The thing about Online Businesses | Websites these days is that the market has been around long enough whereby there are businesses of quality, with verifiable statistics and easier to follow financials. So the information collected is more capably captured and consistent.
Once again I had the good fortune to talk with Lorraine Pirihi about the importance of productivity and profit in your Business, highlighted by the 6 steps Lorraine often coaches by.
A snippet of the gold contained in the below recording and transcript goes as such:
“Quite often you’ll hear in the housing market about growth or cashflow. Business actually abides by similar rules. There’s growth and there’s cashflow. A lot of small business, especially if they intend to stay smallish business, need to concentrate on the cashflow aspect. Because unless you’ve actually got a plan to grow and go world domination – there is an element of growth that needs to be in there to maintain the cashflow, I get that – but they’re actually two different types of strategies. And cashflow, especially if you’re a solopreneur or if it’s a lifestyle business or it’s a second income or if it’s one that you don’t want to bust your chops running; then the logic has to be that it is cashflow based.”
Recently, Lorraine Pirihi from “Relaunch your Life” and I had a good chat about “How to Avoid Losing Money When Buying a Business” (audio is below).
The key aspects of which are summarised here:
• Not certain of what to buy?
• You can spend a lot of time looking at a broad range of businesses.
• Whilst keen at the start it can be energy sapping in the long run if you’re uncertain of what to buy.
• Financial limitations
• Do you have an understanding of what you REALLY can “afford”?
• Can you pass the “sleep at night test”– losing sleep might indicate that you are over stretched!
• Procrastination
• Often after finding the right business that matches your criteria, you may continue to procrastinate with the decision to buy
• Lack of preparation
• Due to lack of preparation, you may not able to identify an opportunity even if you find one. Often buyers regret missing the opportunity after the business was bought by others.
• Seeking the perfect deal
• You may appear stuck in the buying process, and over analyze businesses with the focus on identifying actual or potential issues, thereby talking yourself out of the transaction.
I had the pleasure of talking with Lorraine Pirihi, from Relaunch your Life, about what is involved in selling a business and why it is imperative to start the process early.
Yes, that old chestnut. Start with the end in mind, regardless of how old the business is!
There’s much to consider, but the main takeaways are:
Formulate your “A” team
Understand timelines
Be prepared to invest in accessing the specific skills sets you need to help
Get the business sale-ready
Be really clear what you’re going to replace the business with in your life…
If this is a conversation you want to explore further, feel free to contact me on dhall@businessbrokers.com.au
