Greed is an excessive form of self-interest that leads individuals to pursue material wealth and immaterial desires with little or no interest in the well-being of others. However, management greed isn’t the quest for material success because that is why you already own a business in the first place.
Rather, management greed is a trait that prevents general business success. It is a foolish quest for more without really understanding what more is. It is when management focuses their efforts on cost and savings in the belief that they don’t have enough of anything.
At this point, they can’t afford to increase wages because they still want a little more revenue first. They won’t even consider purchasing or upgrading business equipment until they have a little more margin. Greed shows its nasty face in a business enterprise where no expenditure is made unless it is unavoidable.
This goes contrary to what a constructed budget should be. Note that a thoroughly developed budget allows a business to continually track where they are financially. This allows for strategic, long-term planning for everything from current operating costs to potential expansion.
Profit isn’t what is left over after everything else is taken care of. It’s the entire reason for the company’s existence. However, management greed comes in when the management of a business doesn’t understand how to measure success. It involves the failure to identify the most profitable lines of business, calculate underutilized capacity, or estimate return on investment for new equipment.
How Management Greed Can Influence Budget Decisions
No matter how you see it, management greed can wreak havoc on your business if you allow it to start influencing your actions. Nonetheless, below are a few ways greed can influence budget decisions:
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You Take More Clients than You Can Competently Manage
Most often, business owners and managers believe that more clients equal more money; however, this is not always true. Note that when you stretch your staff too thin with your workload, they might get overwhelmed and fail to do a good job, and this will leave your clients unhappy with your work. Aside from that, the word may leak out that you’re not meeting deadlines or producing good quality work.
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You Look for Ways to Make Money, Not Ways to Improve
The primary objective of every business should be to improve customer experience; howbeit, with management greed, the aim is rather to make more money and not to satisfy customers. Have it in mind that if you are not trying to help your customer, then you are not helping the business to grow at all.
Unfortunately, a good number of businesses in this age seem to run counter to this idea. Instead, they are always seeking ways to charge their customers more rather than help them out, and that will lead to a decline in business if customers feel you don’t really care about them.
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You Invest in SEO Too Aggressively
In this modern age, it is becoming very important for everyone to have a good search engine optimization strategy in place. However, if for any reason you find yourself always leveraging black hat tactics such as keyword stuffing or link farming in an attempt to get more business, you’re not just hurting your company’s reputation, but could even be sanctioned or penalized by Google.
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You Make Bad Personnel Decisions
Have it in mind that when management cares more about making money, they tend to overlook flaws in their employees as long as they are still producing strong monetary results. For example, a business owner may ignore the sexual harassment being inflicted by one of their top managers just because he is one of the best salesmen in the company. Note this can be quite unhealthy for the company as it will hurt morale and lead to employees leaving.
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You Alienate Your Employees
Note that aside from just annoying your employees, management greed could alienate them if they believe the management is stockpiling all the money for just themselves. Ideally, immediately they notice that they are working hard but getting little return because the management prefers to hoard the money, they will start heading for the exit — and they won’t do you any favors by badmouthing you at their next workplace or to even your potential customers.
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You’re Not Mentoring Anyone
A good mentor understands the importance of managing cash flow, especially since they can help establish a system to track what goes in and out, and budget effectively for business growth. However, you need to realize that mentoring doesn’t really fit in well with greediness.
There is no monetary reward for mentoring, therefore it can quickly fall by the wayside. This can be considered unhealthy especially since great mentors produce great workers who can carry on the business for years to come.
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You Don’t Spend Money Making Your Employees Happy
As a business owner or a business manager, it is imperative you understand that happy employees make for good businesses, especially since they serve as the bridge between the business and its customers. Note that when employees are unhappy, they won’t do their best for the business, and that can lead to a decline in sales.
Owing to that, it is always necessary for management to spend money on making business employees happy, whether it involves springing for lunch on Fridays or stocking free sodas in the company fridge. It’s money that will come back into the pocket of the business.