Small Business Growth: It Can Kill Your Business

That’s right! Growth can kill your business. As a self-employed business owner, entrepreneur or solo professional most of you are compelled to seek small growth business.Small Business Growth: Does The Growth Fit?
In my personal business coaching practice one of the roles I take on for many businesses is that of a marketing business coach. As a marketing business coach I look at how we can promote the business and where to promote it.If small business growth is not consistent with your core expertise you can be setting yourself up to fail. For example, there was a business that was exceptional at house cleaning. Running a business had been very successful for the owner. One of his customers happened to be an executive with a large grocery store chain.As the relationship developed the executive wanted the home cleaning business to bid on cleaning and buffing the floors of large grocery stores. Talk about small business growth. To the owner this was the opportunity of a lifetime.The owner went ahead and successfully bid on the floors for the grocery store chain. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the cleaning expertise and organization to do a good job. The grocery store floors took him away from his core business. Within a year he was out of business.When you are looking at business growth the first question you must ask is does is fit with what I am already doing? The grass and the money may look greener on the other side. But, getting to the other side may force you into an abyss that you will never crawl out of.Small Business Growth: Is It Profitable?
As a marketing business coach we must look for a level of profit that will sustain the current small growthbusiness as well as any future growth.Back in the 1980’s there was a company poised for small business success that came up with a retractable battery cable box. If you were starting your own business this looked like a sure fire idea for business success. For those of us who have used battery cables we know how it seems virtually impossible to put them back in a nice, neat format.This was an ideal product for small business growth. If small business growth can fulfill a need that no one else is, then the growth can be exponential. In starting your own business there is nothing better than a product that excites a lot of people and is something they want.This company had it all except their marketing business plan was flawed. It cost them $14.00 to make and deliver the product. They knew to recoup their costs and to have the correct profit margin that they would need to need to have a wholesale price to retailers of $24.00.They had only one marketing strategy. They wanted to be in Walmart. They figured that if they had distribution from Walmart that they could become wealthy quickly. They went to Walmart and Walmart loved their product.There was only one problem. All Walmart was willing to pay them was $16.00. If you have ever worked with large chains, unless you have built a demand before you go in, they will tell you what they are going to pay.This company accepted Walmart’s terms and figured that somehow they could make it work. Running a small business and seeking small business growth on a hope and prayer doesn’t work.The company got its original shipment to Walmart. It sold well. The problem was that they weren’t making enough profit to sustain their business. Within six months they were out of business.Small Business Growth: Grow With Care
As a small business coach my most successful clients have grown with care. They have a marketing business plan that makes sense. They have grown in alignment with their core business.They have a profit structure that will enable them to grow and survive. And, they refuse, no matter how enticing the prospect of small growth business, to be seduced into compromising their profit principles.Small business growth is desirable. But small business growth is like planting and tending a garden. You must plant and grow with care. Always know your marketing business plan and your profit goals and your small business growth will take you where you want to go.

When Is The Best Time to Sell a Business: Age or Market Based?

Deciding when to sell your business is not a straight forward process. A business owner might say, “When I am 65, I will retire and sell the business.” Sadly, there are many business owners that never make it to 65 and have to sell their company long before they or their business are ready.Age-Based SellingBasing your decision on selling when you are a certain age can drastically affect the price that you get for the business.Consider this scenario. A small business owner decided she wanted to sell after 30 years of working her business. Sadly, at 25 years, she had health issues and struggled to work in her business for the next 5 years. Slowly the revenues declined as she physically could not lead the business and her desire to run the business waned. Sadly, at the 30 year mark, her business had a very little value and ended up just closing the business after 30 years.Had she planned for her exit, she would have seen the signs and decided to sell after 25 years instead of waiting till 30 years when the business had no value.Unfortunately, no one knows what will happen tomorrow and having a plan for selling will allow you to make a quick decision to sell before a company is out of business.A Plan for Selling Your BusinessIn order to maximize the sales price of your business, here are 5 things you can do to prepare.Decide what “triggers” you to sell? Every business has a life cycle. Ideally to sell your business for the highest price, you will want to sell when the business is at the peak of its life cycle. This is often when business owners say, “I am making more money that I have ever made.” It is also the time when most owners are loving their businesses the most. This is the time to sell that will maximize the selling price. If building your business to sell for the maximum price is important to you, then you might consider this strategy.Triggers that show you are at the peak of the life cycle include:Few competitors
Thriving economic market
Highest profits
Fast growthPrepare your business as if you were going to sell tomorrow. Once you recognize the trigger and decide to sell, you will need three to five years of tax returns. If you have not been keeping “clean” books you do not have time to clean them up. By “clean” books I mean removing all non-essential write-offs, like the family trip to France every year to order new products. This can lower the value of your business and to maximize your selling price, this needs to be removed.This also means, have a growth plan and active marketing plan, all things buyers want to see, as well as secure your top employees. If you know we will sell, put retention plans in place so that your top talent will be staying with the business.Consulting with a business broker early on can better prepare you for how to prepare your business for selling.Actively watch the market environment to spot indicators to sell. Many business missed the “peak: back in 2007 and watched the value of their business decline through the Great Recession. Determine which factors will indicate to you the peak and actively look for the indicators. Holding on too long will reduce the value of your business and reduce your net.Although no one can really know when the best time to sell will be, following these simple steps and you can be more ready when you do decide to sell your small business.

Why Start a Work at Home Online Affiliate Marketing Business?

Firstly, let’s have a quick review of some advantages of the work at home online business model.When considering work at home opportunities, a particularly successful type is an online business using the internet. In simple terms, the internet has become the most effective medium for communicating information to people and which provides the most advantageous way for businesses to market to potential customers.For the work at home online business, not only is internet marketing the greatest money making opportunity in history, but it also has the benefit of providing low start up costs, when compared with a conventional or franchise business.Just compare the following 8 advantages:1. No need to have an office building or shop as with a retail business, and all of the costs that go with it like rent, insurance and utilities.
2. No office decoration, furnishings and equipment or retail shop fit-out. These can also potentially delay the start of business operations.
3. Low operating costs due to the business only requiring a computer with an internet connection.
4. No requirement for stock inventory, thereby avoiding purchasing and storage.
5. Negligible initial costs compared with up-front franchise fees and royalties.
6. No requirement for employees and their associated costs.
7. Small advertising budget compared with conventional marketing advertising costs.
8. Possible quicker revenue stream than a conventional business.Unlike the conventional business model, online direct response marketing is sufficiently flexible to enable it to be adjusted and customised to each work at home online business budget.A work at home internet marketing business can be started and run successfully with a computer having an internet connection. To maintain the low cost of the online business, products can be in digital format which are delivered to customers electronically, not only is this quick, but it also saves on conventional delivery costs.An even easier and lower cost business model is to market other peoples’ products and receive commissions for the sales made. This is known as affiliate marketing which is outlined below.The owner of the product carries out the following 3 activities:1. Developing and creating the product for a particular target market.
2. Providing the sales letters and other marketing items for the product.
3. Arranging the receipt of sales payments and the affiliate and the affiliate commission program, together with the product distribution and dealing with customer queries.The work at home affiliate carries out a number of marketing strategies including the following:1. Developing a web-site with affiliate links to promote the products.
2. Applying strategic affiliate marketing methods to provide an increasing flow of potential customer traffic directed towards the web-site.
3. Directing the customers via links back to the product owner for the purchase and subsequent delivery of the product.With the producer of the product, having completed all the development, written the sales letters and put in place the auto-responders, the receiving of payments, affiliate marketing commission programme, product distribution etc, it is the main task of the affiliate to concentrate on developing a web presence and then get potential customers to their website.The importance of this potential customer traffic cannot be underestimated. It requires the application of strategic methods which will provide a continual flood of this traffic from the relevant target market. This means that those people who visit the work at home affiliate marketer’s website are actively searching for a product which will fill a need or provide a solution to their problem.