Use your resources, equipment, employees, facility, as much as possible!
I often remark to myself when I see idle resources, how much that must be costing the owner. For example I always see heavy equipment sitting idly on a job site, waiting for the right moment to spring into action as they sit sometimes for weeks. Can you imagine the debt service and ancillary costs associated with expensive piece of equipment? Yet it remains still much of its life, wasting money.
Restaurants that close on Monday’s. Figure it out, there is always a way to cross train and stay open and still give employees a day off. Capture the market, do not let them go elsewhere because you are closed! Not in this day and age of reduced revenues ans increasing costs. Use your resources as much as possible.
My wife and I visit a Sunday tag sale, occasionally, with hundreds of tables or booths, and at noon or earlier with hundreds of people still walking around and still buying, the dealers begin to pack up and leave. Why, I ask in disbelief, would they possibly be leaving before its over…AT NOON, WITH HUNDRED’S OF PEOPLE WALKING AROUND? WHY? I ASK. I do not get this. Use your resources as much as possible.
Same with trade shows, on the last day everyone is packing up as early as can be. I have displayed at dozens of trade shows in many industries and I have always made it a point to stay in full display until the last possible minute on the last day as I watch everyone else breakdown and leave as early as they can Over the years I have always, always pulled in a big deal or made a great contact or something special happens in the last few hours of the last day with the person always commenting about our commitment to doing business while everyone else is more interested in going home.
Full utilization of your resources, that is the objective. You have already covered the overhead cost, get the most out of what you have. Produce profitable revenue, use your resources as much as possible.
Service industry wanting to sell people who normally work during the week, should understand that much of their market also works normal working hours thus they need to be open different hours to accommodate the market requirements, and to maximize the use of the resources.
How about ten hours shifts per day for four days and a skeleton shift the remaining three days…greater productivity, no overtime. Use your resources as much as possible, the overhead is the same but spread it out over greater productivity and the profits go up up up.
Be open on Saturdays, evenings and holidays…why not? Train someone to do the job.
Open your facility as many hours as you can, figure out how to get the market there.
Use your resources as much as possible. This is no time to waste any opportunity. Midnight sales, early morning hours, whatever it takes to squeeze one more dollar out of idle time, do it.
