and even though I wasn't making a presentation, she knew who I was and had positioned herself next to me as we sat down. After the pleasantries were out of the way, she came straight to the point. Brad, I need your help, I remember her saying. She went on to explain how tight the margins were thanks to the competition. She complained that even though they were handling plenty of work thanks to good advertising and healthy word of mouth, their profits were remaining stagnant as all the extra work was being done almost at cost. It was a story I'd heard often. As we pulled into Barbara's business the first thing that caught our eyes was the line of moving trucks all in the same striking color. As always they were immaculately clean, a true reflection of Barbara's professional ethos. Impressive, mused Charlie. Once inside her office I began the lesson: Do you remember that fateful networking breakfast where we first met? The seventeenth of July, 1995, she fired quick as a flash. Your problem wasn't a lack of work, but the fact you weren't making enough profit out of a pretty sizable turnover. That was pretty much it. After coffee had arrived on that July seventeenth morning, we had done a little brainstorming. I was convinced that with her already robust client base and steady stream of work, there had to be a way of increasing the average dollar sale and thus improving profitability. After about 10 minutes of throwing ideas around we hit the jackpot. Insurance, a checklist of other products and services, and increased prices. By offering all her clients insurance for their move the average dollar sale would go up, and since the insurance had a huge margin, profits would increase 47