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What's The Most Important Part Of A Business?

Name: What's The Most Important Part Of A Business?
Uploaded: 2026-02-06T00:00:00+00:00
Duration: 1 min 35 s
Channel: Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP
Description: In this monologue, Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP rates core business departments on a 5‑point scale and explains the reasoning behind each score. Sales receives…

6 Feb 2026 · 2 min

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1:35

In this monologue, Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP rates core business departments on a 5‑point scale and explains the reasoning behind each score. Sales receives 3.5/5, with the speaker emphasizing that avoiding poor sales performance matters more than being outstanding. Marketing scores 4/5 and is described as “sales with significantly more leverage,” capable of reducing reliance on a sales force. Finance also gets 3.5/5, framed as the engine that provides data and capital for decisions but should not drive growth strategy. Customer Success is rated 3/5 and is portrayed as a safety net for weak products, the inverse of sales and marketing. HR is humorously given –1/5, presented as a loss‑prevention function that keeps the owner out of legal trouble. Recruiting tops the list with a perfect 5/5, viewed as a talent‑marketing function essential for bringing in the best people. The speaker concludes by categorizing all customer‑facing activities (sales, marketing, product delivery) as primary business functions, while everything else (finance, HR, recruiting, etc.) serves as supporting functions that enable the primary ones.

Chapters

Sales. 3.5 out of 5. And you'd think that I would be, as the guy who loves sales and is good at it, it would be higher. But it's far more important to not suck at sales than it is to be exceptional at sales in terms of long-term success. Marketing. 4 out of 5. I just see it as sales with significantly more leverage. And with good enough marketing, you don't need sales to go the last 10. Finance. 3.5 out of 5. You need the data to make decisions. You need to be able to process money. You need to be able to make investments to grow. But I think having like a finance-driven business in order to grow is not the right way to grow the business. It's like an engine. You still need it. Customer success. 3 out of 5. And I think it's because CS in a lot of ways compensates for bad product, because if you have a truly exceptional product that was perfect, you wouldn't need it. So it's kind of like the inverse of sales and marketing. If you have amazing marketing, you don't need salespeople. If you have an amazing product, you don't need customer success. Those humans often bridge the gap between expected and reality or friction and function. HR, negative 1 out of 5. I'm kidding. Love my HR people. The purpose of HR is to keep the owner out of prison. Yeah, you have to pay people, you have to make sure you have legal assignments to make sure you don't get sued. Like, it's almost all loss prevention. Recruiting, if we talk about that, 5 out of 5, absolutely. Bring the best talent in. I see recruiting as a marketing sales function just from a talent perspective. What's the most valuable department to you? What's the most valuable part of a car? The wheel, the engine, the gas. You need all the pieces in order for it to work. I think these are always fun little experiments, but at the most basic level, there's primary functions of business and supporting functions business. Everything that is customer-facing is a primary function. We have to let them know about our stuff, we have to get them to give us money, and then we have to give them the stuff. That's primary functions. Everything that's a supporting function, sole purpose is to support making sure the first 3 things happen.