Cut the turkey - raise the revenue

We had our annual board meeting lately, and we're wrestling with budget issues (surprise!)

The main point at issue is how not to institutionalize cost-saving survival measures that got us through the lean times of the down-turn - in other words, how do we stop burning the furniture to heat the house (before we run out of furniture).

We've got some creative strategies and some good thoughts going, but after the back-and-forth of the meeting, one of my board members shared this little nugget with me:

"Expenses are like the bad relatives you see every year at Thanksgiving: you know exactly who they are, and you know you can never get rid of them. Going over the minutiae of controlling these expenses was driving me crazy. The only reliable way to stay afloat is to increase your revenue at least a little bit every year."

I would identify the most critical aspect of my job as fiscal manager of this outfit as creative cost-control. The above thought offers a very different and possibly more productive line of thinking. And isn't it more uplifting to think of ways to generate revenue (especially once you've whittled your office supply budget down to the nub)?