Valentines Day is next month.

With love in the air maybe its time to share that love with your stores revenues and expenses sheets.  

Recently in a conversation with a member store they were trying to figure out ways to increase profit and looking for a model to follow.  The suggestion was made to find two stores that are a similar in sales volume and business type (off sale or combination).  One being higher and one being lower in sales volume, but both must be profitable!!!! There is a catch... because it's all about the profits. "Show Me the Money"

Examining numbers of the other stores that are profitable or more profitable we are able to review two major areas of our business.

Gross Profit:  If our margin is too low, we may need to review our buying procedures to lower our Cost of Goods.  Evaluate our mark ups.  Review our promotions, i.e. are we promoting too many popular items at one time.  Another possibility of low gross profit would be internal theft.

Operating Expenses:  Are they too high in comparison????  The first place to look is labor, are we overstaffing, can we get by with two instead of three or one instead of two?  Do we need to adjust business hours?

Our association is built on helping each other, feel free to contact similar stores and ask them "What are you doing?"

Remember, if we as managers don't do our job, it will show in the numbers.  The numbers will then show..... we are no longer the manager.

MMBA is here to help our member cities.

Michael Friesen

Hawley Liquors

(Editor's Note: The above article was from the local Isle newspaper.  I checked with Cheryl to confirm the net profit number for this combination on-sale and off-sale was correct.  If it was, it is a fantastic 15% of sales. 

She responded, "Yes our net income, before year end auditor adjustments is over $142K.  We've made some great changes and tighter controls and it really shows at the bottom line.")