TEMpting; How Business Buyers and Sellers Have Been Tempted This Week…

How Saleable is Your Business in 2014?
How Saleable do you want Your Business 2014?
What are you waiting for? GET YOUR SCORE…

As the one particular sale has got to a major decision time, we’re now playing the waiting game! That said, there’s been plenty to keep me busy with a growing number of Business Owners exploring the sale option.

Again this week, I’ve had discussions about what constitutes an Online Business. Just because a Business Owner calls it so (and there’s many that do!) doesn’t mean others agree.

What’s your definition of an Online Business?
And while you’re at it, what about an Online Strategy?

You’ve only got to read my blog posts over the last weeks to understand what I mean when talking about both…

GOT A WEBSITE FOR SALE?

If you want to do sell a website or you’re looking to buy a website (excellent bolt-on possibilities), please email me at dhall@businessbrokers.com.au

If any of the following tickle your fancy, please email me at dhall@businessbrokers.com.au, letting me know which one it is…


FOR SALE…

BS30 Online Venue Business

Completed Sellability Score
One meeting booked for March and details requested from another. The main focus is on the custom-built technology platform this business runs on.

BS49 Home Help…

One party is very interested. The potential has been well and truly revealed so it’s down to price and the level of comfort required to “pull the trigger”, as they say in the classics! Final questions being flagged now, prior to an offer being made (hopefully!).

BS53 Balloons! and all that goes with them…

Such corporate appeal, so untapped. It’s waiting for the savvy operator that can see past the retail component and tap into it’s possibility as a warehouse servicing the larger players. Completed the database trawl, with a number of calls being made. 4 put their hand up to receive the CA with one requesting the IM. Good work.

BS57 Online Business

Signed good to go. It’s making money! Have received signed authority’s and in the process of developing the IM now. Stay tuned.

Others I’m talking too.. are you interested in?

  • a particular event
  • project management of large Melbourne events
  • specialty educational toys
  • “experiential” advertising and events provider
  • niche in building trade (via Sellability Score)
  • sales and services
  • merchandise
  • magazine

If yes, let me know as these revealed themselves this week…

 

Exploring the Sale Option?

GET YOUR SCORE…

Onwards and Upwards!

buy | sell websites; what have you got to sell?

OnlineBusiness

 

OK, so you’ve got a:

  • website
  • online business
  • internet business

and you want to know how to go about selling it?

Like any business sale, one starting point is to list all the “assets” it owns as well as the processes it goes through to deliver the product or service.

Essentially you want to “map” the business, whether that be via a mindmap or a photo of a whiteboard or a note in a journal. Why? because it’s not only imperative that you understand what makes up the thing you’re selling but that it is also easy to explain.

Importantly, you want the potential buyer y to see themselves doing what you do, only better!

Then it’s about pulling together all the proof required to substantiate the excitement.

That’s why a Business Profile is vital in establishing what you’re selling.
Not only does it contain the map and the main details, it also nicely summarises for all to see. AS well as assisting the Business Owner to get really clear on what’s for sale…

 

where does your Business Sell its wares?

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Offline? Online? Or is it a combination?
Do you have a strategy for both? Do you have numbers and statistics for both?
How do they complement each other?

Some businesses lend themselves to being ideal for online commerce. Others are more your traditional bricks and mortar type business. Nearly all try and cover both methods of operation. Whilst there are no right and wrong answers with this, there are definitely right and wrong questions being asked…

For example, for those with a website: “How does my Business website get more traffic?” is not the right question to ask. “What type of customer am I looking for and therefore where do they hang out?” definitely is.

In other words, how well is the website working for you?
If you answer this with a blank, then whilst you may have an online presence for those who already know you, the rollout of your online strategy has a bit of work to do.

If the purchasers of your products and services are to be found in a particular spot, then your Business needs to be there, no doubt. But just because one type of strategy works for one business does not mean it will work for all.

When looking to Exit, what you want is to demonstrate what path you have taken, why you have taken the path you have and the results of doing so, regardless of the path..

If yours in an online business for example, then you want to provide the following information:
o    Pages views per month
o    Uniques per month
o    Gross revenue per month
o    Net profit per month
o    Google page ranking
o    Alexa ranking
If you operate off-line, where is your Business located? Why there? Is it about foot traffic? How successfully does it work? etc

For both strategies…how do your customers find your Business? Do you know how many referrals your Business gets? Is there a formal referral/loyalty program?

If you can’t provide answers to questions like these right now, don’t be alarmed. Start with the end in mind TODAY, regardless of how old your business is, and slowly but surely think through WHERE your Business trades and why, what results you have to back up your reasoning, and with your opportunistic hat on, where else there could be possibilities…

the evolution of the Consultant; planning your exit…

Future

“…the future competitive advantage lies with consultants being able to move from ‘consultant as expert’ to ‘consultant as partner and guide’ to a client…” (Summary of Cornerstone Session, March 2012)

The evolution of the Consultant can only commence when they are ready to transition from their current Business Model (revolving all around the “I”), to utilising and maximising the Business Model of the “WE”. 

The Consulting world has changed fundamentally in the last 15 years and dramatically since the GFC and recent redundancies. With many more independent Consultants coming in to the market (regardless of quality), and clients having easier access to them (via LinkedIn for example), it’s increasingly harder for Consultants to consistently find new and ongoing work.

On other words, the feast and famine part of the consulting industry is still alive and kicking!

In addition, the “business” the Consultant has been building over previous years may not be worth anything at the time when the Consultant no longer wants to continue it. If the business focus is solely predicated on the Consultants personal delivery of their skill set and knowledge, this makes for an almost impossible transition to another.

However, this does not need to be the case. The difference lies in stopping the short-termism and flattening the peaks and troughs by instead focusing on elegant interdependence by being involved in a larger movement, whilst still retaining independence.

That is, being part of a “WE”, by building on what has been established as an “I”.

A select few new breed Consultancies are offering this type of Business Model now, enabling the Consultant to truly transition successfully into the next phase of their consulting career…

where the middle class shops…are you there, if you need to be?

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The warning that middle-of-the-road retailers would have to change or die was sounded as far back as 2003, in the marketing manual “Trading Up,” by Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske. Because consumers had so much information and so many options, the authors explained, people were shifting their spending habits: they “traded down,” or saved money, on products when they cared only about getting the lowest price, and “traded up,” or paid more, for goods that were especially fashionable or functional.

That pattern has persisted through boom, bust, and feeble recovery. “It’s the segmentation of the American population that’s killing Sears and J. C. Penney—their inability to respond to the needs of heartland consumers, who remain a very rich force in the world of retail, who spend a lot of money and love to go shopping, still,” Silverstein, a senior partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group.

Great article! Read more here

“love to go shopping, still”
No doubt about it. Thinking of my own shopping habits… the amount of shopping done has not diminished much but the way I do it has. How about you?

If your way of shopping has altered, what about your customers and clients?
Are you where they are?
If not why not?
What do you know need to do differently?

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