COUNTIF Formula when a cell feference is blank

[drico]

Hi,

I am trying to use a countif formula with 3 criteria referencing a 3 different cells. Here is my formula

=COUNTIFS(Companies!$B:$B,$B$1,Companies!$C:$C,$B$2,Companies!$D:$D,$B$3)

However I am trying to modify it so if one or more of the cell references are blank, such as B1, it still counts the other two remaining criteria?

Hope this makes sense.

 

[tygrrboi]

How about this?

=COUNTIFS(Companies!$B:$B,IF($B$1="","*",$B$1),Companies!$C:$C,IF($B$2="","*",$B$2),Companies!$D:$D,IF($B$3="","*",$B$3))

 

[drico]

It didn't seem to work. Do have another suggestion?