The Blatt Watch by Peter Blatt: A New Way of Looking At Things

From the desk of Peter Blatt

October 17, 2012

How many times have you heard, I wish my company or I could make some extra income?

This is neither a sales system, nor an investment income multi-level marketing strategy. This is simply another way of looking at things to allow you to maximize your net income.

As a business consultant, financial planner and estate planning/tax attorney, I am frequently surprised at how easy it is to see the things that can go wrong. In law school, they train you to look for mistakes. In business school, they teach you how to focus on systems and process. Together these two ways of thinking make me very focused on my clients.

Today’s Blatt Watch is about observations. If you own a business or work at a company, this exercise should help you improve the bottom line. Warning, once you complete this exercise you may not be able to stop the improvements. It could make you very busy over the next few days or weeks. But, you need to do this and then do the follow-up.

The Exercise for Making Extra Income

Get up from wherever you are (after reading this), and walk into your reception or customer service area, sit down, open your mind and think about this for a few moments…I am a successful entrepreneur and I just bought this business.  I need to increase the bottom line.  I’m going to add one ancillary product or service that will help me achieve this goal.  What additional product or service am I not providing now that this company could either do or refer out and make a profit from?

Then run, don’t walk and get this new service/product implemented. If you need help, ask for it.

Example, I walked into a residential landlord office and waited to meet my client. While I waited people came in and asked about renting from the office. The salesperson they spoke with discussed the building and its fees/rent. The customer then shared with the salesperson a few details about selling their existing home and their current need for a local … (fill in the following organization: financial institution, cable company, etc).

At this point, the salesperson had the opportunity to hand a brochure outlining the details about the inquired upon local organization to the potential tenant. The landlord could charge some fee or create a fee sharing arrangement with the local organization that would be an “add on” benefit; provided there is a legal way of sharing fees (which there usually is), the landlord could increase his revenue per new client.

Epilogue, this landlord confided with me that he did this with a local company and increased his net income by $3,000 every 2 months.

Now what does this have to do with investing overall?  It simply illustrates how some companies are constantly improving and others are not. And, highlights that you need to be sure you’re working with a financial advisor that has an institutional investor reviewing which companies are improving and which are not.

It’s that Simple – – stay seated or make more money – – the choice is yours.

Until next time,