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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
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liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
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or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
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W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to Powerful Business Strategies, where you will find out
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that everything you have ever learned about growing your business
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is wrong. Finally, a show where you'll learn the right
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way to grow your business by learning business and financial
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strategies that your competition isn't doing. And now here is
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your host. President of Next Step CFO Michael Barbarita and
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joining Michael for today's show as an executive moderator is
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chooky obio.
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Yes, this is chookey, and I believe that gratitude is
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undefeated and growth is about the next step. It is
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an honor for me to moderate today's discussion with my
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good friend Michael.
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Michael, how are you very good?
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I thank you, Chicky, very good. My name is Michael
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Baberider Next Step CFO. Next Step CFO is a fractional
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CFO and strategic implementation firm. Our vision is to ensure
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overwhelmed business owners achieve the time, freedom, and consistent profits
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to build a legacy and a life date desire. Our
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mission is dedicated to guiding small business owners to leveraging
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their time, exploding their profits, and building a meaningful legacy.
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And this show, Powerful Business Strategies in our book of
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the same name, is a step toward accomplishing that vision
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and mission. So with that, I like to hand it
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back to our to my co author and moderator for
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the show, Choky Obio.
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Michael, look, I'm quite inspired by today's episode. So the
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title is the Hidden Profit Formula Finding money your competition
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is missing, And Michael, as you know, I mean, we're
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growing our interests in really helping business owners do what
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the competition isn't doing with their strategy and their growth plans,
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particularly this time of the year. Right, it's just really interesting.
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So before we get into a Michael, just a quick disclaimer.
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So Michael and I are both affiliated with a number
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of different organizations, and I currently serve as a Managing
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Director of Business Development for Vetaprice, a global business focused
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law firm. In addition to that, it's truly an honor
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to collaborate with my friend Michael to moderate business roundtables
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and document best practices from those roundtable discussions with business owners.
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But please note that the opinions expressed, the views expressed,
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and today's show are based on our personal success experiences.
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But my mission as the Fearless moderator for today's show
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is just to ask the right questions and to help you,
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the listener, learn the best strategies that the competition isn't doing.
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So with that, I want to toss it back over
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to Michael.
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Thank you, Chivy. So, did you know that most businesses
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capture less than sixty percent of their potential profit? So
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think about that.
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Wow.
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Yeah, twenty percent of your possible profit is slipping right
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through your fingers every single day. And I'm not talking
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about cutting expenses or raising prices. I'm talking about money
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that's sitting right in your business that you can't see
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because you're looking at all the wrong places. So, over
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the next forty minutes or so, I'm going to share
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specific strategies that have helped business owners uncover these hidden profits,
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and I'll show you exactly how one business owner found
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the next year one hundred and fifty seven thousand annual
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profit without spending a dime on marketing or raising their prices.
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Think about that and think about what that kind of
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money could mean for your business and your family. And
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I'm going to give you examples of what I call
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the hidden profit formula. This is a systematic way to
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find money in your business that your competition is completely missing.
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And the best part is on You know, with a look,
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you can repeat the process over and over again. So
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grab that pen and paper, because I'm going to share
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strategies that will completely change how you think about profit
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in your business. And if you're driving, don't worry. You
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could catch the episode again on our podcast at Powerful
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business Strategies dot com. So if you're just joining us,
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we're talking about finding hidden profits in your business and
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I promise to show you exactly how to do that.
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So let me tell you about Jim. Jim runs a
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successful distribution company, and like most business owners, he was
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focused on the obvious ways to increase profit, sell more
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cut costs, maybe raise prices a bit, but it was
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missing something huge and I'm going to show you exactly
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what it was. So the first place we looked for
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hidden profit is what I call the invisible inventory. So
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and I know what you're thinking, Michael, I know exactly
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what's in my inventory, and I get that. But here's
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what we discovered. When we dug deeper with Jim's company.
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We did what we called a velocity analysis of his inventory.
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It's basically inventory turns, some people call it. And instead
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of looking at what he had and stock, we looked
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at how quickly different items moved through his warehouse. And
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here's what we found. So thirty five percent of his
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inventory hadn't moved in over a year, So that's cash
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that was sitting on the shelves, gathering dust and eating
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up storage space. But then another twenty five percent of
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his inventories were moving so quickly that he was constantly
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running out. So he's losing money on both ends. Too
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much of what wasn't selling, not enough of what was.
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So we implemented what we called the inventory sweet spot system.
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And here's how that worked. So you create four zones
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right on the floor four areas right on the where
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the inventories being stored. And you come up with the
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red zone, and it's in the red zone items that
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haven't moved in six months. And you put all those
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items that haven't moved in six months into the red
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zone into the yellow zone items with sporadic movement, so
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they were moving faster than the stuff there wasn't moving,
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but not that fast. The green zone was fast moving items,
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and the blue zone were critical items regardless of movement.
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And these of just the important, the real important stuff
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that was critical to the to the to the majority
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of the customer base. So for each zone, we created
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a specific action plan m HM. So red zone where
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the items that haven't moved in six months we liquidated
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or returned to the vendor or or there's another thing
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that's interesting, you can bundle them with the fast moving
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stuff just to get rid of it and and basically
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you know, increase the price modulely uh. The yellow zone
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where items with sporadic movement, you reduce the quantities and
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negotiate better vendor terms with the initially better terms with
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the vendors. In the green zone. This was for fast
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moving items. This is where we increased stock, and we
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set up an automated reordering system. And then the blue zone,
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which was the critical items regardless of movement. We maintained
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safety stock regardless of cost. So we knew we always
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had stuff in the blue zone and also in the
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fast moving items, so we made sure we always had
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excess inventory there, but we made sure that we had
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very low levels of inventory in the red and the
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yellow zone. And so the results were interesting because in
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ninety days, just ninety days, inventory carrying costs dropped by
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twelve thousand dollars a month, storage space decreased by forty percent,
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stock outs reduced by eighty five percent, and rush shipping
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costs were nearly eliminated because everything was available that really moved.
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When you understand what moves and what doesn't, you can
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really eliminate that those rush orders in terms of the
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additional shipping costs and the disruption. But here's what's really interesting.
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Overall profit increased by one hundred and fifty seven thousand
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annually just from better inventory management. And that's money that
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was literally sitting in his shelves. So let me show
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you another example that will really drive this home. So Sarah,
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she runs a successful service business, and she thought she
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knew her profit margins on every service that she offered.
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But when we did what we called a true cost analysis,
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we found out something that we just weren't aware of. It.
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We broke down every service into its smallest components, so
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that means direct labor time, materials and supplies, and any
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additional hidden supplies that we used on these jobs. By
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the way, equipment usage, administrative time, follow up time, and
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hidden costs like travel or setup that she wasn't concnsidering
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at all. So direct labor time, materials, it supplies she
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always was considering. She did miss some supplies that she
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thought were just, you know, part of the cost of
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doing business, but it really came down to where she
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found the pickup was equipment usage, administrative time, follow up time,
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and travelers set up. And what we discovered is our
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most popular service, the one she thought was the most profitable.
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It was actually losing money on thirty percent of her
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jobs because she wasn't accounting for what those invisible costs.
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She wasn't tracking time spent on quote revisions, wasn't tracking
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multiple site visits, so only accounting one site visit. She
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wasn't tracking additional administrative work to complete that job. She
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wasn't accounting for or tracking equipment set up in breakdown time,
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she wasn't tracking travel time between the jobs. So once
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we identified these hidden costs, we created a profit protection
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protocol for every service. And so now we tracked the
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based service time, the support time requirements which was totally missing,
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the travel radio zones, the setup and breakdown time was
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totally missing, additional administrative requirements and follow up needs. And
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then we repriced our services based on true costs. And
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here's what ended up happening. She actually lowered prices on
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some services and raised them on others, and the result
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was her overall profit increased by forty two percent in
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just ninety days just by understanding her costs. She was
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outstanding what yeah, just wasn't understanding what her product, what
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a service cost was And when we broke it down,
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and we had to go really deep because things like
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that set up and breakdown time, it's just something that
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some business owners never consider. Some addigital administrative requirements, that's
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another thing, you know, and then a lot of the
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follow up needs. You know that those costs that are
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getting curred after the sale is delivered. That's another thing
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that wasn't considered. And once we knew the true cost
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of every component of our service, we can start optimizing
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each one. And we found that small job fall changes
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and how jobs were scheduled would compound on each other
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and and and could say forty five minutes of travel
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time a day if the scheduling was done properly, And
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that's almost four hours a week of pure profit opportunity
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that was being wasted. So this is just the first
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place where we look for hidden profit. You know, most
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business owners that just focused on sales, margins, expenses, hutting expenses,
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maybe increasing prices, but they missed these invisible profit trains.
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It's like having a leak in your profit bucket, but
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it just can't see where the water is coming out.
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So let me show you something even going a little
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deeper here with the hidden profits. So remember when I
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mentioned those invisible costs that Sura discovered in our services. Well,
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there's another layer to this that most business owners never see,
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and that's what I call a profit chain reaction. And
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here's a great example. When we worked with a manufacturing client,
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we discovered that they were losing money on rush orders. Now,
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most business owners would say, well, let's just charge more
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for rush orders, but that's just surface level thinking. When
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we dug deeper, here's what we found that rush orders
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disrupted regular production. So there wasn't just an additional cost
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of you know, rushing. There was this disruptive to regular production.
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This caused delays and standard orders. The delayed orders led
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to overtime costs over time, led to quality issues due
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to the fatigue of employees, and then the quality issues
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led to a warranty claim or it led to more
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warranty claims. So it was like a domino effect that
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was actually costing this manufacturing company two hundred grade a year.
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Oh wow, yeah, it was just it was just all
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these hidden costs that were that were developing just from
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rush orders. Mike think, it's not a big deal, you know,
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you get it out quicker, but it just caused all
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kinds of eruption to the regular standard orders, and the
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cost was a lot bigger than what they were charging
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for the rush orders. And so we divided their production
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capacity into three zones, so a green zone for standard capacity,
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a yellow zone for flex capacity, and by the way,
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the green zone for standard capacity. It was eighty percent
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eighty percent of their orders with like standard orders, fifteen
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percent was some flexible flexible timing was when the customer
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needed it. That was in the yellow zone. In the
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red zone that was where the emergency stuff was, and
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that was really just five percent of the business, but
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it caused all this disruption, and so then we priced
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each zone differently. The standard pricing was in the green
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zone that was eighty percent of the orders. Fifteen percent
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of the orders was flex in terms of timing when
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they needed it. That was a fifty percent premium, and
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then there was one hundred percent premium on the red zone.
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So that properly pricing it so because of the cost
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that it was really causing. And then so they hired
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a swing shift crew that only worked when yellow or
243
00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:18.279
red zone orders came in. And the results was that