When you are building a business, revenue matters;
You need sales.
You need margins.
You need cash flow.
You want profit for your investment
You need commercial discipline.
But if revenue becomes the solo lens through which you make decisions, you can end up building a business that looks successful on paper and feels completely wrong in practice.
That is where values come in…..Not as nice words for a website.
I mean real values.
The ones that shape behaviour.
The ones that cost you something.
The ones that force you to decide what success will mean, and what it will not mean, if it comes at too high a price.
Because not every euro is equal.
Some revenue grows your business. Some revenue drains it. Some revenue comes wrapped in stress, misalignment, poor behaviour and the slow erosion of your standards.
Values Are Only Real When They Affect Decisions
Anyone can say they are people-first – you can say you value professionalism, respect, quality and partnership.
The real question is this:
What happens when holding those values costs you money? That is the test.
The Contract That Forced the Question
One of the clearest examples of this for me came through an annual event contract we had.
Each year, we pulled out all the stops to deliver a large volume of temporary staff from Dublin to support a regional client event. It took effort, planning, coordination and a lot from our team, it took the temps agreeing to stay on-site for 2 to 3 days. We did the work properly and we did it with commitment.
And yet, every year when it came time to pay, the conversation followed a familiar pattern.
There would be a meeting – Sandwich Meeting – Your servers were great and we have a list of concerns, complaints, issues and some broad, generic feedback about our temps and of course we would like you back next year – we’ve all had those ‘sandwich feedback meetings’.
At the same time, our temps were giving us their own feedback.
They spoke about reduced on-site supports, about inexperienced hospitality temps being mixed in with our stronger, more experienced people, about management barking orders.
And more than that, they spoke about their experience of often not being treated with basic courtesy.
That mattered and still matters to me.
Because if you want people to deliver professionally, they should be treated professionally.
I remember lamenting all of this with the co-founder of 3Q at the time, and she said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“It sounds like we need to fire ourselves.”
And honestly, she was right.
Sometimes Courage Looks Like Walking Away
We did not make that decision emotionally or dramatically.
We did the numbers, evaluated the commercial cost of saying, “No thank you for next year.”
We looked at the revenue impact and we looked at what it would mean to step away.
And then we made the call.
We communicated to the client that we would not be submitting services for the following year. We were clear about why. We wanted our team to be both valued and valuable in a client’s workforce planning and delivery. And at that point, it no longer felt that this was the relationship in place.
Was there pride in that? Yes – maybe a little more than I should admit too.
Was there ego? Possibly…..
I do believe we have some of the best professionals on the market, and I was not neutral about the sweeping, generic criticism levelled at people who had shown up, worked hard and deserved better than the environment they were being placed into.
But this was not just emotion. It was evidence.
I had too much evidence to pretend the experience was likely to improve the following year.
And when the client came back, not once but three times, asking us to reconsider, I still knew the answer had to be no.
That was the Courage Shoes moment.
Not the dramatic leap. Not the big launch. Not the shiny yes. No U-Turn
And when we made it, it felt like a weight lifted.
What Would It Look Like to Put On Your Courage Shoes?
This is a question I am carrying through my blogs going forward:
What would it look like to put on your Courage Shoes?
In this case, it looked like being honest about our values and boundaries.
It looked like asking:
- What kind of client relationship are we willing to be part of?
- What behaviour are we prepared to normalise?
- What does success mean for us?
- And just as importantly, what will success not mean if it comes at the expense of our people, standards and integrity?
It also meant recognising that going to work with or for someone is never just a commercial decision. It is a values decision too.
You are choosing an environment.
A dynamic.
A standard of behaviour.
A way of working.
Putting on your Courage Shoes in business sometimes means turning down money that does not align with the kind of business you are trying to build.
It means backing your people.
It means respecting your own evidence.
It means not allowing short-term revenue to overrule long-term judgement.
And yes, it means having the courage to replace the income properly rather than retreating into fear.
I had ten months to find an alternative revenue stream for what we had walked away from.
And I did.
That matters too.
Because courage in business is not recklessness. It is not grandstanding. It is not making dramatic decisions and hoping for the best.
Courage is making a hard call with open eyes, understanding the cost, and then doing the work required to build what comes next.
Revenue Matters, But Not at Any Cost
This is the part many founders need to hear earlier.
Revenue is important.
But not all revenue is good revenue.
Some revenue asks you to ignore your instincts.
Some revenue teaches your team that they are expendable.
Some revenue slowly reshapes your culture in ways you will regret later.
And if you keep saying yes because the numbers look useful, you can find yourself building a business that no longer reflects what you say matters.
That is too high a price.
For start-ups especially, this is where early discipline matters. Founders often think values and boundaries are things to sort out later, once the business is more stable.
I think the opposite.
You need them early.
Because the early yeses become the pattern.
The early compromises become the culture.
The early silences become the standard.
If you do not define what matters, pressure will define it for you.
A People-First Business Still Has Boundaries
Being people-first is not about being soft.
It is not about pleasing everyone.
It is not about avoiding difficult decisions.
And it is certainly not about lowering standards.
It is about treating people properly while still leading clearly.
It is about expecting professionalism and giving respect.
It is about wanting your teams to be both valued and valuable.
It is about recognising that culture is not built by speeches. It is built by what leaders tolerate, reinforce and refuse.
Sometimes a people-first business says yes.
Sometimes it says no.
Both matter.
The Kind of Success Worth Building
I am interested in growth. I am interested in ambitious business. I am interested in success.
But not success at any cost.
Not the kind that looks good publicly and feels wrong privately.
Not the kind that compromises your standards.
Not the kind that asks your people to absorb behaviour you should have challenged.
Not the kind that leaves you overriding your better judgement in the name of commercial progress.
The kind of success worth building is built on:
- courage
- values
- boundaries
- strong systems
- commercial focus
- and leadership you can stand over when the pressure comes on
That is the difference.
Not just making money.
Making money in a way that still lets you respect the business you are building.
Questions Worth Asking Yourself
If you are building a business, growing a start-up or reviewing who you work with, ask yourself:
- What values are actually shaping my decisions?
- Where am I tolerating what I should be challenging?
- What are my non-negotiables?
- What does success mean to me?
- What does success not mean if it comes at too high a cost?
- Who do I want to work with, and who do I not?
- What am I teaching my team through what I accept?
- What would it look like to put on my Courage Shoes here?
Those are not soft questions.
They are leadership questions.
Founder questions.
And often, the questions that protect the future of the business.
Closing Reflection
Revenue matters.
But revenue alone is not enough.
Values matter.
Boundaries matter.
Courage matters.
And the willingness to walk away matters too.
Because sometimes the strongest business decision you make is not the contract you win.
It is the one you decline to repeat.
And sometimes the clearest sign of leadership is not in how much revenue you can hold on to, but in knowing what you are no longer willing to trade away to keep it.
That is not weakness.
That is wisdom.
That is discipline.
And that is often what building a business on values really looks like.
