I grew up on a farm way down in a place called Gees Bend Alabama (later renamed Boykin, Alabama). I remember that every fall we would gather crops but we would also set aside some which was designated as seed for the following year. The corn, of course, was called seed-corn. There's an unwritten rule in farming that you don't eat next year's planting seeds, whether it be corn, sweet potatoes, millet, sugarcane or whatever you were planting that was edible.

The purpose of this article is to explain that this same principle should also be applied to business and investing as well. When you make money in business, you shouldn't spend it all, but rather, you should save some for maintaining, growing and expanding the business.

However, a big problem with a lot of amateur business owners is that they often see revenue as profit. General revenue that's earned by a business is not profit until you have paid your operating expenses and settled your tax payments.

This is where a lot of business partnerships suffer, because one partner might want to do the right thing by vendors and creditors to keep the business running smoothly but the other partner might want to take a bigger slice of the revenue pie for personal use. Hence one of the main reasons why there are so many partnership disputes in business. I call such people €Seed Corn Eaters€ because they stifle growth by spending most the revenue that a business generates.

All business people should be aware of this revenue squandering mistake€"overspending and under-investing. Of course the professional ones know better than to misuse revenue. Big huge corporate conglomerates such as Microsoft Corporation, Dell Computers, Google, and Apple Corporation and the like did not get where they are by misusing revenue.

Just remember that revenue is the life blood of any business. Without it you would go out of business so fast it would make your head spin. So we must resolve to use it properly if we wish to grow our enterprise to maximum heights.

The legendary investor Warren Buffet is a perfect example of a business man who understands the principle of reinvesting profits in a business to help it grow even bigger and stronger. His company, Berkshire Hathaway's stock price is valued at over an astounding one hundred plus thousand dollars per share as of this writing because Mr. Buffet wishes to discourage day traders from trading in the stock and causing volatility in the price.

Also, Mr. Buffet takes only a one hundred thousand dollar per year salary for running Berkshire Hathaway. This feat alone is amazing considering the fact that most CEO's of major corporations rakes in millions of dollars a year in salaries and bonuses.

If you wish to truly prosper in business you should follow Mr. Buffet's example and never eat the Seed Corn. Reinvest wisely, and the profits will follow.