LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Forget about the big ideas and focus on the little things to increase your bottom line.

Thats advice from David Brown of Holiday Companies, who credits small ideas with helping to raise the companys profit margin from 3 percent in 1998 to a projected 21 percent this year.

"When I look at the evolution of our company, and of the whole industry for the past 30 years, I cannot pinpoint any single big idea that has made anyone rich," Brown says.

"The changes we have seen -- video, satellite, electronic logs, WiFi and so on -- havent really made anyone much money."

He pointed instead to the hundreds of small changes his North Carolina-based operation has implemented, such as e-newsletters, employee security badges, keyless yard gates, driver bunk rooms, onboard hand sanitizer dispensers, mirrors in sales offices, using catalog request data as sales leads, and on and on.

"The real point is that all of these changes, taken together, have put us on a path where we excel every year," he says. "The secret is a willingness to embrace and effect change."

Brown spoke last month during the education sessions at UMA Motorcoach Expo here.

His embrace of incremental change started when he hired a business consulting firm more than a decade ago and came away from the experience with the realization he needed to make changes to shift from "working to create a comfortable company, to building a successful, goal-oriented, driven, highly profitable company."

Over time, he adopted four new management practices: creating supervisory roles and responsibilities to empower and engage all levels of employees; instituting a schedule of meetings for management, supervisory and other employees; setting budget targets and assessing them on a monthly basis, and seeking new ideas and implementing at least three every month.

Small or large, Brown shared five of his own ideas about running a successful company:

1. Get the "family" out of "family business."

"At Holiday, my whole family, even my extended family out to my great aunts and uncles and cousins . . . have and are working for the company, and that is a great asset.

"However, no one gets special privileges because they are family. Every family member who works for the company gets the same salary as any non-family member in the same role," he says.

2. Embrace change.

"Create a spirit of change that permeates your entire company. There are better ways to do everything. You just need to find them, and implement them."

3. Get the right tools for the job.

"Whether it is education, like UMAs Bus and Motorcoach Academy, consultants, support groups, whatever it takes to get you ready to succeed. If you are committed and prepared to make a difference, these things pay for themselves rapidly," he says.

4. Recognize your own value.

"No one will ever pay more than you ask," he says. "If you want to work for free, volunteer at the Salvation Army. They could use the help."

But, "if you want to make money, run your business well; price for significant profit, manage your expenses and treat your employees like the professionals they are."

5. Make every decision a business decision.

"There are hundreds of ways to hold yourself back from success. Resist. Never make emotional decisions, always step back and analyze the business effect of your next move," he says.

"At every EXPO, you and I are routinely asked how many buses we have, as some measure of our success. I would rather spend time talking to a five-bus operator making a 20 percent net than to a 50-bus operator making a 3 percent net.

"That five-bus operator is sitting on a ton of great ideas that I want to take home and copy to improve my business."