What a business actually is, in plain termsBusiness · 5 minute readA business is not a logo, a website or a plan. It is a customer paying you more than it costs you to deliver. Everything else is decoration.Strip away the branding and the paperwork and a business is three things. Somebody has a problem, you solve it, and they pay you more than it cost you to solve.The four numbers that matter

Customers — how many people paid you this month.

Price — what each of them paid.

Cost — what it cost you to deliver, including your own time.

Cash — what is in the bank today, which is not the same thing as profit.

Turnover is not profitTurnover is everything that came in. Profit is what is left after the costs. A business turning over a hundred thousand pounds and keeping nothing is not a success with a good story. It is a job that pays badly.Cash is what kills businessesA profitable business can still run out of money. If you did the work in March and get paid in June, you fund April and May yourself. Knowing when money arrives, not just how much, is the difference between surviving and not.The one test of an ideaBefore spending anything, answer one question: has anybody paid you for this yet? One paying customer teaches you more than a year of planning.Write down what came in, what went out and the date, from the first pound. Four minutes a week is the habit that separates people who understand their business from people who hope.More free articles about money, work and business are at The Next Generation Blog.

Let's Play Business — LPB Deepcar Learning Centre, Deepcar, Sheffield. Contact: anna@letsplaybusiness.co.uk