Deploy Assets in New Ways

By Steve Gillman

One of the more creative strategies for making more money with your business is to deploy assets in new ways. The creativity starts with going beyond money and employees in your defining of assets. Time, equipment and space can also be redeployed to either generate new revenue or cut costs--which are both good ways to improve the bottom line.

To start with a simple example, a company might make more money selling off their equipment, then leasing it instead, while using the money raised for a good marketing campaign.

Space is an asset of course, and you may not be using that with maximum efficiency. I know of an ice cream shop that rents out their lot to Christmas tree vendors and others during the winter months, rather than just leaving that space empty. If you owned a furniture store and you weren't able to fill all the space fully, you could sublet a corner to a company that sells non-competing but complementary products, like paintings or artificial plants. When you use an asset to produce extra income like this from non-competing businesses, the extra revenue is almost pure profit.

How do you deploy an asset like time in new ways? To start with you can look at how you spend your own time and try to focus more of it on the activities that bring in the most profit. But you can also look at time in other contexts. For example, I know of a bakery that sublet their facilities to a pizzeria, because they only needed to bake between 3 and 7 in the morning, and the pizza business only needed the hours from 11 in the morning to midnight. They were both able to use the same ovens, sinks, etc.

Employees are assets (they better be, right?), and there might be better ways to deploy them. Are you overlooking the sales skills of a worker who is busy in the back room? Is the fastest employee doing the work that benefits most from speed? Perhaps you could have the most frugal employee in your company look over every expense and find ways you can save hundreds of dollar per month.

To do this systematically, start by writing down everything that you use to make money. Include anything you can think of, like your car, advice from others, your sales ability, and more. Then carefully review this list. You'll probably find some ways to deploy assets in new ways that will boost your bottom line.

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