Posted by admin on 2 February, 2010 under General business discussion, Online business advice | 
If you have a business you will know how important it is to get press releases out there on the Internet.
A press release is an article witter about your business that will provide information to potential customers as well as existing customers to help them decide on whether to buy from you.
Getting a press release out there will also help in getting links back to your own website be it for traffic purposes or for Google page rank reasons – either or both are good.
In-business has a business forum on which has a press release section for businesses on the internet to post articles about their own business for FREE.
So if you want to post your own business press release click this link.
Posted by admin on 31 January, 2010 under Business news |
If Microsoft can do it and increase profits by 60% and Amazon by 70% then other businesses can too.
I am hoping that people will begin to read great stories like these and get the feel good factor back. There is talk about the double dip recession but lets keep our minds focused on these great stories.
Profits jump at Microsoft by 60% boosted by Windows 7
Profits surge by 70% at Amazon
It is obvious that despite the US predicted to have a record deficit this year that America is out of recession and surging ahead. This in turn with bring along other countries like the UK for example and the rest of Europe.
Posted by admin on 25 January, 2010 under Business advice, Selling a business |
How do I sell my business is often asked by business owners and can be answered by using the following check-list:
1. Price it right – do NOT over value your business.
This might be an obvious point to make and just like selling a house with business sales, if the price is set too high you will probably not even get any viewings and will certainly not sell.
Valuing a business to sell is not as easy as valuing a house and the only true value is where you end up with a willing buyer and a willing seller. However, having said that you will need to have it valued and to do so you will probably use a business broker – which leads nicely onto my next advice.
If your business has been on the market for more than three months and certainly for more than six months then I would suggest that it is over valued.
2. Use a broker to sell your business
Not all business brokers know their stuff, so I would recommend getting a valuation from at least two brokers or probably three. Be careful not to use the broker with the highest price, as this might not be the correct business valuation, it might be to entice you to use their services, as a high valuation will be music to your ears.
3. Be willing to accept ‘Vendor Finance’
I see too many business owners and for that matter too many business brokers not willing to accept vendor finance as part of the sale. For example, if your business is worth say £600,000, I would suggest accepting £200,000 as vendor finance, which will give the buyer a bit more room to manoeuvre with their own capital and bank finance. If they are using bank finance, then subject to the present economic situation, banks will lend upward of 60% of the purchase price. In this scenario 60% of £600,000 is £360,000, added to the vendor finance of £200,000 eaves the buyer to find £40,000, which opens the sale of your business to many more buyers. However, not all banks will see this quite in this way and may prefer the buyer to put up more than £40,000, but the idea is what I am trying to get across here.
4. Remember what you have had out of the business
When you are at the point of selling the business always remind yourself why you decided to sell it and reflect on what the business has provided you over the years, assuming you have had it for a while. Too many business owners forget that they have used the business to buy their home, to fund their life for X-years and so on; they then think it is so valuable and forget the reason they want to sell and end up with it on the market for months, if not years and then blame the agent. Blaming the agent might be valid if the valuation is wrong and where the business has been over-valued, but ultimately the final decisions rest with you.
5. Prepare your business for a sale.
Buyers of business are put off by sellers that how out of date information. Make sure you have up-to-date accounts and have your management accounts as up-to-date as possible and at your fingertips, this will serve to impress the buyer and give them confidence in the business.
6. Make yourself redundant
Leading up to the sale of your business you should look at making yourself redundant from the business. Delegate your work as much as possible so that the business will operate without you as much as possible. By doing this will open your business up to more potential buyers and in turn make it more desirable and more valuable. If necessary recruit someone to replace what you do in the business and spend time training them up before you put the business on the market.
You might be thinking that this will reduce the profits and thereby reduce the value of the business, but not necessarily. Let me explain by way of an example:
Option1. Business X is making profits of £120,000 per annum and the business is very dependent on the owner with him working 6 days a week from 8am to 7pm each day.
Option 2. Business X employs two people to replace himself at a total cost of £50,000 to the business thereby leaving a net profit of £80,000.
The value of the business using option 1 would be a multiple of between 1 and 2 so let us say 1.5 times profit, so a value of £180,000 – but this business will be difficult to sell, as the new owner will have to consider stepping into the shoes of an over-worked vendor.
The value of the business using option 2 would be a multiple of upwards of 3 and if it were a 3-times multiple this would be £240,000 and a more attractive option to buyers/investors. So even if the cost of replacing the employees cost up to £60,000 the business value would not be affected greatly, but you would have a much more attractive sales proposition to business buyers.
In option 2 the owner could spend a few months focusing on business plans and focus on improving the business in other ways, now that his time is not taken up running the business, which in turn would make it much more profitable and in turn more valuable for sale.
7. Employ a consultant
You could opt to employ a consultant to help you get your business into a saleable condition – email me for details – info@in-business.org.uk. A few thousand pounds spent sorting your business out before it is put on the market could earn your tens of thousands back in the asking price and a quick sale.
Posted by admin on 3 January, 2010 under Business advice, Business news, General business discussion, Looking to buy a business, Success Stories in business |
ENTREPRENEURS looking for corporate ‘bargains’ over the festive season have been in luck as thousands of businesses are up for sale across the UK.
Those with ready money have been able to pick up businesses cheaply from specialist brokers and listing agents.
Business Sale Report, a leading listing service, has seen a 30 per cent rise in the number of owners advertising in December compared with November. Director Robert Moore says in addition to sales of distressed businesses, entrepreneurs who previously held back because the market had been depressed are now selling.
‘If you have cash and are able to move quickly, it’s a good time,’ he says. ‘Any business where it is easy to see future cash flow is in demand.’
Christopher Jones of business broker Sunbelt says there are lots of buyers in the market looking for the right opportunities. ‘We’re seeing buyers coming out of the corporate world looking for cash flow,’ he says. ‘There are also strategic buyers, picking up equipment.’
Kevin Uphill, managing director of business broker Avondale, says: ‘Buyers are there. After all, where do people put their cash now?’
Buyers can also try to negotiate lower rents and cheaper loans. The Government is pressing banks to lend to small firms and buyers are even finding it possible to borrow from the vendors through deferred payments.
But alongside the festive crackers there are some real turkeys with hidden problems. ‘ There are opportunities, but you have to be pretty savvy,’ says Moore.
Buying a business that has already gone into administration is fraught with difficulties as the administrator must realise funds quickly, putting a tight deadline on deals. Buyers also have to question whether a business will withstand the departure of the owner, who is often the founder.
Uphill says: ‘ The biggest single issue is the quality of the information on smaller firms – without visibility, there are high risks. There are real opportunities but if you cannot see the risks, don’t touch it.’
Many of the potential buyers are first-timers, says Jones. But this market is also proving attractive for existing businesses that are seeking to increase their market share.
Chartered accountant Russell Bowyer, 47, from Linton, Cambridgeshire, is convinced that doing deals in a recession is a good idea and he is negotiating to invest in Deep Clean, a nationwide cleaning firm that specialises in commercial kitchens.
Bowyer has a long record of business ownership, albeit in the care and accounting sectors, and he has been looking to expand his portfolio for some time.
He believes Deep Clean fits the bill because insurers require all commercial kitchens to be cleaned. There is competition, of course, but Bowyer says: ‘There is a good market.’
Bowyer, who is a client of Sunbelt, adds: ‘There are thousands of businesses for sale and far fewer buyers.
‘Interest rates are also lower so, in theory, you can get cheap money. If you buy in a boom, there is more competition from other buyers and interest rates are higher.’
Copyright over this article belongs to The Mail on Sunday
Posted by admin on 29 December, 2009 under Business news, Business opportunity advert |
If you own a business whether that is an online business or an off-line business with a website you might want to get press releases out there on the Internet.
in-business has a business forum for various business discussions and it also has a ‘Press Release’ Section.
So if your business has a new press release and you want to post it on oue business forum, then please feel free to do so!
Posted by admin on 25 December, 2009 under Business advice, Business development, What you measure you can manage |
Here at in-business.org.uk we would like to wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
If you are looking for some ideas on New Year’s Resolutions then these might help…
1. If you have an idea for a new business and if till now you have been putting it off…make a resolution to commit to taking your business idea forward in 2010! Read about How to Start a Small Business.
2. If you are bad at doing your filing (Like me) then how about promising to keep up-to-date with your filing in 2010.
3. If you have been thinking about ‘Writting a Business Plan‘ and a cash flow forecast for your existing business and been putting this off…stop putting it off and get to it! Make 2010 the best year ever for your business…write a business plan and set your business in the right direction – Don’t fail to implement!
4. If you are too busy doing things in your business and doing what I consider ‘Working In’ your business…promise to start delegating in 2010 and start ‘Working On’ your business in 2010. Learn how to delegate task in your business!
5. If you are not sure about where your customers are coming from and you do not measure your advertising costs versus your new client inflows…consider s New Year’s resolution of starting to ‘Measure and Manage’ your business. Also consider starting a ‘Marketing Calendar’. Develop your business Key Performance Indicators or KPIs.
Whatever your New Year’s resolution for 2010 and whatever you do in your business
Posted by admin on 15 December, 2009 under Business advice, Business news, Businesses in Trouble, Credit crunch |
I am again saddened and annoyed at the Unions and their short sighted view over the company that the staff they represent work for, that being British Airways.
The unfortunate insight they have missed is that the damage they are doing, not only to present customers and the damage to goodwill, but also to their long-term goodwill. Please don’t let this icon of a company go the way the British Car Industry and Coal Industry went, which were both destroyed by the British Unions – work together with the company to make the company profitable and ensure it’s future.
If anyone is a worker for British Airways and they happen to read this article – I would like to appeal to you and ask you to re-consider your views on strike action. If the staff of British Airways strike now during the festive period, not only are you destroying peoples holidays, wedding arrangements and Christmas’s, but you are also putting a huge nail in the coffin of the company’s future – thereby jeopardising your jobs.
I am certain a huge percentage of the people who will be affected by this strike would never book with British Airways ever again and it would make me think twice about booing a flight with them too, that’s for sure.
The government has to be answerable to this situation too and I think they should step in and change the legislation on Union powers. I am of the opinion, if staff are not happy in their work or in what the company is doing, then move on and get another job with another company or in another industry – don’t be selfish.
Unions need to recognise that there is a deep recession going on right now and that the airline industry is going through a tough time – British Airways made a stonking loss of over £400 million last year and will likely make an even bigger loss this year. No company can survive these types of losses and the management must make cost savings. If the company makes a loss then it is in real danger of going out of business. If British Airways goes out of business then no one will have a job – so that will have achieved nothing, except for the destruction of the company.
There is of course the possibility of a takeover and I am sure that Sir Richard Branson is rubbing his hands together right now and contemplating this eventuality, but even with this outcome there will undoubtedly be redundancies – so I would argue having a job is better than no job at all.
Posted by admin on 13 December, 2009 under Business advice, General business discussion, Selling a business |
Honesty in business is as it is in life and a must and extremely important.
If you are about to sell your business or if you are in the middle of selling it then make sure you are honest from the outset…not only with the broker, if you are using one, but also with potential buyers.
If you tell lies at the outset or during the initial stages then it is very likely this will be found out at the due diligence stage of the selling process. The problem with telling lies is that if they get found out you may put off potential buyers and lose their trust.
Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer and you will know that they will feel both stressed and worried about the whole process. Don’t make it worse for them by putting any element of doubt in their mind…they may be thinking if you are lying about one thing you might be covering up any number of other things and they may well walk away from the deal.
I remember going to look at a business which was being advertised as turning over around £8,000 per week, when in fact it was only turning over around £4-5,000 per week. Admittedly, at some point in the past this business had been doing this level of turnover and more, but the broker had not bothered to update their advert. This then wasted my time and their time in looking at a business which was highly over valued.
Always remember that with the majority of business sales that it is a ‘Buyers Market’ and rarely is it a ‘Sellers Market’ – which means that when you have a buyer on the hook, as it were, you want to play them well and nurture the whole business sales process from start to finish.
Article by Russell Bowyer
Posted by admin on 4 December, 2009 under Business advice, Business cash flow and planning, Business development |
If you are looking to for advice on creating a cash flow forecast then here are a few tips and pointers.
Firstly you need to distinguish between what is ‘Revenue and Expenditure’ and what is ‘Cash Inflows and Cash Outflows’.
Let me explain this by way of an example:
When you raise a sales invoice to one of your customers there are differences between how this transaction affects profit and how the same transaction affects your bank balance and when.
Let’s say you raised the invoice on 28 November 2009 and the invoice was for £1,000 (net of VAT or Sales Tax). For profit and loss purposes you would include £1,000 in the November profit and loss account, which is very straight forward and quite obvious really. However, when it comes to recording the ‘Cash-effect’ of this same transaction you have to put a little more thought into how you record it.
Firstly, if you are a business that has to charge VAT or Sales Tax then the amount that you will receive (the Cash-Inflow) will be more than the £1,000. If the rate of VAT or Sales Tax was 15% then the amount of ‘Cash’ you will receive into your bank account will be £1,150 and not the net amount of the invoice. Also, not all customers pay you straight away and in some cases customers can take months to pay you. So let’s say that this particular customer pays you in 30-days time, which would be on 26 December 2009 (forgetting for the minute that this is in fact Boxing Day!). Therefore for cash flow purposes you would include £1,150 in the December cash flow forecast – giving you a timing difference.
Finally, you would then need to include the £150 as a ‘Cash-Out’ part of your cash flow forecast when you paid the VAT/Sales Tax to your Government, which might not be until February 2010.
There are other complications that might come into play with your profit and loss versus your cash flows and you will have a similar complications associated with business expenditure and how these interact with ‘Cash-outflows’.
The best way to prepare a cash flow forecast is to spend a bit of time planning it and reviewing what actually goes on within your business. You will also need to consider any capital expenditure you might be planning and how this impacts on your cash flow and how the depreciation of these assets impacts on your profit and loss account.
Article by Russell Bowyer
Posted by admin on 17 November, 2009 under Business advice, Business cash flow and planning, Businesses in Trouble, Cash flow problems, Credit crunch, How to save money ideas for business, What you measure you can manage |
There are many ways of improving Cash Flow for a business and we have given you a few ideas to do just that.
To help you see how these ideas can help your business it would be worth while doing some cash flow projections. The Cash Forecaster can be used as a management tool to identify critical costs areas of the business and how these impact the future cash-health of the business.
For example – you might like to experiment with introducing Factoring or Invoice discounting to improve the flow of cash from your customers whilst you are in expansion mode – Just because a business is making a profit it might still fail if the profits are not turned into cash – Remember ‘Cash is King’ in business!
You may have heard of the term ‘Over Trading’ – Over trading is where a business is making good sales and turnover but that it is not able to keep up with the payments to suppliers simply because their customers are late in paying the company. The obvious way to correct this is to make sure that your payment terms to your suppliers are more generous than those given to your customers. Alternatively, the introduction of Factoring will help.
Having a Cash Flow Management tool to hand will help you to explore the effect these ideas will have on your business:
1. Increase sales and in particular those involving cash payment or payment by either standing order or direct debit.
2. Reduce your direct and indirect costs and overhead expenses.
3. Consider increasing your prices and especially to your slow payers – see Bowraven’s “Profit Increase Software“
4. Review the payment performances of customers and be more selective when granting credit – start using a credit report company to check the credit worthiness of potential customers.
5. Consider up-front deposits or multiple stage payments – approach a loan company to advance the money to you and offer credit terms to customers.
6. Reduce the amount of credit given to customers and change your payments terms – i.e. reduce the time allow for customers to pay.
7. Introduce factoring or invoice discounting to accelerate receipts from sales.
8. Make sure that your sales invoices are raised as soon as the work has been completed.
9. Offer early payment discounts and consider introducing late payment charges or fees.
10. Generate regular reports on receivable ratios and aging or your customer balances and use more pro-active collection techniques – involve your sales team and make sure that any commissions are only paid where customers pay the company.
11. Consider the 80/20 rule with regards to your customer list and product lines – make sure you know where your profits are coming from. You might well find that 80% of your profits are coming from 20% of your customers or 80% of your profits from 20% of your product lines – if either of these are true consider not dealing with the 80% of customers and cancel the 80% of non profitable product lines. Be careful when do this, as it might be that certain products are reliant on others, in which case they may be ‘Loss-Leaders’.
12. Take a look at how you pay your suppliers – ask for extended credit terms. Get new quotes from other suppliers and re-negotiate prices of supplies.
13. Try to reduce your stock levels (inventory levels) and improve control over work-in-progress – make sure that you are billing work in progress on a regular basis and keep write-offs under review.
14. Sell off or return obsolete/excess stock (inventory).
15. Defer or re-stage all capital expenditure.
Planning these changes and which ones work best for your business can be done using our tried and tested Cash Forecaster.
Post by Russell Bowyer
