STRATEGY TO SUCCESS Turning Up

How to survive (and thrive) during tough markets. BY JON O’MALLEY

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Here’s the problem: these three things (num- ber of customers, revenues, and profits) are RESULTS. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a minute. But first think back to elementary math. A “result” always follows what? An equal sign. And to get a change in a result, you must have a change on the other side of the equal sign. One of the “variables” needs to change.

For example, if you have 2+3=5, you

can’t just change the five to a six. You have to change one of the variables, either the two or the three, or both, need to change as well. So you can change it to 2+4=6, or 3+3=6, but you can’t just change it to 2+3=6, right?

THEPROFIT$

’ve asked hundreds of business owners the following question: “Pretend I’m a business genie and I can give you more of three things in your business. What do you want more of?” Can you guess what the answers were? There were three that rose to the top of all other answers, by far. Here they are: more customers, more revenues/sales, and more profits. I always tell people that whatever it is you’re specifically after, that’s often times where your efforts will be. If you’re top answer is “more revenue or sales,” you’re probably pretty focused on that.

January-February 2016 | Automotive Recycling 47

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