Over recent years, due to the financial collapse brought about by wreckless and greedy bankers, those making money, both people and businesses, have had a bit of a bashing. So, I am writing this post to explain why profit and wealth is good, and that all those making good money should not be tarred with the banking brush.

Profit is good. Wealth is good. Profit and wealth is money that can be reinvested into the business/businesses to help provide growth, expansion, more jobs and overall sustain the business, whatever that may be. This we must remember.

This really is something that a lot of double glazing companies seem to have forgotten. Many are focused on just getting the job sold, without bearing in mind the margin being made on the job. More often than not, there is probably very little margin in it thanks to weak sales people and the inherent nature of prices being wrongly forced down. But I digress…

Every so often, we get a statement from some of the various newspapers that have a list of the top 100 richest people in the world. More often than not, the combined value of these billionaires goes up year on year. And with those comments usually comes the stream of negative feedback, along the lines of “so disgusting that these people get richer as the poor get poorer”. This is something that really does annoy me. It really should be considered that these top 100 richest people might just be smart enough to increase their wealth themselves. I doubt that they are increasing it by taking away other people’s money. Bear in mind that they have been clever enough to make it to billionaire status already.

It is these billionaires that are the heads of international companies that continue to grow, make very high levels of profit and expand therefore creating jobs. Jobs that the global economy needs. Without these companies, many millions would be jobless or worse. For whatever reason, the world seems to see every rich person as a “fat cat” rather than a giver and provider of jobs and incomes, props for the global economy. Take Richard Branson, one of Britain’s best in business. I don’t think many people out there could call him a typical “fat cat” type. I personally believe he is well respected and admired by a lot in this country, and he is one of our richest. Providing many thousands of jobs through his group of Virgin companies.

There are of course exceptions to this rule. One of the biggest is banking. I am not going to defend their behavior over the past few years. They have played the general public for fools, fell on their own greedy sword and had to use our money to save their asses! It’s deplorable what they have done and continue to make life difficult for SME’s trying to make a living and keep afloat. And don’t even get me started on mortgages!

However, we need to differentiate between those dealing with underhand business tactics and those genuinely making a lot of money by running their businesses well, as honestly as possible, making money and expanding.

I am uncomfortable with how the word “profit” has somehow become a dirty word. Why can’t we be open as a country and be proud of those who make money? I’d love to be able to go in to a customer’s house and have a frank discussion about the health of the business, but the stigma now attached to making a profit would limit that conversation for fear of upsetting the customer.

Profit is good. The more we make the better. Why not be bold and aim to make as much as possible, then be proud about it? Providing it’s been made fairly of course! Without profit, business would simply not exist.