I have decided to write this article about the keys to selling a business, as I get really frustrated with vendors of businesses and with brokers that do not seem to know what they are doing!

Today, for example, I emailed a broker regarding the purchase of a business that they were advertising - ‘Offers invited for a quick sale’, which turned out not to be the case – so business sales brokers need to get their act together.

Secondly, business owners and business sales agents need to get to grips with what vendor finance is, as not many are aware of this, including brokers and to know about it and to accept it as a part of the sale price is crucial to ‘Get your Business Sold. The above same broker did not fully understand the term vendor finance either.

Another way to describe vendor finance might be ‘buy out’ or ‘earn out’, which all amount to the same thing – the vendor of the business is effectively lending to the buyer in order to get the business sold.

Of course the terms of such lending or ‘earn out’ must be agreed to by both parties and can include the charging of interest and it can also be aligned to the business achieving certain results. To protect yourself as the vendor, the earn out or ‘Loan’ should be secured against the business, so that should the buyer not pay up, then you get the business back. You might think that this is a problem, but so long as the new owner has not completely ruined your business in the interim, and so long as you got some money up front, you now have the business to sell again.

I would always suggest that buyers of businesses look at the one third rule: one third own capital; one third bank finance, and; one third vendor finance.

The important thing to remember is that you are ‘Selling your Business’ and for a reason and if it sits on the market for months or even years (which of course does point to an over valuation), you are not achieving your goal. By allowing a staggered payment structure to your business sale you are more likely to make a sale, as you open it up to a larger audience that might not have all the capital or borrowing powers.

The business sales market is always in the buyers favour the majority of the time any way, as the are always thousands of businesses for sale and only a few buyers in comparison, so why not make it easier for the few that there are. Treat a potential buyer with respect and as if they are like gold dust – make the buying process easy for them and make sure you have all the information, like accounts etc. to hand when it is asked for.

When you come to sell your business – ask your broker if he understands vendor finance or staggered payments, if he looks at you blankly or advices against this then I suggest you get yourself another broker.

If you have a question on this subject please register at our business forum and let sus know ‘Business vendors’ and ‘Business Buyers’.

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

If you are looking for a business for sale online then probably one of the best sites that I have found so far is businessesforsale.com.

With this site you can register for free and browse the businesses for sale without having to register until such time as you want to make contact with a seller of a business.

You can opt to upgrade to a Premium Buyer if you wish for £14.99 per month or £89.99 per annum which entitles you to certain added benefits, like seeing newly advertised businesses 14 days before the non-premium buyers.

In my opinion there is no need to upgrade, as it is highly unlikely that a business would be sold within 14 days so you are paying out money unnecessarily.

If you are looking to sell a business and you are looking for a site to use, then I would also recommend this site too. I would recommend that you disclose as much information as you can too and as a minimum the buying price, the business turnover and annual profit. There are many businesses on this site that do not quote these figures, which in my opinion is crazy and will limit the number of enquiries.

Before you put your business particulars on the site – take a look at what the others have said. Read the ones that would make you interested and then write your advert and read it back to make sure you feel it would make your businesses inviting to potential investors.

Always be honest with the information you provide about your business, if you don’t the true picture will always be found out at the due diligence stage of the purchase, which should be carried out by the buyer – the sale could then fall through. This would be crazy to have this happen, as it can take a long time to sell a businesses and it will also cost solicitors fees to get to that stage.

Click here to go to businesses for sale.

One of the top questions and top search terms is how much is Donald Trump worth when in fact what people should probably ask is “How did Donald Trump get started?” or “How come Donald Trump is successful?”

I have found a video which partly answers the second question and probably the most important message to come across with this interview is about belief and enjoying what you do! Donald Trump is not a “The Millionaire Inside” the show was changed to suit “The Billionaire Inside“.

I always remember speaking to one of my own successful entrepreneur clients and commented to him that what he did was not a job and that it was not even work for him, but instead it was like play – he really enjoyed what he did and it was his passion and he ate slept and lived his business – hence his success.

So if you are looking to start out as an entrepreneur, then I suggest that you start a business which sells a service or product that you have a passion about. If you are already a business owner and your business does not seem like it is going anywhere, then ask yourself this question “is this my passion?” The likely answer is no if things are not going too well.

If you take time to listen to this interview with Donald Trump, maybe you might get the inspiration you need to succeed in business and you might make a change in direction that makes all the difference. The other important point to get from Donald Trump is that it is never too late to change and always worthwhile making changes to your life in order to be completely fulfilled.

Donald Trump on The Millionaire Inside – Erin Burnett 1

I came across this video which explains about the five mistakes an entrepreneur makes in business.

We all make mistakes and if we are smart we learn from those mistakes and move on. However, if we can learn from other people about mistakes not to make in what we are doing then even better – so if you run your own business and are already an entrepreneur or if you are considering setting up in business then I recommend you watch this video, as it has some good tips for you.

Five Biggest Mistakes That Entrepreneurs Make

The achievements of Sir Richard Branson are quite incredible and can be admired by everyone whether or not they are themselves an entrepreneur.

I found this video and really enjoyed watching this interview with some interesting facts about Sir Richard Branson. Most of us like to know things like how much is Richard Branson worth with his businesses with the Virgin Brand employing around 55,000 people and turning over some $25 billion (£15.7 billion)!

This is a real honest and open interview with Richard Branson and quite amusing at times and shows a real insight into what he is about and I hope it will inspire the readers of my business blog! He is open about both his successes and some of his failures and how he managed to save his airline Virgin Atlantic when things got a little tough with his competitor British Airways.

Richard Branson: Life at 30,000 feet

Business on the internet exploded in the early days with porn and porn sites and the “sale of sex” in all forms and this continues to do so – Sex sells, as they say!

To just show how important the word “SEX” is on the Internet and that “Sex Sells” is that if you “Google” the word sex you get 743,000,000 results, however, I did some playing around with some other Google searches and was surprised to find the results shown in the table below.

I will admit that I expected the search term “Sex” to be top of this list – so I have learnt something new today – it is said that you learn something new each day!

So I then decided to do some more research and typed in the search term “internet revenue statistics” to find the highest revenue earner on the Internet and was surprised to see a website with a title “Internet Pornography Statistics – TopTenREVIEWS” of the 330,000 results was No. 1 on Google!

This was not quite what I was looking for or even expected, but might in itself be revealing about could still be the main business revenue generator on the World-Wide-Web!

As I had found this site, it was worth a look and it gave some statistics for 2006 Worldwide Pornography Revenues, where China was top of the list spending $27.4 Billion per annum on porn (representing $27.41 per capita).

However, the highest, per capita spend was in South Korea where on average each person spends $526.76 on porn making a total of $25.73 billion annual spend in total for the country! To see the full details of this report go to Internet Pornography Statistics.

Highest Internet Revenue Earner

However, this is not what I was looking for – I would like to find what is the Highest Internet Revenue Earner and whether there are other businesses on the Internet that have overtaken the “Porn Boom” from the early days of the Internet.

I think the billions of revenue earned from porn on the Internet is going to take some beating – what I also found interesting was the number of search results for “Poker” sites or online gambling – the revenue generated from online gambling is expected to be around $18 billion by 2010, which is no where near the adult industry revenues!

So if you are going to set up an online business then should you set up an adult one?

Well I say why not – Sex is one of the most natural things in life and one of the key reasons for life, i.e. pro-recreation. However, sex has and probably will always be a taboo!

So how can you earn money in the adult or porn industry?

There are many alternatives from phone sex sites to pornographic content sites that you could set up yourself – however, there are so many affiliate programs these days that all you need do is to set up an adult website or blog and form links with adult affiliate programs and link your site off to these.

What is interesting about the top porn website listed above, pornhub.com, is that you can view porn for free! So how do they make their money you might ask? One method is that on their site there is a link to a premium service, which includes HD quality and a lot more scenes that people are prepared to pay for.

As pornhub.com is the top site listed for the two main adult searches of “Sex” (215,293 per month) and “Porn” (278,910 per month), which is a total of nearly 500,000 monthly searches on those two search terms alone. To be No.1 on Google for this many searches is like winning the lottery every day!

So to conclude with this article “Sex Sells” for sure, but I am still not sure whether this is the top revenue earner for the Internet.

James Caan – Entrepreneur

Another successful “Dragons Den” businessman James Caan made his first money from the “Textile Industry”.

Read about James Caan and how he made a success out of business so that his story can help to inspire you in your business journey.

Peter Jones – Entrepreneur

Another very successful businessman Peter Jones and has taken part now in a number of the BBC series “Dragons Den“. Mr Jones made his money in the telecoms industry and many will have also seen him on the BT business adverts for computer and IT support. Peter Jones has also gone on the judge the hit American TV series American Inventor which is a reality television series based on a search for America’s best inventor.

How have I achieved my success?, by Peter Jones.

Another inspirational video to watch if you are looking to go into business and want to make and grow a successful business!

A good video to watch if you are considering starting or buying a business or if you have a business and you are looking for some inspiration.

The BBC’s TV series Dragons Den has found and inspired many successful business owners and in this first video the focus is on Duncan Bannatyne – Success stories in business.