I acheived this by applying some of the 7 ways to grow a business and, just in case you are reading this and thinking turnover is all very well, it is not just about turnover, as within this larger turnover figure, I have increased prices also (sometimes by 40-50%) to make the business more profitable also.

I am looking at putting together a business seminar on how firstly to go about buying a business and then on if you have one, how to grow it by applying the 7 ways to grow a business and will be titled ‘Success in business’.

If you are in the UK and are interested in these business seminars please post a comment on this article or email me at info@in-business.org.uk.

Good luck with your business in the present economic situation.

I have just invested in a new business and this has taken up my time – I bought a new business back in October 2010 and will admit that it has taken all my focus for the last 6-8 months. The industry was completely new to me and the learning curve extremely steep – the business designs, manufactures and installs fitted furniture, mostly built in bedrooms and home offices – so it is not only an industry I don’t know, but also I have never run a manufacturing business before!

So if you were to ask me – “What to invest in now?” – I would have to say ‘Invest in a business’, which can either be existing or a new one you start from scratch, which is a continuation of my last post ‘where to invest cash’ and to show the readers of my business blog, I put my money where my mouth is!

You could spend your time looking at the best money investments - the banks; premium bonds; property etc. but ultimately, one of the highest returns you will make is when you buy a business…let me explain further:

If you were to use an ‘investment return calculator‘ you would enter certain information – the period of the investment, the amount of the investment, the return and so on. At the end of the investment period you would achieve a certain level of ‘Return’.

With a business, there are two investment returns to calculate, the first is the ‘cash’ generated from the business each year, which you might choose to take out by way of salary or dividend. Secondly, you have the ‘capital growth and so long as you make the right choices in your new business and it grows over the period of your ownership, then if the amount you sell it for is higher than what you paid for the business in the first place or more than the money you used to set it up from scratch, this represents capital growth. So for example:

If you invested £100,000 in a business and receive a £20,000 annual dividend from it your annual investment is 20%, however if after 10 years you sell the same business for £500,000 your capital investment is 400%, but if you add the two returns together your total return would be 600%, assuming the dividend you take out from the business over the ten years remains at just £20,000, which is unlikely. There is no bank, pension or ISA that would give this level of return on the market, and that is not simply because interest rates are low right now, but this will never be the case.

You will have to do some hard work though – running a business is not for the faint hearted and the risks are much higher, but you can’t expect to get a high return without higher risk and without a bit of work.

The other consideration is that, of the £100,000 used to set up the business or to buy it from another owner, some of this could be borrowed money from a bank. So if for example, you were able to secure a 60% loan on your investment, your own personal capital outlay is now just £40,000.

This makes your return on investment much higher, because you have leveraged your money – which in this case the total return of note above of £600,000 would mean a total return on investment of a staggering 1500%, which might make the answer to ‘What to invest in now?’ much easier.

So what are the options open to investing your cash?

- Put it in a deposit account and earn a very low amount of interest?
- Invest in property?
- Invest in a business?
- Invest cash in stocks and shares is a possibility?
- ISA’s, Pensions and other investments or what about government bonds?

The above are a few ideas of what can be done and in many cases for most people this is a bit of a dilemma! A colleague of mine is trying to raise a significant amount of capital for business investment purposes, and it seems as though the majority of the people he has approached are wary of the ‘Double Dip’ potential, so are holding on to their cash right now.

One of the problems with cash is that, certainly with interest rates so low, the amount you will earn with it sitting in a deposit account will not keep up with the rate of inflation, so that in the long-term the buying power of your cash will lessen over time.

However, this is not to say that you should rush out and spend it all, however, having said that I can quite understand where the Bank of England Governor is coming from, if people don’t spend because of their worry about a ‘double dip’, they will inadvertently bring about the ‘double dip’ anyway, as the result of holding back – a kind of self fulfilling prophesy as it were!

So if cash is not a good option, then what about the other options open to investors right now. Well the good news is that it is extremely cheap to borrow right now (if you are able to obtain the loan in the first place and if you shop around), so if you decide to borrow to buy property or to buy a business, then this is can be extremely exciting and highly rewarding.

Right now, that is exactly what I am doing – I am combing some of my cash with a loan from the bank (at the rate of just 4.59%!) to buy a business. The return on my cash investment is looking like 105% in the first year, which to my way of thinking is an excellent return on capital, and way in excess of what it will earn in a deposit account or in property and is well in excess of the UK’s rate of inflation right now!

I would always recommend that you do your homework, but don’t be blinkered – there are too many people that say I can’t do this or that, or I don’t have the money etc. Instead of telling yourself ‘I can’t do this or that’, ask yourself questions using the word ‘HOW‘; like how can I do this or; how can I do that; Your brain likes questions like this. If you ask the right questions your brain can set about to answer them, whereas if you tell yourself it can’t be done, well guess what – ‘It Can’t!‘ and you will be right.

This article is not meant to be about investment advice, as I am not regulated by the FSA, but it is about making you think about other ways of using spare cash to invest in other areas that you might not have done before.

It might be worth your reading my article about the ‘Power of the Subconscious Mind’  if you want help with your thinking on this subject.

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’.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.