The Story Behind “Let’s Go Make Some Money”
In 2011 and 2012 when we were first having monthly WomenLaunch (a startup mentoring accelerator, now closed down) meetings, one of the most inspiring stories was about 2 guys having lunch next to a women and her friend at a café. When the guys finished – they were obviously headed back to work – they got up and high-fived each other while saying: “Let’s go make some money!” We realized how often we hear that with guys, and how often we women do that with each other…hardly ever.
Think about how often you high-five another woman and say “Let’s go make some money.” When has that happened? If it has, that’s awesome.
I started to think about the powerful businesswomen I know in my life and how many of them had channeled their skills and drive into non-profit work. While that’s a great contribution, I also noticed that conversations about making money seemed to frequently be couched in some kind of rationalization about who it’s for, how the money will make a difference, and a caveat that “I’m not doing this just for the money.” Ok, that’s interesting.
Building Value, Making a Difference
The primary goal of a business is to create value, measured in money (revenue, profits, balance sheets, income statements, share prices, and a lot of ratios).
Building a business that’s worth a lot of money, by whatever measure, affords a great opportunity to make a difference to a lot of people in the world. To the employees that work most of their waking hours at a company, to people who buy the products or services, to the shareholders and investors, and to all the families that are touched by the culture you create.
PLUS you get to use the money you generate to make a difference however you want in the world. The more money you make the better – the bigger difference you can make. Think the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffet, the Packard Foundation, and there are others.
So the more money you make in your business, the better off the world can be. The emphasis is on can. Because you have a choice there – you can take your money and just buy toys for yourself – that helps spread it around a little bit. OR you can take your money and create your own foundation and make a legacy for yourself. OR you can just make an incredible difference for everyone associated with your successful business.
Any way you look at it, the more money you make the better.
Making money means making that a priority. It means thinking about all those ratios and optimizing for everything. It means making big asks, setting prices at the highest point you can, and focusing on revenue-producing activities that maximize profit to the exclusion of other things.
Money is a tool
And when you create a business that generates money you have the opportunity to wield that tool in ways that ripple around the world.
So grab the tool and go for it.
Trying on “Let’s Go Make Some Money”:
- Go high five 3 other women in business and say with energy and enthusiasm: “Let’s Go Make Some Money!”
- Take a look at any beliefs you might have about having a single-minded focus about generating money.
- Review your business revenue streams – current ones or ones you’re projecting when you reach critical mass – how can you increase them? Are you stretching far enough? Are there costs you’re not focusing on that will decrease your profits when you are selling in volume? Are you implicitly making trade offs you’re not fully conscious of?
- Are you up for making a lot of money? How much? Is there a limit for you? Do you find yourself not wanting to ask for ‘too much’? What would making a lot mean for you? Personally? Professionally? Be honest with yourself.
