Sit Down and Calculate The Cost, “First”… Don’t Just Start.
Sit Down and Calculate The Cost, “First”… Don’t Just Start
—“28 For which of you, wishing to build a farm building, does not first sit down and calculate the cost [to see] whether he has sufficient means to finish it?
29 Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is unable to complete [the building], all who see it will begin to mock and jeer at him…”
Luke 14:28-29 (Amplified Bible – AMP).
I have often said, “everything important, I ever learnt about business, I learnt from the bible…”
What could be more practical than the above scripture, taken from the Master Himself?….
Jesus said:
…”first sit down and calculate the cost (to see) whether you have sufficient means to finish it.”
Flying over one of our African cities recently, my attention was caught by the number of people, who have embarked on huge housing projects, that they were struggling to finish. You are left wondering why they did not go for something smaller, that they could finish.
Sadly, I often meet people who are in the same situation with their business projects. My heart always pains when I see this, because I imagine what they are going through.
When people start out in business, they are sometimes so excited about what they are going to achieve, that they forget, “to sit down and CALCULATE the cost”.
Sustainable success in business, or even in a social enterprise, is as much about managing, your costs, as it is about generating sales or revenue.
—-“I will sell my 10000 kgs of tobacco for $10/kg, and make $100,000… Its a lot of money.”
But what about the “cost side”?
—- “sit down”
—–“calculate the cost”—
“Once I buy the Kombi, I will make $5000 per day”
But what about the “cost side”?
—–“sit down”
—-“calculate the cost”….
“I will borrow money, and buy an aero plane. I will fly people everyday, and make $100,000”
Really, now?….”sit down”….. “Calculate the cost”….
It is interesting that The Lord, did not simply say, “count”, the cost, He said, “calculate”. The one who “calculates” does a deeper exercise than the one who simply “counts”.
Another way, of saying “calculate”, is to say “manage the cost”.
— when you do not “calculate” the cost properly, you might even manage to buy the Kombi, or the aero plane, or the telecoms equipment, and you will then operate it, until it is old and battered… and obsolete.
Always, “calculate”, the cost FIRST.
Now, you might say, what if something happens, that I did not anticipate. Maybe, it was beyond my control… The Lord (practical as ever), spoke about that too: your turn, to “search the scriptures”….
Finally, let me say this, the cost, goes beyond what it initially costs, to set up the business; to run it profitably; ensure renewal and growth, and sustainably…. But you must also look at the cost on things like the environment, public safety, and the health of others.
Calculating cost, is all about managing a dynamic cost environment. Now you are in business. Go prosper.
