#AskMarcAnything. As business owners, we are told to always focus on money making activities. But is this always the right thing to do? Here is a brief reflection on this question as I sit at Chicago Midway International waiting for my flight.
Thank you for listening!
As I am getting ready to leave Chicago and sitting at the airport, I keep thinking back to what someone had said in the Leadership Summit I just attended. One of the speakers mentioned that as a business owner, we should always focus on money making activities. Most of the crowd in the room agreed and others piggy backed on that premise.
It seems to me that it is a popular mindset to always focus on money making activities. I mean.. why would you waste time on activities that don’t give you any return on investment?
I strongly disagree with this. Yes money making activities are great, especially when your business needs cash. But I think it’s extremely important to allocate some time to activities that don’t make you money. Even though that activity might not give you any direct return on investment, it can pay you back in many ways. First it can help build your own personal name brand because the other person or group will appreciate knowing you are simply giving back with no expectation of money. Secondly, and I think this is the most important reason, you never know when a business opportunity or a business connection arises from that non-money-making activity. It can possibly curate a money-making activity in the future.
I was at a Leadership Summit for the National Association of Realtors Young Professionals Network. 200 leaders from all over the country in one room. I was surrounded by many smart individuals. And here we are discussing how we need to focus only on money-making activities when all of us are not making any money by participating and volunteering our time to be the next leaders of our associations. It’s an activity that makes us no money. But the business opportunities and connections are there yet here we are discussing the opposite. Many times, it’s the activities that don’t make us any money that give us the biggest return in life.. money is not the only KPI to judge a return.
So take that random coffee meeting, be a guest on a podcast, get involved in your industry, do a random act of kindness for someone. Build relationships.
I was in a room of 200 leaders in their 20s and 30s and I know building those relationships are extremely important even if no monetary gain because in that room of leaders, a future President of the National Association of Realtors was sitting amongst us.