Is your company bleeding precious cash every month because your SER (your Sales to energy ratio) is too high? You can dramatically lower your Sales to Energy Ratio simply by understanding a few simple facts.

First, it is important to understand that you cannot compare your Sales to Energy Ratio to any other business types ratio. Second, each company’s Sales to Energy ratio will be different based upon the configuration of their operation. Let’s imagine that there are two absolutely identically built a fast food restaurant chain stores. They both reside in the same city, but this city is on the shore of a lake in the Midwest, we’ll take a city like Chicago for instance. A franchise restaurant near the shore overlooking lake Michigan will typically experience a temperature difference about five to ten degrees lower than their identical counterpart as little as a half mile inland.

As you can see by the above example, the two food chain stores will have different energy needs just based on micro climate temperatures alone. This is not accounting for things like wind and sun exposure. Then you have the actual flow of business visitors to compare. Your Sales to Energy Ratio is your own . It is based upon your own company and its specific location and customer flow etc. You must compete with yourself with regard to your SER. A low ratio is good, like a gold score. Meaning that it takes a small percent of your sales to cover your monthly or annual energy costs. Let’s say that your restaurant uses about $3000 per month in electricity, if you are the franchise owner, that means that if you, through proper energy management , can save as little as 5 percent on your electricity per year you will have pocketed roughly $2000 every year from now to eternity.

If someone offered you $2000 right now, no strings attached, would you take it? Thought so! This free money is not so far from reality. Many, and more likely most, businesses have poor Sales to Energy Ratios and are unaware that the SER notion even exists. This is mostly because costs are costs and you need gas and electricity to run your business, so you have no choice, right?

Not so. Sadly, that business degree you might have hanging on your wall that you obtained in college likely failed to address the harsh real world of business. There are all sorts of economic models out there that tell all of these wonderful things about business, except the harsh reality for the small things that quietly undermine many small and large businesses, things like energy expenses. Yes, it might have been addressed when you got your B.S. in business operations, and that energy is indeed an expense just like they told you, but beyond that, too many business school professors who teach in ivory towers lack the understanding of true real-world Energy Management.

This leaves it up to you to understand this area of your company expenses on your own—but there is help. In our modern world you have options. These options include hiring a professional to come in and evaluate your operation , often for thousands of dollars. Or, for a relatively small price, you can take an interactive online Energy Management Course that explains most everything you need to know to immediately begin reducing your Sales to Energy Ratio and thus, your energy costs.

With the low cost of such online Energy Conservation Courses and their interactive nature , plus a time commitment of only minutes per day, you can implement energy saving measures today! A quality online Energy Conservation Course can be done at your own pace and at any time night or day 24/7 , so if you are a real ambitious type you can go through the course in about a day’s time. The best courses allow you to access the course information for several months after you’re done, allowing you to review and perfect your energy management techniques for your company. But buyer beware! Make sure to opt for an online course that allows you to ask the instructor questions. An energy management course does you little good when you are left with unanswered questions.

Depending upon the energy needs of your company and the size of your staff, it is usually extremely beneficial to get one or more employees from each key department educated properly in energy management, and then have these people confer a couple times per year to discuss what they have been doing in each department.

Companies who go it alone and skip the formal online Energy Management training typically see savings when they implement their ad hoc energy management program, but companies who get their employees trained properly in energy management see higher sustained gains in reducing their energy expenses.

Stay on the right side of the statistics and get several people on your staff and yourself properly educated in energy management. All too often businesses are paying too much for energy, not because the price per energy unit is too high, but rather because they are wasting energy as if it cost them nothing. But energy has a very high cost, and that cost is even higher when your company is in the red. Don’t wait for the red ink to start flowing on your income statement. Do something about Energy Management Training now .

When driving around most cities today you’ll see businesses with government subsidized solar panels on their roof tops. Now don’t misunderstand this, solar panels are a noble venture for a noble cause. But they are expensive, and often take decades to recoup the initial subsidized investment. These panel subsidies rob the tax payers for your perceived benefit, but you actually benefit little or nothing in the long run, because you could have invested that money, maybe even less, in a stock index fund with greater compounding returns. That is not money well spent by any stretch of the imagination for a business. Sure, it might make you look good in the eyes of the community, but you’re still wasting money on wasted energy while producing energy, so basically you are doing nothing. If you run factory and I tell you that your inventory investment will not repay itself for ten or twenty years, what will your response be? You would most certainly find a different supplier. A small investment in educating your key employees will bring about immediate savings and give you true green energy-That’s energy that you never used because you are doing it right !

Don't forget to check your Sales to Energy Ratio! . A great SER can save you more than you would expect.