Episode 31: The Bottom Line: Profit, Finance, Risk, and Investment with Rod Brown
If our businesses are dependent on generating a consistent and healthy profit, how do we ensure we are paying attention to the financial details that matter?
All the top line terms are familiar to us: gross sales, revenue, margin, and gross profit, but what about the critical numbers involving net profit, operating expenses, financing, and financial risk?
In this episode, we sit down with Rod Brown, the CFO of MadeToOrder, a $25 million Bay area distributor and we ask critical questions regarding some of the most important numbers in business:
- What’s a healthy bottom line?
- What should your revenue per employee be?
- What are the metrics and numbers you should monitor to keep an eye on the financial health of your business? How frequently should you be monitoring these metrics?
- What’s the difference between good debt and bad debt? Is there such a thing as “cheap debt?”
- What about missteps regarding financing?
- What’s the difference between a calculated risk and a reckless risk?
- How do you know when to invest back into your company?