Faucets and Drains

Faucets and drains are two things designed to work together. Water comes out of a faucet and goes into a sink. Once in the sink, it flows toward the drain and goes away. Or you can stop up the drain and let the sink collect water. As a personal business coach in The Woodlands and in Houston, I look for the faucets in a business such as cash flow, marketing, advertising, operational and financial processes, administrative and management style, and most importantly, the people. And I also look for the drains. Interestingly, there are several ways to look at faucets and drains in business. A company invests a great deal of money in an advertising program. The money is the faucet. It pours out into the advertising program. The advertising program is wildly successful at bringing in new and profitable sales. The sink, the company’s cash reserves, start to fill up. The drain, which is the money going out for advertising, is slower than the faucet that is bringing in new sales causing more money to back up in the sink. This is a good situation. You have your sink of cash filling up with the money. In fact, it is filling up with the money to where you could be put into a higher tax bracket in various areas. Tax brackets are drains. Or you could put some of that extra money into other drains such as investing in equipment, people, or processes to support and sustain your growth. And these will reduce your taxes. But are these really drains? Or are they new faucets? It depends. Two businesses can look at the same thing and because of their unique perspectives see things differently. In the above example, investing money in equipment, people or processes could by some be considered a drain and by others a new faucet. The key here is not whether one is right or wrong. The first key is to understand how you look at your business in terms of faucets and drains. The second key is to be aware of where your perspective on faucets and drains is taking you not just in the present but in the future. Are you creating the future you desire? How you choose to identify faucets and drains and how you determine they are going to work together will have a huge impact on you and your business’s success. True success in business is creating an entity where the faucets and drains work together for growth, long-term stability, or both.