The profits of a business flow through a funnel. All profit improvements come from improving one of these six.

1. Volume of New Customer Leads

2. Percent of Leads who Buy

3. Percent of Existing Customers who Buy Again

4. Average Sale Amount

5. Gross Margin (Sales minus costs of what was sold.)

6. Net Margin (Gross margin minus overhead costs.)

It’s hard to generate ideas for really broad goals like “increase profit”. Sometimes it helps to use this list to divide and conquer.