The best advice I ever got

CEO, Trian Fund Management

It was my dad who gave me the best advice of my 45-year career: "Get sales up, and keep expenses down." That sounds simplistic, but it's the way my father got 4% margins in his food business when his competitors made 1% or 2%. The goal is to get revenues moving and to keep expenses from rising at the same rate so that margins expand. We accomplished that after we bought Snapple in 1997. We returned to our roots by winning back the local delis and pizza parlors that first made the brand a success. Margins exploded, and so did the value of Snapple. It was a textbook example of my father's advice in practice.

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