sensitivity . To help one remember it , put the first letter of each one together to spell MRS GREN .
A living biological organism needs to grow . But so does any “ thing ” that “ lives ”. A business , although not a biological organism , can also be regarded as something that has a life of its own . Like any living thing , if it does not grow , it will die , it will go bankrupt or it will be taken over by another business . Growth is vital for life .
I often need to explain the necessity of growth to our sales teams , our channels . Sales teams chase targets . And those targets keep increasing every year . I understand that it could be perceived as unfair by the teams – when the clock strikes midnight on 31 December , everything resets to zero and they have to start all over again . It is like groundhog year . They might have reached a wonderful new milestone only the previous day or week . But come the new year and it all goes back to square one , to zero . And the target for the new year is usually much higher than for the previous year . I tell them that new business is the lifeblood of financial services , that a certain level of new business is necessary to support expenses and ultimately profits . Many businesses need scale for increased profitability . Revenue growth is the magic that makes most income statement problems go away .
Yes , growth keeps a business alive . But I am not sure those channel staff always appreciate the accounting and actuarial reasons for growth . They just know that every year there is a new target to chase . And they rightly ask : “ What strategies are in place to help me make my target ?” For it is very unfair to expect a sales channel to grow just to make a budget or an income statement work if you do not know where that growth is going to come from if you do not enable it . A bit might be inflation-related — higher incomes or prices demand higher sums insured that will require higher premiums . That is the tide coming in , but the tide will only help a bit . Any growth above that demands a clear strategy .
So , to live is to grow . We all need growth to be human . Professionals need to grow their skills sets to become better in what they do . Mental growth is an important component of a balanced life . This is where curiosity plays a role . To stay curious is to stay young . It is also one of our three values at PPS – we are eternally curious . We want to be innovative and do things better .
As we head into results season at PPS , it is again very gratifying to see the growth in this unique society of professionals . The year rings in this 80-year old tree tell a story , of good years and tough years , of seasons of fast growth and seasons of challenge . It is a story of eight dentists that became tens of thousands of professionals . Of a few pounds sterling that became billions of rand . Growth . May we relish the part that we could play , big or small , when the growth story of the organisations that we were or are privileged to be a part of is told one day .
Never stop growing .
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