Advice Counts By Jim Counts jimcount@wans.net

Exercise Your Right

his edition of Automotive Recycling magazine features information about the annual ARA Legislative Summit. This event, along with ARA Hill Day, illus- trates value that knowing and educating our politicians is a really beneficial thing. Participating in these events, along with supporting our Political Action Fund (PAC), are a few things that we should be allocating resources to.

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The two resources needed in this case are time and money. Those are the two most precious resources that owners and managers have. As consultants, we con- tinually preach to our customers that you need to spend every dollar possible on

inventory. The amount of time it takes to buy has increased dramatically over the last few years. These are the two demands on our resources that cannot be neg- lected.

At the same time, those same two resources, time and money, are needed to make sure that we will be able to con- tinue to do business in a realistic and effi- cient manner. Most of us do not have the time or interest in dealing with the shenanigans of the political process. Most of us are people of action and when we see a problem, we fix it and move for- ward. That does not describe the politi- cal process.

What do we accomplish by giving time and money to help educate the people about our industry? The first and primary thing that they learn about us is the size of our businesses and the number of peo- ple that we employ. When you multiply that out over the voting impact our extended family of employees has, the numbers are eye popping, and garner attention.

Along with my partner Bill Stevens, I work with a lot of people on budgeting. A budget gives the roadmap to whatever outcome we are working towards. Most people think of a budget as a financial component, which it is, but is also involves time and all of the resources we have at our disposal. We need to make sure that we protect all aspects of our business and budget to work on the long term success of our industry and that includes the mess we call our political system and engaging the elected people we count on to know something about us.

Time and money – we don’t have enough of either but if we let them legis- late us out of business, we won’t have any money to enjoy all the extra time we have. ■

Jim Counts, Counts Consulting, provides or- ganization and financial development for dis- mantlers. Contact Jim at (817) 238-9991 or visit www.countsconsulting.com.

22 Automotive Recycling | January-February 2015

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