Always have ... Always will

As a consultant, the key 'technique' to improving someone's business is simply to keep asking them the questions ..."Why do you do that?", "Why do you do it like that?" and "What else could you do?"

Ask these questions enough times about enough parts of the business and he/she ( the business owner) will eventually start thinking - and come up with his/her own ideas for improvement.

However, you will not be surprised to find that the commonest answer to the middle question is a shifty look, a hesitation and something like "Well, that's how we do it round here."  Firms do something in a particular way because that's how they started doing it ... and there has never been a reason to challenge it.

Of course there might be better processes, better technology, faster machines or whatever that have emerged recently but the business owner is unlikely to haver done any research to find that out.

So, he/she may not have a real problem - but may be missing a real opportunity.

Don't be that 'Aways done it this way' person.  Review what you do and how you do it on a regular basis. Talk to others in the same industry.  Visit some trade exhibitions and keep up to date.  Search out opportunities to improve. otherwise if you keep missing them, they will turn into problems.