Dollars don't care where they come from

Though I’m sure she wasn’t the first person to say it, my Mom used to say this a lot. When counseling small business clients and when helping me with budgeting and my own financial forecasts, she’d drop it into conversation at the perfect moment “Remember, honey. The dollars don’t care where they come from.”

What she meant was that increasing the amount of money you bring in is no more or less important than decreasing the amount of money that goes out. As she knew very well, a dollar balanced on either side of the ledger line comes out to the same result. Bring more money in while your expenses go up even more, and you’re making things worse. Bring less money in while slashing your expenses and you might just be better off.

We all have a tendency to fixate on either cutting costs or going out to get more business. Neither is the answer, but both together are.

Business isn’t some ideological endeavor, the dollars really don’t care. We may have other goals ideological goals for a business, but if it doesn’t clear this hurdle first, then it isn’t in business at all.

Remembering these words while looking at the runway for my startup. Thanks, Mom.