Edward Topsell advised against being
“Penny wise, and pound foolish” with the management of animal feed.
Today, we keep his counsel in avoiding the pursuit of small savings at
the expense of attention to larger costs.

So, too, ought we be careful with other pennies — the “shiny
pennies” of potential revenue (from some just-arrived and poorly define
new opportunity) that distract us from the intentional pursuit of
revenue from sources that we know are worth the chase.

“We need to remind ourselves not to chase every shiny penny that
catches our eye,” said a client of mine not long ago.  They’d recently
grown to $6MM in revenues from ~$1.5MM just three years earlier, in no
small part because they’d kept their focus where it needed to be.  And
they knew how important it was to keep reminding themselves about what
got them there.