If one of your sales team came to you with a plan to attend a big trade fair or exhibition with a price tag of £30,000 how would you react?
If one of your competitors was looking to sell off part of their business and you had the opportunity to acquire some new clients for the same price, would you buy it?
The point I’m trying to make is that in either of the above instances you would sit down, analyse the costs versus the potential revenue rewards and do your due diligence as if it were any other investment. Regardless of whether it was in your business or in your personal life, you would consider and then come to a practical decision that you feel comfortable with.
Why is it then that the first thing many business owners do, when their numbers aren’t quite where they want them to be, is to hire another sales person? Even worse, what if the recruitment process starts, you interview a few people, none of them really impress the hell out of you but you start to feel like your back’s against the wall?
I’m pretty confident that there is a high number of business owners that would carry on recruiting regardless, often in the ‘blind hope’ that the new ‘superstar’ will hit the ground running and get your whole year back on track.
In a similar way that many of us don’t view a big pile of used bank notes in the same light as a credit card with a big spend limit – many of us also fail to see that it’s the same valued ‘£1′ coming out of our profit and loss accounts as we try to grow the business.
As an entrepreneur I’ve not always had the best relationship with accountants and this is usually because of their inability to see my business plans through the same rose tinted glasses that I tend to wear most of my life 
Speaking from personal experiences I have managed to lose a few thousand pounds by simply failing to execute properly budgeted plans whenever the subject of ‘New Customer Acquisition’ has been discussed.
In concluding this blog I’m going to cast my mind back to my very early childhood when I used to go into a sweet shop with my first few pennies of pocket money. The options were often ‘Would you like a Milky Way or some Jelly Tots?’ Because we all know the line that follows…’When it’s gone, it’s gone.’
