Hard-nosed, feet on the ground and street smart people can teach us some of the best management lessons that not even Ivy League professors can.

Recently in Bangalore, I got into a conversation with my taxi driver. He said he had migrated to Bangalore with fourteen rupees in his pocket a decade back, after having a fight with his father. Today, he was married to a girl whom he met, has two taxis (bought just recently) which he runs and is soon expecting a child. He seemed very content and happy. I asked him what was his secret to making money? What he said floored me.

He said that I run my taxis only when there is heavy traffic and the roads are choked. He drives his taxis from 8 am to 11 am and again from 5 pm to 11 pm. He said that these are peak hours, traffic is heavy, demand is heavy and his taxis are never empty. According to him – “More Traffic, More Profits”.

I thought that it was a brilliant strategy and a great insight. Isn’t it true that even cities that have the highest traffic are the ones that are the most prosperous, take Mumbai, Delhi, New York, Bangalore for example. Isn’t it also true that retail outlets in high traffic areas make more money than others?

So, if you want to make more profits, go to where the customer demand is the highest and use this commonsense to even make the product or service available when the demand is the highest. And rest of the time, you can rest.