Tag Archives: Business Owners

Business Development, Business Strategy, FAQ, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

What Defines a Serious Business Buyer?

Individuals who desire to purchase an established small business must be well prepared before the search process begins. Well managed, profitable and successful businesses are in short supply and very high demand. Business owners and business brokers alike have little patience and interest in wasting their valuable time with buyers who have not taken the appropriate steps to demonstrate that they are fully prepared to acquire a business.

How does a buyer define themselves as being a “serious” candidate and not a casual, curious, tire kicker? The goal of this article is to outline the steps that a business buyer should take in advance so that they can stand out and be recognized as a serious and credible buyer?

Let’s start with a few examples demonstrating who is NOT a serious candidate. Continue reading →

Business Development, Business Strategy, FAQ, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

Why Businesses Do Not Sell

It would be nice to live in a world where every business-for-sale was sold at top dollar. While there is no such thing as a perfect business free from all defects, there are a number of problems that can hinder a sale that could be remedied, if given enough time. This article lists ten of the reasons which are often cited as contributing factors in an unsuccessful sale or a completed deal for less than potential value.

Business intermediaries need to be up-front with their seller clients, educating them on the challenges faced, and the likely impact that one or more of these issues will have on completing a successful transaction.

1. UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

a. Valuation/Listing Price:

Arguably, the price a business is listed at is one of the critical elements to a successful sale. An owner’s emotional attachment to their business, coupled with an inexperienced business intermediary’s desire to obtain the listing and please the seller, can be a recipe for disaster. Overpricing a business will deter knowledgeable buyers from establishing communications. Additionally, it will be extremely difficult to defend the valuation when a business has been priced unrealistically. The typical outcome is that the listing will languish in the marketplace and recovery becomes more difficult. Once on the market for months on end at the wrong price, the process in re-pricing and re-listing creates a whole new set of challenges, the least of which is maintaining credibility. Continue reading →

Business Development, Business Strategy

How to Start a Plumbing Business

So, you want to start a plumbing business. This could be a terrific decision, or, it could be the worst idea ever. Starting a plumbing business, or any business really, involves a certain amount of structured thinking to put everything in place, and making sure that you have thought of everything. By following this strategy planning process, you will have covered all the important aspects of getting your planning and strategy in the right place, and this will make the starting of your own plumbing business some 450% more successful.

The Strategy Required to Start Any Business

Starting a plumbing business, a bakery, or a high-tech company all requires the same basic thinking strategy. To remember it best, use the EASI acronym. In this case, E stands for emotion, A for achieving a win, S for simple and straightforward and I for the implementation.

Everybody wanting to start a business should be aware that it is going to involve plenty of challenges, hardships, stress, worry, and a multitude of other issues. The process of starting a business has often been likened to jumping off a cliff, and building an aeroplane on the way down. It will mean sleepless nights, long working hours and the unwavering support of family and friends around you. This is real, and the reason so many start-up businesses fail.

The first step, therefore, is to examine the reasons that you want to start the business in the first place. This involves an examination of the emotions, or feeling behind the rationale of starting your own plumbing business. Everyone will have their own reasons for wanting to start their business. It may be as a last resort as they are unable to find employment in the field, it may be that they hate having a boss, it may be that they want to become extraordinarily wealthy. Whatever the reason, it is essential that the owners of the business, if there are more than one, are aware of the strength of their emotions regarding the venture. This will determine the power of the motivation, the real forces behind the venture, and, with the aid of a skilled consultant, allow the prospective business owners to determine if their vessel will survive the storms on the ocean, or if there needs to be some additional emotional management included.

The second item speaks to the vision, or goal of the organisation. A prospective plumbing business may have as its goal to be a loss leader and therefore a tax write-off. It may be that achieving a win with the business would be familial survival, or putting children through school. Either way, all the owners need to be able, collaboratively, to understand what the goal is and to have a combined vision of the business that everyone can buy into. Without this shared vision, any subsequent planning and strategizing will ultimately be negated and sporadic, with everyone involved having different goals and aims, instead of pulling together in the right direction.

Keep Things Simple and Straightforward

It does not take any real skill to make things more complex. The real genius in any situation is to make things more simple. This line of thinking is propagated by all the top entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. Albert Einstein often used to say that if you couldn’t explain a thing to a six-year-old, you didn’t understand it yourself. In light of this strategic thinking, the next piece of advice is to keep all your plans and strategies simple and straightforward. Set a goal that everyone involved, all the stakeholders, can buy into. See where you currently are, and plan a way to get to that goal that all concerned can understand, appreciate, and take ownership of.

The final step in setting up a new plumbing business is to implement the strategy. Without a rigorous implementation strategy and plan, all the goal-setting and personal examination of business vision and motivation will just become a distant wish. Implementation plans fall into five basic categories; overall business strategy, financial planning, human resources and communications, sales and marketing, and project management. All businesses must be able to conduct planning with respect to these five regions of business expertise in order to be successful.

Implementing Your Plumbing Business Strategy

The first step in initiating the plan within all the five sectors that need examination is to complete a real, practical, and genuine business plan. Having gone through the initial strategic thinking process as outlined above, compiling an overall business plan should be relatively easy. Nevertheless, failing to spend sufficient time aligning a business plan to the strategy will mean that the business is also likely to fail, because one of the well-known factors in determining business success is that more than 80% of successful businesses have determined their overall strategy in detail, aligned the business plan, gone into each aspect of the business plan in detail, and repeat this strategic thinking process regularly amongst all the stakeholders.

Once the business plan has been compiled in detail, with all the necessary inputs being not only realistic but pragmatic as well, then the detailed considerations in each of the five business aspects can begin. This should dovetail with the business plan, but expand on the details simply stated in the plan to some extent. In the case of a plumbing business as we are considering here, some of the parameters in these five aspects of the business will be examined. Not in an attempt to intimidate any prospective plumbing entrepreneurs, but rather in an attempt to illustrate the importance of this strategic thinking process, and the reasons why it should be conducted in detail, and why utilising effective and experienced business consultants will not only increase the chances of success, but probably save substantial money in the medium to long term.

Five Business Areas to Conduct Planning

These five business areas, as related to a plumbing business, are strategy, financial, sales and marketing, human resources and communications, and projects. Overall strategy has been discussed in some detail, and following the above instructions will guarantee success in this regard.

The financial planning aspect when starting a plumbing business is of crucial importance. A detailed understanding of potential income, and expenditures related to the running of the business need to be examined. Whereas these are obviously tied in the overall strategy, the practical aspects of a plumbing business will need to be added by the stakeholders, using their experience and knowledge of the field. Office premises, the maintenance of stock and supplies, transport, and the ability to survive until the income exceeds the costs needs to be determined. All potential financial considerations, such as stakeholder input, the possibility of generating loans and financial support and receiving up-front payments all need to be planned in great detail.

Income of a plumbing business is directly related to the amount of work undertaken and the charges levied on this work. In an overall sense, the amount of income must exceed the costs of the business, and the aim of any sales and marketing plan is to ensure that this is, in fact, the case. With the advent of social media and the internet, the avenues available to market a business have increased exponentially. The starting point for any plumbing business, like any service related business, is to determine in as much detail as possible who exactly the people are that would be providing the business with revenue. These people, as a whole, are called the buying persona of the business. A plumbing business may, for instance, decide to stay small and provide after-hours services to family and friends, or it may target large corporate projects and tenders. Or anything in between. The better any prospective plumbing organisation understands exactly the behaviour, like, needs, wants, and aims of their prospective market the better they will fare. The example here is that a plumber who caters to the lower end of the economic market would use more print media and posters to advertise the business, while a plumber catering to an upper market segment may elect to use social media more since richer people have smartphones and will be reachable using digital platforms.

Human resources and communications requires detailed planning on its own too. Depending on the structure of the plumbing organisation, and their unique selling points, there may be a customer service department required, or a marketing department if this is the determining factor of achieving business. Planning and structuring the organisation accordingly will depend on the overall aims and vision, but will need to take the entire business plan into consideration.

Plumbing services generally will require on-site operations and the effective management of these operations as individual projects. Good project management is key to any service industry and the basic principles of project management is going to be essential. Once again, though, project management should not be seen as a complex and difficult issue, but rather a simplified and straightforward way of dealing, and communicating with all the stakeholders involved in every project.

The Required Starting Blocks of a Plumbing Business

These steps, as outlined above, if conducted thoroughly and efficiently, with the businesses core vision in mind and a positive collaborative mindset as a starting point, will ensure that the business has a better than 80% chance of success. However, as stated numerous times during this discussion piece, this is not a 5-minute exercise. This is a detailed strategic thinking process that will require honesty and commitment. There are certain things, therefore, that should be borne in mind before even embarking on the strategy process.

The first is an audit of the emotional intelligence of the stakeholders in the plumbing business. Like any service industry, plumbing involves hard work and much on-site work where things can easily go wrong. A high emotional intelligence score amongst the business owners is the best possible indicator of success. Emotional intelligence means being able to cope and manage the stresses and challenges involved, it means training your mind to find solutions in the midst of chaos happening all around you, and it means being able to be an effective leadership team who can steer a business through uncertain times. On the other hand, it does not mean someone who succumbs to the influences of anger or vindictiveness. Emotional intelligence can be learned and improved upon, so it certainly can be developed, but it is key that this quality be determined before initiating any business.

Secondly, there needs to be an understanding that knowledge is vital. The prognosis for a baker who wakes up one morning and sees a plumber friend making lots of money and then decides to start a plumbing business is unfortunately not very good. Plumbing, in order to be successful, needs to be done well. In a highly competitive business environment such as there is today all over the world, any business needs to actually be good at their job to be successful. It is for this reason that it is a prerequisite of starting a plumbing business that the stakeholders at the very least have access to high quality plumbing services. This includes knowing all aspects of the work, the market potential, and the survival rates of their competition. Without this core knowledge, no matter how good the strategizing process and the plans that come out of it, there is no chance of success.

In conclusion, therefore, starting a plumbing business is easy. Starting a plumbing business that is successful and over the short, medium, and long term can deliver on the aims and requirements of the owners is less much less easy. The key differentiator here is having a good, well thought out and innovative strategy, and using this strategy to generate and compile effective implementation plans in the right areas. JFK always used to say that efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction, and so it is with many things, and starting a plumbing business is one of those things.

An example of how to think strategically when starting a plumbing business

 

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sean_C_Lubbe/1980162

 

 

 

 

Business Development, Business Strategy

5 Ways To Make Your Business Work Harder for You and Your Family

Many business owners are working so hard at their business that they fail to enjoy the rewards of being the business owner. If you are letting the life of your business overrule the business of living your life, then it is time to begin turning the tides.

Finding ways to make your business work harder for you and your family is the reason we all started our businesses in the first place. If your business is obstructing your efforts to enjoy life with friends and family, this is a problem. We all know a lot of work goes into building a successful business, but if it is consuming all your time, effort and energy… is it worth it?

Why this coordination is important:

Every time you find new ways to help your family benefit from the efforts of your business, your life balance and family life improves.

If your business consumes your entire life and your family life suffers because of it, your spouse and children may actually resent the time that you spend there. Even if it provides a great deal of income, the value of family and social life may be sacrificed.

Make your business help you, your family and your social life. You will be happier, healthier and live a longer more rewarding life.

5 Ways To Consider:

Consider paying children’s education expenses as wages for work

Many small business owners make a good living and have higher than average incomes. This can cause their family to qualify for little to no college financial aid when their children are ready to attend college.

If you are going to have to pay for it anyway, why not pay your children to help out at your small business. Pay them as an employee, contractor or consultant to do work for you and your business.

If you pay them enough to cover their college costs, you will receive a tax deduction for the cost of their college education by deducting their income from your business. They will be responsible for helping out with your business and they may surprise you with how much value they add to the business. New ideas, new technology, a new and different viewpoint might be just what your business needs.

Schedule family vacations around business travel

When a family vacation is something you’re considering, think about coordinating it around a work trip. Do you need to go to conventions, trade shows, seminars or other training for work? If you drive to go to those business activities, your gas mileage is tax-deductible regardless of how many individuals you have in the car with you. Does this conference or training trip require you to stay in a hotel? Your hotel expenses for that night can also be deductible regardless of whether you have your family with you in the room.

Scheduling family vacations around business travel can help make it more manageable. This allows you to enjoy time with your family or friends while also working on your business. Consult with your spouse or family to coordinate the two.

Manage taxable income and year-end purchases to lower tax bracket

Operating and owning a business requires seeing the big picture and planning for the future. Your business will likely need new or updated equipment, computers, other technologies etc. to operate smoothly and efficiently. Be able to forecast these needs.

Here is where you coordinate your tax situation with these needs. If you know you are in need of new equipment, computers, etc. in the near future, look at your taxes. If you are looking at a higher tax bracket for the year you may want to make these necessary equipment purchases sooner than expected. Or you may want to wait until next year. This requires consulting with your business advisor to determine the best option.

Use Retirement Plans

Consider reducing your current income by using a Retirement Plan. Not only will this help you once again for tax purposes, but it’s also helping you and your families future. So many small business owners neglect to put retirement needs on their priority list. Often we hear “my business is my retirement plan.” Putting all of your eggs into one basket can be extremely risky and even dangerous for your future.

You may want to consider adjusting your salary in order to account for contributing to a retirement plan. There are many ways to rearrange things to make it possible to contribute. The tax savings alone can help justify the redirecting of your income into a retirement plan. Be sure to look at all of the different options and scenarios as this will provide further clarity.

Also if you choose to offer your employees a retirement plan, this will help attract quality employees, retain them and allow for an additional tax savings for any company match. You may even be able to take a few days off without worrying about the business functioning without you! Think of how that would allow you more family time. Consult with your financial advisor to clarify your options and the benefits to you, your business and your family.

Consider adding or using a home office arrangement

There are many benefits of utilizing a home office arrangement for you, your business and especially your family. If you’re currently renting or paying for office space it may be feasible to create or use an office space at home. With technology today, working out of the house has become much more functional.

If you’re solely stationed out of your home, this provides for another tax benefit. You are able to write off the portion of your mortgage that accounts for the square footage of your home office. Also any improvement expenses, internet expenses, utility expenses or taxes that are directly related to your home office may also be deductions. Finding ways to cut taxes is crucial for a small business owner.

If your line of work makes it unable to be based completely out of your house, even just working a day or two from home will allow you to spend more time around your family and add some flexibility to your work schedule.

Your Challenge:

Here are 5 ways to help your business work hard for you and your family. Share your ideas with your spouse, children and business advisers. In every case that we have executed these strategies properly, the rewards were three-fold. Family life improved, your work-life balance improved, and the business also benefited.

You’ve worked too hard to get your business to where it’s at… It’s time your business returned the favor!

If you are a small business owner in the Buffalo,WNY area and have any questions on any of these considerations, please feel free to reach out to us at 716-662-4470.

 

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Chelsea Maderer is a Financial, Investment and Tax Advisor in the Buffalo-WNY region. She helps individuals and families to Clarify their needs and goals, Solve their problems, and Simplify their life to avoid the common mistakes that get in the way of enjoying life and retirement.

For more information please visit: http://SFTAweb.com.

 

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Chelsea_Maderer/2425629

 

 

 

 

Business Development, Business Strategy

Hiring a Business Coach That Facilitates Substantial Growth

Running any business alone can be self-fulfilling for every entrepreneur but equally as tough and impossible to successfully manage. With this in mind, hiring a business coach is always a smart move because the opinion of an expert enables and facilitates businesses to reach their full potential. The business coaching industry in the US has grown in recent decades to a worth of over $12 billion highlighting its impact and the need to find the best business coach for your business so as to unlock maximum potential.

Even the best business coaches require the services of other business coaches to effectively understand, explore and take advantage of the many specifics in their individual business set ups.

Hiring a qualified coach can improve leadership and facilitate expansion in domains of fundraising and project management. However, there exist many important considerations in finding the best or ideal coach for your business. These considerations include;

Cost

Cost is a very important consideration in the selection of an ideal business coach and it most often depends on factors like specialty, of expertise and location. Although experts are usually very expensive, it’s possible to find affordable cost effective coaches. For and other social businesses, investing time and effort could easily find low pay experts who could offer coaching services as support of causes. Before even setting out in search of a coach, it’s necessary to study your budget and clearly allocate what can be used for coaching services so as to prevent over-extension into debt.

Best Business Fit

When sampling potential coaches for any business, key to make sure those with the best fit for your business are the target. For example, hiring an ideal non-profit coach would entail narrowing to affordable coaches in the social business domain with proven track records of success. This can be assisted by personal and social feedback recommendations in combination with actual discussions with these potential coaches.

Possible Time Engagement with Coach

This is a slightly complicated consideration when looking at getting a business coach because the dedicated time engagements are usually very much dependent on expertise, and location. However, ensuring the arrangement of quality and long enough time with your coach increases the effectiveness of the relationship. Furthermore, time for meetings and follow up work must be set aside to make the best out of the coaching.

Preparedness for Change

In order to set up for maximum benefits from engagement with a business coach, it is essential to be prepared for significant changes. This is the productivity of the relationship doesn’t only depend on the quality of advice from the coach but also on the preparedness of the management to listen and make changes with respect to this.

Hiring a social business coach can give and other social entrepreneurs the extra edge required for substantial growth, but their services would have to be cost effective, best fitting, and available.Their advice will also need to be and implemented for results to be eminent.

The many benefits associated with hiring the ideal business coach can be summarized under the following points;

Extra, Required Motivation

The one great quality almost every business coach will offer is relentless motivation and getting business owners unstuck when stepping into their own way. No matter the self-motivation possessed by the owner of any business, moments arrive when it’s almost impossible to apply this self-motivation. In times like this, an all-important push to recovery from a professional is required even if it’s simply in the form of confirming something already in your mind and plans.

Unafraid with Unbiased Opinion

A very important asset carried by business coaches is the ability to always provide unbiased opinions that are often absent in the management setting of many businesses. Furthermore, not being afraid to offer correction and confrontation to founders is very beneficial to every business as it often leads to solutions that others close to the business would have missed.

Stepping Outside Comfort Zones

In the absence of a business coach, it is very easy for business introvert managements to become overly comfortable and engulfed in their own ideas and goals limiting for expansion. Seasoned business coaches will encourage adventure and the trying out of new things that could be of help for your business and also curb over eagerness for extrovert entrepreneurs that could end up with being caught ruts. Moving out of your comfort zones with encouragement from your business coach breeds confidence which is usually translated to the achievement of very big goals.

Support in the Identification of Strengths and Weaknesses

An experienced business coach offers the capability of identifying patterns that assist in the discovery and exploitation of your strengths while taking note and addressing weaknesses. The outside perspective of a business coach goes far beyond sorting likes and dislikes but to the extent of uncovering useful hidden talents, and potential.

Increased Focus on Ideas and Business Needs

Hiring enhance creativity as they present increased opportunities to brainstorm ideas together fine tuning them with almost never leaving the business. Also, they ensure focus isn’t lost from the business goals employees, clients or family. Business coaches ensure priority remains on the business without sacrifice of other parts of life such as health which are important to successfully integrate for guaranteed success.

Goals Management and Accountability

Audacious goals are always well understood by coaches and they collaborate to enable realization. Managing business goals though isn’t a quality possessed by many entrepreneurs. With the help of coaches, there is understanding of how classification and follow up can be set up to monitor progress with respect to goals.

Setting up, managing and realizing the most audacious business goals hardly come without accountability during to someone. Your coach plays the role of an accountability partner with the responsibility of reminding you of set goals and promises to be fulfilled.

Having highlighted some of the benefits of hiring a business coach, it is fair to conclude all businesses especially start-ups and struggling projects would improve management, marketing and particularly fundraising with ideal social business coaching increasing expansion capability.

Chris Bouchard is a creative coach who helps artists and non-profits position themselves for success and realize their full potential. An accomplished grant writer and fundraising consultant, Chris started his business in 2013 to help small non-profits through the sometimes overwhelming prospect of navigating the world of social business. To contact Chris, please visit his coaching website at [http://www.cbouchard.com]

 

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Chris_Bouchard/2361240