Revenue for Vanity, Profit for Sanity

Many businesses celebrate topline growth without questioning whether it creates real value. Revenue is important, but it can become a distraction. Big numbers on a slide deck look impressive, but if costs scale just as fast, the business stands still.

Profit is where resilience lives. Margin creates optionality – the ability to invest, adapt and weather uncertainty.

Ask yourself:

• Are we chasing revenue because it’s easy to measure?

• Do we know which customers, products or services actually drive profit?

• What trade-offs are we making to maintain headline growth?

Growth should never be an exercise in vanity. Be clear about why you are pursuing it and how it will create sustainable advantage.

Sales Processes That Scale

Great sales performance isn’t down to a handful of gifted individuals. It’s the result of engineered processes that can be measured, improved and repeated.

• Pipeline discipline matters. Do you have clear criteria for qualification, progression and forecasting?

• Deal governance protects margin. Are approvals proportionate to risk and value?

• Performance management drives accountability. Are expectations explicit and transparent?

When growth is engineered, you build consistency. Teams know how to replicate success because the process is documented, tested and refined.

It also means you can spot where growth is stuck. You can diagnose problems with confidence because the data exists.

Margin Focus From the Start

Growth without margin is dangerous. Many businesses only think about profitability once deals are signed and delivery begins.

A smarter approach is to build margin focus into every stage of the cycle:

• Qualification: Is this opportunity aligned to your sweet spot?

• Proposal: Are you pricing to reflect value, not just cost?

• Contracting: Are you protecting scope and reducing delivery risk?

This mindset requires courage. It means walking away from revenue that will erode profit or distract from strategic goals.

When you see growth as engineered, you start to treat margin as a design constraint – not an afterthought.

Planning and Discipline: The Foundations of Sustainable Growth

Growth is exciting, but it can also be chaotic. Without clear planning, even the most promising opportunities can collapse under their own weight.

• Strategic planning defines where to focus – which markets, customers and propositions deserve investment.

• Resource planning ensures capacity matches ambition.

• Performance tracking holds teams accountable for results.

Engineers don’t build bridges by hoping for the best. They design, test and refine. Growth deserves the same discipline.

Focus matters. You can’t grow everything at once. Prioritise the areas with the greatest potential to create lasting value.

Closing Reflections

Sustainable growth isn’t an accident. It’s engineered – through focus, discipline and an unwavering commitment to outcomes that matter.