence was always quite low because I didn’t believe in myself and I always let my little weaknesses shine through and get the better of me. Luckily one day I finally sat down and thought about myself and how I should improve to not only make me happier and more confident, but also to make me more likable and easier to get along.

Once I had finally outlined my weaknesses and started working around them, blocking them out and improving on them so that I no longer had them everything starting going uphill for me. My results improved at college, I started doing better in my businesses and I started talking to more people, which in turn allowed me to further develop all of the previously mentioned aspects.

My Conclusion

What I am pointing out in this post is that you have to have confidence, as confidence build confidence and this will help you a lot in your business, friendships and even self-assessment.

Take a look at yourself.