We have saboteurs.

Organizational roadblocks.

And usually, they're family and friends questioning your approach to profit margins.

The fifth Critical step is Optimize Your Environment – critical for sustainable earnings improvement.

The people around you either fuel your business optimization or extinguish it. There's no neutral.

When I introduced my ski guarantee, most of my team thought it was insane. They saw only risk to our financial performance, not opportunity. Had I listened, we would have missed that 25% revenue growth.

This isn't just about negative people. It's about surrounding yourself with the right mix for effective profitability strategies:

• Challengers who question your thinking about cost reduction
• Supporters who believe in your vision for bottom line growth
• Experts who fill your cash flow management knowledge gaps
• Accountability partners who keep your business efficiency initiatives on track

Without this environment, even the best strategies fail. The constant questioning of your direction wears you down. The lack of specialized knowledge creates blind spots in your financial performance metrics.

This doesn't mean cutting people out of your life. It means being intentional about who influences your thinking about business optimization.

Maybe you need a mastermind group of owners focused on profit margins. Maybe you need a coach who's achieved the revenue growth you're aiming for. Maybe you need team members with complementary strengths in earnings improvement.

Your environment shapes what you believe is possible for your business's profitability.

Look at your current environment honestly. Who's lifting your business efficiency? Who's holding back your bottom line growth? What voices are missing?

Then make one change today to optimize that environment.