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THIS PAST JULY I received a very in- teresting – and entertaining – book from my daughter as a gift for a milestone birthday. It was entitled Younger Next Year and written by a tag team of Chris Crowley, a former litigator, and his internist, Henry S. Lodge. Crowley was an out-of-shape retiree when he was educated by his new doctor about the biolog- ical science of aging. Dr. Lodge told Crowley that your body falls into a default decay cycle starting in your 40s. You lose thousands of cells on a daily basis. The only way to reverse this process is through vigorous daily exercise – walking, jog- ging, cycling, kayaking – which grows new cells to replace the decaying ones. According to Dr. Lodge, if you follow a strenuous exercise regimen for one hour a day (golf and tennis do not qualify), at least six days a week for the rest of your life (of which two days per week must be reserved for strength training), you will live a long, pain-free life. Of course, you must also cut out the "crap food" and snacks that you know are bad for you, too, and limit your daily alcohol intake. Research has proven that devotees of such a program live wonderfully active lives well into their 90s. A fair percentage even pass the century mark. Indeed, if Crowley committed to such a program for the next 12 months, he would not only feel a whole lot better, but also "look younger next year." The vanity motivation was enough for Crowley to make a commitment, and he experienced fantastic results. Now I am a semi-retired person in decent shape who exercised 4-5 days a week for the last two decades. I usually jogged, or lifted weights at the nearby gym, for between 40 and 60 minutes a day. But I was so inspired by this book that I decided to kick up my ftness regimen. Starting August 10th, I exercised strenu- ously for a full 60 minutes a day for 6-7 days per week. I dropped my ritual of eating a box of Raisinets at the movies and relegated glasses of wine to only on the weekend. By Labor Day weekend, I was down 10 pounds, down 5.5% in body fat, and my chronic back stifness had disappeared. I certainly can't say I looked younger. But I felt a whole lot better, was physi- cally much stronger, and had a lot more energy through the day. BUSINESS FITNESS REGIMEN In fact, I was so pleased with the quick results that I immediately start wondering about ap- plying the same vigorous ftness concept to the kitchen and bath industry. What would that look like? What resources would I need to educate and guide me into making my kitchen/bath frm stronger over the next year? In trying to put my- self in the shoes of a kitchen/frm owner today, here is what I came up with. First and foremost, I'd want to know how fnancially strong my business is today. Sure, my accountant may say I'm doing okay. But he doesn't know a lot about the kitchen/bath industry, and he doesn't seem to have much time to educate me about the desired metrics of construction frms in general. I may be somewhat shy of earning a 40% gross proft on my latest income statement. Hitting that number seems to be the gold standard for the industry. But are there other, more important fnancial metrics that my com- pany should be achieving in 2016? If so, what are they? And how do my recent 2015 results compare to the most successful dealer/owners in the industry? Regardless of how long I may have been in the kitchen/bath industry, and how much my sales may have grown in recent years, there's always room for fnancial and operational improvements. Time to swallow my pride and take of the blinders! If some of my metrics are indeed below this group's average, what does my company need to do to match or exceed them? Are they even doable this year? It's like knowing exactly what your body weight and body fat percentage are today so you can establish realistic goals to fulfll a New Year's resolution that you make. These "before" fnancial benchmarks would be critical infor- mation for me to learn. They would help me de- termine how much time I should allocate each day, week or month to working this business development and ftness regimen to close any key metric gaps. JOINING A 'BUSINESS GYM' Next, based upon the benchmark comparison, I would focus on one or two key goals to make my business stronger in 2016. It would be exceedingly helpful if the benchmark compar- ison came with advice of how to improve my weaker fnancial metrics. In the absence of such recommendations, I would defnitely want a bigger net proft in 2016 for the sheer risk and efort involved in designing and producing kitchens and baths seamlessly to ft like a glove for all my clients. But what's the best way of earning more net proft? Just generating 10-15% more in 2016 revenue won't alone do it because there are variable expenses involved – overruns in the cost of goods sold, sales commissions, payroll taxes, etc. – that will diminish the net I make as an owner. And, the more my company sells and has to produce, the greater the risk of staf and/or subcontractor error. That's the primary reason why my gross proft percentage on completed projects always seems to be lower than what the jobs were sold for. That leaves (a) buying products and subcon- tract labor services better, (b) increasing prices, and (c) reducing overhead as the only impactful improvements to directly strengthen my bottom line. All are critically signifcant goals. But, on which should I concentrate my energies frst? And how do go about accomplishing them? Here's where I would reach out to industry organizations to discover what educational re- sources would be available. It could be that one of these organizations becomes my "business gym." After all, January is the traditional time of year to start getting in shape. Maybe there are proven pathways to achieve my business goal of a stronger bottom line. Or even published ma- terials for such objectives as taking the correct steps to buy products better, to increase prices without losing sales and to reduce overhead while retaining quality personnel with key skills. Networking opportunities among the veteran "gym rats" might help me determine which objective should be addressed frst and the best strategies to follow. KEN PETERSON, CKD " Pleased with the results of my vigorous ftness program, I started wondering about applying the same concept to the kitchen and bath industry, and what resources I'd need to make my kitchen/ bath frm stronger over the next year." Read past columns and features and send us your comments about this article and others at KitchenBathDesign.com Making Your Business Stronger This Year 34 Kitchen & Bath Design News • January 2016 BETTERING YOUR BOTTOM LINE