Business process Blog

Here are the Three Deadly Weapons that can wreck the sale of your business. These weapons are based upon experience, discussions with many business owners, and many years of representing businesses in and out of the courtroom.
In selling a business, you can learn how to avoid the three mistakes that will literally cut the sales price of your business in half. Think about having a business that should be worth $750,000 but only being able to sell it for $375,000.
There are 700,000 businesses that will come on the market and change hands every year. That number represents 30% of 2,500,000 businesses that owners will want to sell every year. 70% of the businesses do not sell. Many of those end up being liquidated for lack of a buyer.
If you do not pay attention to three factors in selling your business, you literally may only receive half of what you should get.
1. Not Understanding the True Value of Your Business.
Albert wants to sell his business that has a ten-year track record. The business provides Albert an income of $150,000 per year in the retail area. Albert has done his own valuation of what he thinks the business should sell for and wants a price of $1,500,000 for the business. That price is a factor of 10 times the net income. Unfortunately, in the retail sector of Albert’s business, the going rate is a multiple of three times the net income or $450,000.
Because of his unrealistic price, Albert will not be able to sell his business.
2. Not Understanding How The Sales Proceeds Will Be Taxed When Received.
Janet owns a business in a corporation. The sale is proposed to her as a sale of assets and no assumption of liabilities. Although the sale of assets will be treated as a long-term capital gain at the corporate level, she has not considered how she will get the money out of the corporation and into her hands personally. Unfortunately, she has also signed the Purchase and Sale Agreement without consulting her attorney or her accountant. How much tax will she have to pay?
There are a number of options that could have been considered on how to structure the transaction. Unfortunately, you have to game plan and run the numbers on all of the options BEFORE you sign the purchase and sale agreement. Some owners have actually unintentionally structured transactions by not planning advance with the result that they were taxed at ordinary income rates rather than long term capital gains rates!
3. Business Owners Selling Must Follow The Boy Scout Motto ? ?Be Prepared?
After working for twenty-five years, two owners decide that they want to sell their business and retire. They begin working less and have not trained anyone to do the technical things that they do so well. Of course by working less, less technical tasks get fulfilled and less income rolls in. The best preparation would be to sell before income goes down and better yet have installed the six systems that literally double the value of your business.
One needs to begin preparing to sell a business probably years before the business is sold or even offered for sale. There are six systems that every business must have. Without them, the business is not an investment that buyers drool over.
This test will tell you whether your business has those systems:
1. If you take off all of next week and do nothing in your business, what will happen to the income of the business?
Increase Decrease Unaffected (Circle one)
2. If you take off all of next week and do nothing in your business, what will happen to the flow of new business?
Increase Decrease Unaffected (Circle one)
3. Do you have a written business continuity plan? Yes No
4. Do you have videos or audios of your plans for the business over the next three years? Yes No
5. When someone calls your office to schedule an appointment, does someone different answer the phone and/or do they have a set script to use to answer the call and close the appointment? Yes No
6. Who is your favored buyer for your business?
___________________________________
Do you have a name ready or do you have no clue whom the buyer would be?
7. If you do not come back from your next appointment, ever, who will sign checks at your company?
____________________________________
8. Will your death cause your company’s lines of credit to be called due?
Yes No
9. Do you have a checklist to be followed if you are suddenly disabled and unable to care for the business? Yes No
10. Are you ready to learn how to implement the necessary steps for an effective exit strategy? Yes No

Managing your business effectively in this emerging high-speed business world depends on how fast you gather, manage and utilise relevant information in your core business area. Even if you have not started your business, relevant information at your fingertips is what you would require to move your business. Do you want to raise capital for your business? What if I show you a way to go about it? How fast you gather and use feedbacks from your customers in order to improve your product or services, the marketing strategies being employed to deliver your goods and services, inventory management and other business processes, differentiate your business from competition. Information should continuously flow as fast as possible within your workplace, among your employees and also outside your business for efficiency and effectiveness. In our financial sector for example, I watch with rapt attention the keen competition going on among the banks. The ones that will be on top will be ones that have fully integrated information technology into every area of their business. The speed at which they get information from the market, disseminate it among their knowledge staff, analyse it and provide an answer to the customers’ need will be the distinguishing factor amongst them. This can only be achieved with a robust digital system. The different departments or sections of your business should have relevant information to aid decision making, on time. For example, the production department of a business should have the right information to act on the quality of goods being produced and how it suits the customers’ demand, if such information is not made available in good time, they will not deliver their job effectively and by extension get to the market before their competitors. This reduces efficiency and profitability in that business. Relevant information about your business can be at your fingertips through the use of digital technology. It helps you get information quickly from many sources and to analyse that information from many perspectives too. This for big as well as small businesses simply means the use of the internet, an email system, a software application and a website. Managers and owners of businesses should recognise the strategic importance of using these tools. The internet for example, has made it possible for businesses to share information, have business collaborations and also embrace e-commerce on the world wide space. Indigenous software applications that will help organise your work and ensure that time and energy are not wasted on routine chores, should be employed. With these tools in hand, businesses will become more effective in their service delivery. They will have the unlimited opportunity to partner with experts all over the world thereby making them much bigger and better. The multiplier effect of using these web tools will be a strong and viral economy for Nigeria. Let me ask you, in your business, how well have you employed the use of the internet in getting information and marketing your product and services? How are you using technology to improve your business? To fully incorporate a digital workplace in your business, majority of the paper works should be stored on the computer in retrievable formats; the use of emails and online tools encouraged. Your work place should be ‘paperless’. A Paperless Workplace Makes Your Business Effective Michael Hammer and James Champy, in the book: Reengineering Your Business said “It is sobering to reflect on the extent to which the structure of our business processes has been dictated by the limitations of the file and folders”. A paperless office can be regarded as a workplace where all the paper works are replaced by storing them on computers and on the web. The paper processes are replaced by digital processes with the use of computers, the internet, intranet, softwares and email facilities. This doesn’t mean here that it is the computers that are going to do the thinking for your business, for example, you still need to find answers to what customers think about your product, the problems they want you to solve for them, where the new market is in your business and other vital questions. What the system does for you is that it provides relevant statistics in good time for you to work with and think out the solution to questions you have at hand within a short time. The idea of a paperless office is necessary to remove the high heap of papers and files which characterises our establishments and businesses. Most times it becomes difficult to find relevant information when needed. Going through the heaps of reports to find marketing information, invoices or sales number to work with becomes cumbersome. Some of the advantages of having a paperless workplace are that -It removes delays caused by paperwork – It reduces the incidence of lost documents either through fire or other means. -It removes bureaucracy in our offices and business. -It makes for efficiency in business, relevant data are kept in view for the knowledge workers to work with and thereby concentrating on customer needs, how to solve them, and value added services. -It will reduce the paper consumption in our businesses. -Routine processes of a business can be automated with software applications removing wasted time and energy for knowledge workers and this also encourages software development in Nigeria. -This eliminates administrative bottlenecks in business. -This helps business to perceive and react to its environment to sense competitive challenges and customer needs and how to provide timely responses to that. To achieve this for small businesses is simple, have a website for your business, use the internet to access relevant information and opportunity in your area of business, use the email service to disseminate information within and outside your workplace over the intranet and the internet. The intranet is a network designed to organise and share information and also carry out digital business transactions within the company. It has features associated with the internet like the web pages, browsers, email, newsgroups and mailing lists but it is accessible only to those of the organisation. Encourage your staff to use email services to communicate, reports should be sent to them through the email before a meeting. This will give them the opportunity to analyse data and information before hand and make their contributions during meetings. With this, time being wasted in meetings will also be reduced. Find opportunities to market your goods and services online (e-commerce), store information in databases and use software to handle routine duties and integrate every data to suit your business. You don’t have to be an expert before you get things right in this perspective, just know what the use of internet and technology generally will do for your business and hire an expert to put them in place for your business advantage. It is not only businesses that need this; government establishments should also be digitalised so that vital information can be within the reach of businesses and individuals. To show you how important this is in a nation and its growth, Ghana was given an award recently for embracing e-government fully in Africa by the United Nations. We should get this right as soon as possible and improve on the way businesses are being done. visit my web site http://fellynice. RejuvenateTour. com http://fellynice. MySecretAdvantage. com

I have read, over my business career, well over 10,000 different articles and lists about how anyone can be successful with a small business be it an independent business or a franchise. Many well intentioned and intelligent consultants I have come across professionally believe that a great idea with a great marketing scheme and superior desire can make anyone successful. Do yourself a favor and tell the next person spewing this nonsense that they are absolutely wrong! The success or failure of the vast majority of all small businesses has little to do with the desire, marketing scheme or the great idea that created the business. While these three items must be present in every successful business, solid fundamental management principles will allow a small business to prosper and succeed. Every successful company, be it a small, medium or large business, uses the same set of management principals. The size of the business determines the individuals principals used and the sophistication of the principle. As an example, a small business normally has informal and perhaps even unwritten employee hiring guidelines. A medium sized company has a legally approved, comprehensive employee manual with employee hiring guidelines as a separate section. A large global business has an entire department writing several employee manuals in several languages with employee hiring guidelines based upon legal and social issues in each country. However, the common sense management principal that all companies should have a fair, consistent and applicable employment program must be used by every company. As I have spent the vast majority of my career with small and medium sized businesses, here is a simple and select set of management principles that every small and medium business should follow to ensure success and profitability:   A good accounting department with timely monthly financial statements provides the basis for all management decisions. Any business owner or officer who believes purely in his or her “gut” feel, is running what will be a failed business. Regardless of the business size, every owner and senior executive must have valid data to confirm the decisions their “gut” tells them to make. Your financial statements are a factual record of your business history and we must all clearly understand our history so we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. How can you determine whether your recent marketing campaign is a success unless you see and evaluate the financial results? We have all heard stories about the marketing campaign that brought many new customers to the company but killed the company because the advertising expense was greater than the profit margin on the new sales. A business owner does not need an accounting degree but should know enough to understand and participate in the financial information review. Running a small business based on the cash balance in the business checking account also violates this management principle and will severely inhibit the growth and success of the business. Unless you want to remain a “mom and pop” business forever, good accounting information is a requirement.   Standardize and automate all routine functions. Have you ever noticed that most successful business people have a routine for most of their daily functions? They have staff meetings at the same time, they want all reports in a specific format, they want all PC’s and software to be the same in the office and they want the external phone calls to be answered with a specific greeting. By standardizing all routine functions, successful business people do not have to think about or manage these functions. They can concentrate their time and efforts on managing non routine situations. This same principle also applies to your business. I personally know a company that, 10 years ago, had a credit department with 15 employees and 3 managers who made many decisions daily. Today, that company has doubled its sales and now has a credit department consisting of 5 employees, one manager and a set of software programs that manages electronic payments and even sends out reminder letters and emails to customers.   Review and analyze the Balance Sheet before the Profit and Loss Statement. Your monthly P & L tells you whether you were successful last month from your operations but your Balance Sheet tells you what shape your business is in and what you can do in the future. I have seen a company that doubled sales one year and closed their doors less than six months later. I have also seen a business that went bankrupt even though their P & L’s showed reasonable success. The company Balance Sheet shows how the company uses its daily operations to fund the long term success of the business. Analyzing Fixed Assets, Accounts Receivable, Long Term Debt and Retained Earnings will give us the long term view for our company. It is not as exciting as analyzing our new customers and product offerings but is necessary for the long term.   Business Planning and Budgeting will allow you to slow down the daily business fires and take advantage of opportunities. There are an unusual number of small and medium businesses that do not work hard at either annual or strategic planning and budgeting. Most are too busy fighting fires and struggling to keep up with daily business activity. There is no time for planning and budgeting in their 80 hours work weeks. We have all been in this position. The unfortunate issue here is that the fire fighting and long weeks will never slow down or cease until some planning and budgeting is put in place. The need for planning and budgeting becomes more intense as a business grows due to your inability to “manage by walking around. ” The planning and budgeting can start simple and will grow naturally as the business expands. This management principle will allow all employees to see the vision and the focus of the business which will start to reduce the daily fires that pop up. The greatest advantage of planning and budgeting is that it allows every business owner to evaluate quickly and easily how an unexpected opportunity might be of benefit to the business. I have talked to many business owners who stumbled across a sudden and potentially great opportunity such as a competitor for sale, a good supplier needing a partner, a potential new customer that would immediately double sales or a potential new product that would require an entirely new set of tools and equipment. These opportunities happen to all business owners regularly but many also go away quickly. Those companies that have a good plan and budget in place can evaluate these opportunities quickly and easily to determine if the new opportunity fits into the company’s long term plans. These companies also have the ability to quickly approach a bank with solid financial proformas if additional capital is needed.     It isn’t a sale unless you collect. Most small and medium businesses spend way too much time in the sales process and far too little time with the collection process. Most companies are willing to pay a six figure salary to a salesman who can generate tremendous sales for the company and, at the same time, put an entry level accounting clerk in charge of collection with little or no oversight and procedures. The company borrows more and more money to increase sales while an accounting clerk with no customer service experience struggles to collect. The sales department in every business must have a part in the collection process and the company must have a strong, fair and customer oriented collection process to ensure that a sale really means money in the bank. This process must always start before the sale is made. Collecting information up front to determine whether the potential customer is able to pay and ensuring the potential customer clearly understands the credit terms and payment requirement will benefit all parties. All good potential customers will appreciate this process because we all enjoy dealing with quality companies. I have never found any company that was unwilling to pay for quality products and services when everyone understood the terms and requirements. The credit department must also have a good set of processes and procedures to ensure that the payment process flows smoothly and efficiently. Supplier employee turnover, cash flow issues and other unexpected issues stop or slow down the payment process. The credit department must, in a customer oriented fashion, work to keep our cash flowing.   Run the business as if it your grandchildren will take it over.  Every business is a living and vibrant organization that has many similarities to our children. Your business starts out as an infant and learns to crawl and eventually walk. We would never make a decision for our child that does not take into account the child’s future and we should not do this with our business either. Working with a supplier who has inferior quality but the cheapest price might be a great short term cash solution for our company but will eventually run off our customers and destroy our business. How many times has a business lost all its records because it decided it couldn’t afford computer backups or a fire alarm system on its warehouse? Have you hired an employee before you had them take a drug test? I even once jumped at the chance to hire a salesman from a competitor because I thought he would be able to bring over many customers. Unfortunately, he cost too much and didn’t bring over any good paying customers at all. There is no such thing as a good short cut for efficient management principals and the long term success of your organization.   Hire the smartest and best people. How many of us have hired our friends, the salesman we thought was a bargain, the bookkeeper who spoke the best during the interview or the manager we thought was most like us? Many small and medium sized businesses are littered with employees who were hired for these reasons because small businesses can’t afford high wages and all the fringe benefit packages that large companies can afford. We tend to hire the best we think we can get. We need to set our expectations higher and use our planning process to find perfect employees. The first issue is that your company must have a good annual plan as well as a logical 5 year plan on where the company will be. Your company can then lay out what employees will be needed during this 5 year period. Now that we have defined what employees and what responsibilities are required, we need to find the individuals who meet these requirements and not just who we can afford today. I have always tried to hire people who are smarter and have more experience than I have at the specific position. Any owner who believes he is the smartest individual in every area will never be able to hire the right people. A company will never be greater than its weakest employee so we must always hire the best. The last company I worked with laid out a plan showing they were going to need their first CPA in 5 years. After 3 years, they told me they hired this CPA and were very surprised because this individual had other job opportunities with large national firms who were offering huge benefits. However, this small firm could offer professional growth and responsibility not available at the larger company. The vast majority of good employees prefer to have a more responsible position with a smaller company with a grand future than a less responsible position with a large company.   You can grow yourself out of business. Cash is king in business and those who recognize this fact will succeed and prosper. I have seen far more businesses that grow too fast with no good business plan and are forced to close their doors or find a quick buyer. Companies that are struggling watch their cash daily and doing what they need to keep the doors open. However, those companies doubling their sales see huge profits on their monthly financial statements and get caught up in the emotion and success. They watch their Accounts Receivable double, their Inventory double because they must buy much more product, their employees double because they must take care of these sales and suddenly they do not have the ability to make this week’s payroll because they have no cash in their checking account. Their company literally grew itself out of business which many small and medium business owners have trouble understanding until they have lived through it.   The culture of every business is as important as its mission. As mentioned earlier, a business is a living and breathing organization. The culture of every business is as important to the overall success of the company as the products and services offered. The owner of the business cannot delegate this function and must be involved. There is no right or wrong here as the business culture is a reflection of the quality, morals and ethics of its owner. A successful company’s culture is not a constantly changing but evolves based upon the growth and expansion of the organization. Constantly changing a company’s culture is a sure way to close a business. A company with a strict dress code, time clocks that are strictly enforced, and many processes and procedures is no better than another company with no dress code, few processes, and telecommuting for employees. The only difference is the type of employees they retain and the way they do business.   Your quality competitors are essential to your long term success. You can stop laughing now because this is really a fact that every successful company understands. This is an unusual concept but one that great businessmen and women all embrace. Competition is a wonderful concept in every free market economy and quality competition makes us all better. Quality competitors push us to come up with quality improvements, quality products and services and ensure that we have a quality customer oriented operation. We have all seen businesses spring up offering a 50% price reduction for a cheap knock off of our products. Our sales drop and we spend time and effort away from our core business chasing this situation. They stay in business for a short period of time and accomplish nothing more than causing our customers to question our industry. Quality competitors push us all toward greatness and there is plenty of room in every industry for multiple organizations.     Outsourcing reduces costs and improves your weaknesses. Many individuals hear the jokes about the language issues at large company call centers in India or the Philippines and tell themselves they will never make that mistake. However, that might be one situation that is not really a mistake. A good IT programmer in the U. S. can cost upwards of $100,000 annually with payroll taxes, fringe benefits, etc. That employee in India with the exact same intelligence, skills and experience can cost as little as $30,000 annually. The management principle here is that we should all concentrate on our strengths and outsource everything else where feasible. No business person thinks twice about using an outside tax accountant to do our Federal and State taxes. This is a highly technical area that changes constantly. Most of us also have an outside legal firm. Why do we primarily limit our use of outsourcing to those two areas?? Today, there are professional payroll firms, employee leasing firms, credit and collection firms, IT and Web programming firms and marketing firms. These companies work with many business organizations, stay on top of industry best practices and can better stay on top of the technical changes in their area of expertise. The only area of any company that I advise against outsourcing is the area that is crucial to the success of your company. Never allow the core of your success to get outside your control. As an example, if your company has a proprietary marketing scheme or a customer database or an engineering method or a production process that is key to your success, do not let it out of your control.

It is a fine summer morning and you are in a happy mood. You have just returned from a long and important overseas business trip and you have attended a number of seminars and exhibitions. As you sit down with a cup of coffee your secretary enters and hands you a stiff piece of rectangular paper. She announces that a well-dressed man had come to meet you regarding an important business deal and had left behind his business card. As you glance through the card, you are impressed by the quality of the board used to make the card. What strikes you is the superb color combination the logo and the lettering of the card uses. Your eyes are riveted to the same and you just cannot take them away. You also recall how many business opportunities you had lost in these meetings, seminars and exhibitions just because you did not have a business card. It is high time that you got a decent one made for your company. If you search the net, you will come across many ads that are selling cheap Business card designs that you can use for your business card design. It is not recommended that you use them for your official business card. If these designs are available on the net, you are not the only smart browser and in all probabilities others must have downloaded and used the same for designing their organization’s business cards. Check the net again and go in for some blank business cards online and select one whose base color and quality of card appeals to you. Better yet, appoint some professional to make the selection for you. They are your best option when it comes to designing a professional business card for they have been in this business for many years and know how to design and print a perfect business card that adorns your wallet. You may go in for plain white colored cards, or ivory cards as they are called, for making your business card. If you so wish, you might also go in for color business cards that are the rage nowadays. During your sojourn you might have also come across business card maker programs. These programs are helpful when you need to print a limited number of business cards immediatelyThey are perfect when you have exhausted your current stock of business cards and need some immediately. However you need to ensure that you have your business card design in your computer before you can use the special software to make a few copies of your business card. Come to think of it, what is the need of such a program when you have the business card design on your computer? In all probabilities the agency that designed your card might have provided you with a `one up’ card design. This means that if you print it using a personal printer, just one card will appear on the printed A4 sheet. Not a wise judgment and too much loss of paper. The special program will take the business card design that you have on your computer as the source and will make multiple copies of the same and arrange them on a single sheet of paper with cutting guidelines. This ensures that the paper is not wasted and that all the business cards are laid out properly. Just use a slitting knife to cut and separate the individual business cards and you are in business. Before jumping in, make sure that you have got the business card design of your official business card designed by professionals. They ensure that your card will stand out among others and when the purchaser has to select from a number of business cards lying on his table, his eyes are attracted by yours and that he picks yours only. This results in you procuring the order you were hunting for a long period of time. Take some time and try to make a collection of the business cards of leading organizations and put them out on the table. Look at them and examine them carefully. Can you see what makes them tick? Most of them will be having simple designs and a good color combination. Not just the color combination of the text and logo, but also the color that is used in the background of the card. You will also notice that the leading companies also maintain a certain standard in their business card design. They never clutter up the card with too much text or information. There are some folks who cram up their business cards with all the information it can hold. This is not done, for a business card is business card and not sales literature. Let the additional info be there on your sales literature and keep the business card as simple as possible. This will ensure that the card will be able to pass across the information it was supposed to convey immediately. Would you rather want that the CEO of a reputed company scanned all through your business card just to find your contact information? A proper business card design should have as much `white space’ as possible on it. People should be able to access the necessary information immediately. When going in for your business card design, do not go in for a design that requires multi-fold cards. If you use such a card, you can be rest assured that the CEO will dump it in the trashcan without even bothering to glance at it. Get your organizations business card design designed by a professional. This might cost you some additional money, but it will ensure that your business card conveys your true image. After all this is what a business card is supposed to do. They are not required to promote your products. They are meant to project your image and they can do it only if designed by professionals.

When evaluating successful home businesses, there are certain things they all have in common – things that you could say were essential to their success. In fact, without these things a home business is sure to fail. It does not matter what type of home business you have or how successful you want to be, you need to know these keys to home business success in order for your home business to thrive.   Market Research If you want to run a successful home business, you are going to need to research your market before you get started. Without proper market research, your home business may be doomed from the start. For example, say you want to start a dog washing business and you want to charge thirty dollars for each dog you bathe. You figure you can bathe about seven dogs a day and since you have very little overhead, your business should be profitable almost instantly. Unfortunately, when you start to advertise and you open up for business, you do not get a single call. What went wrong? If you would have done your market research, you would have found out that there are five other dog washing businesses in your town. Not only do these businesses already have relationships with the local dog owners, they charge between fifteen to twenty dollars for their services. So not only are you the new kid on the block, you are the one charging the most for the services you are offering. With the right amount of market research, this costly mistake could have been avoided.   Do not make the same mistake made in our imaginary scenario. Perform market research and know exactly what you are getting into before you jump in.   Proper Planning  Every successful business, whether it is a home business or a brick-and-mortar business, needs a substantial amount of planning. Because of this, it is essential that every home business has a detailed business plan written. You can write the business plan yourself or you can hire a professional business writer to perform the work, but make sure the business plan is in black and white and is updated as needed. After all, as a home business grows and changes, the business plan will need to grow and change along with it.   Great Advertising  Every successful home business invests in good advertising. Without advertising, no one is going to know about your business. However, bad advertising can be just as detrimental to a home business as no advertising can be. If the advertising you produce for your home business does not reflect the quality your home business offers, why would potential customers trust you to provide them with quality products or services? Your advertising speaks volumes about your home business, so make sure it is done properly and professionally.   Self Discipline  All successful home business owners are self disciplined. Without self discipline, you might find it tempting to sleep in until noon everyday or let mundane paperwork slide. Your home business is as real as any storefront business and it must be run as such. Because of this, self discipline is a characteristic that all successful home business owners must possess.   Organization Every successful home business has a certain amount of organization involved. The paperwork and files must be organized, the bookkeeping must be organized and the home office itself must be organized. Without organization, things will fall through the cracks and mistakes will happen. To ensure that your home business is as successful as possible, make sure you have an effective system of organization in place.  Remember, a home business is like a baby. It needs to be nurtured and cared for in order to grow. By practicing these keys to home business success, you will be well on your way to operating a lucrative and successful home-based business.

Every business needs a plan. This should be obvious, but surprisingly, many business owners overlook or just flat out ignore this basic requirement. Some may even operate successfully for years with a business plan, but when they least expect it, they discover that this omission may be keeping their business from reaching its potential. This discovery may come about when the business needs more funding, perhaps to cover increasing operating costs or for expansion. The business owner then approaches a bank, lender or investor, whose first response is to ask for the business plan. If there is none, then the business may be seen as being too risky, despite its history, which means no money.
Admittedly, getting funding for your business and building business credit is one main reason to develop a thorough business plan, but many business owners have the misconception that this is only reason. Let’s take a quick look at some of the other benefits. A plan can help you:
Determine the best structure for your business.
Establish a clear sense of direction for your business through a well-crafted and well-thought-out mission statement.
Determine the overall profitability of your products and services.
Evaluate your competition to see how you can outrank them.
Identify your customer base to make sure your business is meeting their wants and needs.
Develop marketing strategies to keep existing customers and to acquire new ones.
Estimate start-up and ongoing operating costs.
Develop short and long term goals that will keep your business growing.
Successfully building business credit can enhance the overall success of a business. Business credit is essential for day to day operation. Building business credit is just good business practice. In fact, these days it’s almost impossible to build a business without first building business credit. And that’s where United Business Credit comes in.
No matter what type of business you own or plan on starting, you probably have considered incorporation—and rightly so. But where to start? Even with all the online resources available these days, incorporation can be a daunting process. That’s why United Business Credit –ubcredit. net can help investors in each step of the way dealing with various aspects of corporate credit, business credit cards and credit for business.
All business transactions can be cash based, so business credit is essential for day to day operation. Credit can help business man build business credit without putting their personal credit rating at risk and without endangering your personal assets.  

The first thing you do after coming up with a business idea is to create a business plan, which can be doing using business plan software, a business plan sample, a business plan template, or by purchasing a how to write a business plan book.  A good business plan gives you guidance and confidence in your business and we make it easy for you to create the best business plans for your business by offering you Professional business plan template, Free business plan template, Business planning template, Professional business plan template software, Free business plan template benefits, Business planning template software at our site http://www. createmybusinessplan. com .
A sound business plan template will consist of what you want to achieve for your business, what you need to do to succeed and how far you want to go. Your business plan template contains all relevant information about your new business and financial figures should be projected so that all aspects of the business can be looked at. The business plan will serve as a reliable foundation for your business to measure success in the future. When you are creating a business plan it is important that you identify all factors that might affect of your financial projections. The resources needed to operate the business are also clearly marked out in the sample business plan.   A business plan will be a guide to know if your actions were able to contribute positively to the business. Business plans also serve an important role for the investor.   A proper business template will acts as marketing tool for the entrepreneur to convince the investor to invest in your idea. The business plan should bring the business plan to life for the investor.
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Writing a business plan should be one of your number one priorities as a business owner, whether you have a new business or have one that has been in business for a number of years. A business plan will let you put a focus on your business and enable you to get financial backing if you should require it with a lot less headache. All businesses are different, and for that reason, no two business plans are the same. You can do hours of research and try to adapt an already-made business plan, but you have to be realistic in your hopes of finding one that will suit your needs is very slim. When you decide to start a business, it is a good idea to start with a business plan. A business plan will let you make an outline that you can easily read and see where you want your business to go and how you will get there. As a business owner of a pre-existing business, a business plan can also be beneficial because you can re-evaluate where your business is and where you want it to go from this point forward. A business plan should focus on four key points when you sit down to organize one for your business. One, it should allow the management or new business owner to illuminate, research and focus their business or projects and developments within the business and any prospects that you may have for the business. The second thing you need to do is to provide a clear and logical template for the way your business can grow and how it will pursue any business strategies in the next three or five years. Thirdly, the business plan should serve as the basis for providing information for third parties who are interested in your business, such as banks or shareholders. And last, the business plan should also serve as a point of reference on which your business’s actual performance can be measured and reviewed against. There are many reasons why it is a good idea to write a business plan for your business. It is a beneficial document for both new and pre-existing businesses and can provide a way for the business owner to detail in an organized way the workings of the business. By researching the different types of business plans that are available, you can get an idea of what should go into a business plan. And if you are just starting a business, the business plan will be the first thing that financial officers will want to look at and if you can provide one to them that is explicit in its detail you can save a lot of time and stress in securing the loan that you need for your business venture.

Ilya Bodner is a successful entrepreneur and owner of Initial Underwiting Group, an organization that underwrites business loans for owners that are ready to start up or expand a small business. In a recent interview, Mr. Bodner answered some of the most frequently asked questions that are on the minds of business owners when they need financing and commercial loans.
How did you get involved in business credit?

I needed to raise money for my first business venture; being young and just out of college my personal credit could not support $250,000 loan.   I found out about Dun & Bradstreet and spent 3 years carefully learning its methods and lenders that use that information.

Why did you decide to help small businesses obtain loans?

I got $250k for my own business through the use of business credit, realized that a lot of business owners don’t know about business credit and decided to cater to the demand.

What is the worst mistake you see small business owners make?

Being undercapitalized – Worst mistake is not to plan for unpredicted expenses, loose projections, and shift in demand; which all contributes to increased spending and lowered sales.

Do you think it is fine for new business owners to borrow money from people they know?

No, I don’t think it is fine to borrow from people you know – If you undercapitalize, you tend to go to friends and family for immediate money.   Otherwise, borrowing with caution and enough reserves to pay back in case of total loss, is the only acceptable method of borrowing from your loved ones.

Do you see a trend in why small business owners get rejected for loans?

High Risk – the lenders see a small business owner as a renegade who may or may not pay back the loan + interest.    3 out of 4 businesses don’t survive; and the small percentage of small businesses that do survive end up defaulting at some point.  

Is there a way to apply for a business loan without revealing your personal credit history?

Yes, some banks offer business credit based programs.

In your experience do you see business owners without business credit, get lines of credit and business credit cards?

Yes, they take the steps to establish a strong business credit profile and go to the right lenders.

Can a business owner apply for a business loan if they declared bankruptcy sometime in the past?

Yes, only if a strong business credit profile already exists. Apply with a lender that offers business credit-based financing.

How should one establish business credit when just starting out?

Establish a legal entity with an EIN number first.   Then, apply for a Dun & Bradstreet number and an Experian report – both are free.   Lastly, sway 6 vendors to report payment history (this part is tricky if you don’t have the leisure of time).

Do your business credit habits automatically get submitted to the business credit reporting agencies?

No – Reporting can be done by all; however, automatic reporting is done by only a few vendors and lenders.  

Is it easy to get financing once you have a business credit profile?

Nothing is easy in the current state of our credit-crunched lending sector.   By having business credit a business is open to more lending options.

Is the SBA the only resource for small business loans?

Not anymore – more and more banks offer business credit based financing.

Will the current situation in the banking industry and the economy affect a new business owner’s ability to get a loan?

Yes, for those that don’t have business credit.

Will a business owner be expected to pay high fees when they apply for business-credit based financing?

No, these are the same banks and the same lending guidelines – pulling business credit reports, not personal credit scores.

Can a business owner, without business credit, get lines of credit and business credit cards?

Yes, take the steps to establish a strong business credit profile and go to the right lenders.

Any tips for all of us who are looking for loans to expand, start, or restructure our business?

Just like you take the time to go to an accountant for tax advice and preparation (regardless if it is your first year of operation or tenth year), spend some time with a business professional to prepare and take advice on strong business credit.

Finding a business that matches your personality is the most crucial step in becoming self-employed. It makes no sense to leave an unfulfilling job to go into an equally unrewarding business enterprise.  The strength of successful small businesses comes from the unique combination of the entrepreneur’s personality and a great product or service. While many aspiring business owners seem to understand their interests and abilities, they don’t have the slightest notion of what business idea might be an appropriate match. Yet it’s not as difficult as you might think to come up with a workable business idea.  To help assure that you find a good match, you should candidly consider your lifestyle, interests and experience, A good place to start is to ask yourself if you like working with people or prefer to work more by yourself. If you are shy and will be uncomfortable around new people, you’d be best advised to stay away from a high-profile selling scenario.  On the other hand, if you thrive on the energy of other people, you probably won’t he happy in a manufacturing business. It’s easy to overlook these natural tendencies when you allow yourself to get carried away with fads or with the opinions of your friends and relatives. Remember, if you try a business that is a poor fit and you fail, you will be the one who is left with the debts, not your friends.  Review the things you like to do best. For example, if you love to go camping and hiking, a business in outdoor recreation might be a good fit for you. But what form should it take? Sporting goods store? Expedition leader? Equipment manufacturer? Newsletter publisher? You can quickly see that one idea can develop into many forms. Although you may eventually try them all in your business, you need to focus on one at the beginning. How do you go about doing that?  Take Advantage of What You Know  It’s generally advisable to start with something you have done before and are good at. Ask yourself what basic skills are required by this activity. For example, are you good with your hands? Do you speak well to groups? Can you write well? Are you well-organized? If your don’t have all the necessary skills, can you learn those you need? Another good way to learn the pros and cons of a business you’re considering is to seek out people in the same or similar businesses and talk with them. Ask them first for their advice. Observe how they function in their work.  Read books on the subject-but be careful not to try starting a business on the basis of a book’s advice alone – you will be getting information from only the most optimistic viewpoint. The best source for learning is to actually work in the business. In the ferociously competitive world of small business, this is not always possible. Still, it’s worth trying to find a mentor who can describe the pitfalls, frustrations and potential disasters as well as the successes.  Identifying Legitimate Opportunities  Even after thinking about their interests and abilities, people can find it difficult to focus on a business idea. They make the mistake of thinking that the process is very complex, and it’s true that it can be confusing when faced with the deluge of money-making opportunities advertised everywhere. Every day, dozens of newspaper ads offer businesses for sale. Every month, at least three magazines trumpet their “astounding” business opportunities. More than 2,000 companies offer franchises. Direct selling organizations aim to recruit you.  How do you identify the legitimate opportunities? The secret is simple: Remember that the best business ideas come from the combination of your interests, abilities and past experiences, matched to a set of definable needs in the marketplace. Don’t be fooled by promises of quick wealth – it takes hard work to start and run a business.  A good business idea is likely in be straightforward and simple. The more exotic your idea, the more you must spend — in time and money – just to explain your idea to potential buyers. Many of the most successful new businesses are based on commonly known business ideas executed uncommonly well.  Determine If Your Idea Will Work  After some exploration and deliberation, you will have come up with a business idea, or perhaps two. But you know that every day thousands of new business ideas are talked about. How do you determine if your carefully crafted idea will work? At this point, you must take a cold, calculating look at all aspects of your idea. Compare each of your ideas to each other by asking the following questions:  What are the three most important things I must do to turn this idea into a business? Do I know how to do them? Is the market for my idea large enough to provide growth? Is there a way that I can reach my potential customers with my sales message? . Can the idea he expanded into additional products or services? Is anyone else in my area doing this business? How many competitors are there, and how close are they to me?  You must also carefully estimate how much money you need to get your idea off the ground and how much profit you can realistically expect it to return.  Start by writing down every expense necessary to get your business going. Common expenses include: office equipment, machinery; tools, supplies, vehicles, licenses, space rental consultants, franchise fees or royalties, advertising, insurance and employee wages.  Next, use library research, interviews with business owners, trade associations, government reports and magazine articles to determine what level or profit an average business in your chosen field generates. Keep in mind that if the return on you investment is no better than you can earn on a certificate of deposit. You might as well keep your money in the bank.  What Sacrifices Will Your Business Demand?  You should honestly consider the sacrifices you and your family may have to make to allow you to start your own business. Will your spouse have to continue working at a less-than-inspiring job to keep the budget in shape? Will you have to start at home until you can afford to move out?  Once you’ve decided upon your business, expect to hear a lot of reasons why it won’t work. For some reason, your friends and family members will typically view your plans with alarm. Because it’s difficult to ignore the opinions of those close to us, these naysayers can destroy a terrific business idea before it ever has a chance to see the light of day. If you truly believe in your idea, you can override the negative feedback you’re likely to get. Remember that there are few opportunities in life more exciting than thinking up your own business idea and bringing it to life.  Seven Ways to Come Up With A Dynamite Business Concept  Look for Opportunities at Work. Corporations are eliminating operations, thus creating gaps in service. If you can deliver this service, you may be able to start in business with several substantial customers. Become a Better Observer. Carry around a notebook and jot down products and services you can’t find. Note when you don’t get good service or when a product doesn’t deliver what it promises. Can you do better? Re-establish Something That Has Disappeared. There is a tremendous nostalgia boom in America because consumers are basically dissatisfied with today’s level of service. Is there something you enjoyed in the past but which is no longer available in your area? See if others share your interest. Give New Life to the Ordinary. Imagine the perfect setting for a routine service, such as shoe repair or dry cleaning. See if you can bring it to life and still make a profit. Study Trends. TV news programs, magazines and newspapers all report stories that reflect changes in values and lifestyles. Current examples include difficulty in coordinating family schedules, a more conservative investment outlook and an aging population. Uncover a Business within a Business. Some businesses have become so overblown that its essential service has almost been ignored. Resurrect it and create a new demand for an old need. Look Back to your Childhood. Your old hobbies can grow into a business. You can start out with the advantage of an area you already know a lot about. <p><b><a onClick=”javascript:pageTracker. _trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www. bizstarters. com/pages/ultimate. html”>Learn how to become the master of your own business, in just a few short weeks</a></b></p>

Doctors are playing an important role on working with the mesothelioma cancer treatment. If you are in New york, you can notice that there are so many medical practitioners working very hard on mesothelioma. Because there is no medicine found yet to cure mesothelioma. You must come to mesothelioma doctors in new york treatment. They are having tremendous experience in this field. The research is still going on. So many practitioners dedicate their entire life to innovate the right medicine for mesothelioma. The research takes a long time. The Government provides entire help for the research. The research costs a lot. So the treatment for this disease also costs a lot. But it will be reduced very soon. Mesothelioma attacks our abdomen most of the time. You feel very painful once it attacks. The treatments differ for each person. You can do surgery, or you can do chemotherapy or radiotherapy. All the treatments cost same expenses. But the way they treat differs by each other. The combination of these treatments may help you to reduce most of the tumor cells inside your body. There are so many specialist doctors available for each treatment. The treatment takes only few hours. You must come to New york doctors for mesothelioma treatment. They are having tremendous experience in this field. They reduce the tumor almost. As a result of the extremely small incidence of mesothelioma, diagnosis of this deadly disease is not easy. So meet the New york Mesothelioma lawyers for claiming your rights.

I was asked to make a page for my sister’s upcoming wedding as they knew I was the only one capable among her other siblings of doing something about this as I was the more technically inclined among us all. I happened to understand my parent’s point of view as actually, I do love surfing the net and I certainly love the challenge of doing something I have not done before and to make a webpage for my sister’s upcoming wedding is certainly a big challenge. I don’t really know how to exactly make a webpage but I did remember some ads back a few times when I was surfing the web on make your own website for free and I know this will be a big help in the upcoming days so that I can craft the webpage. The link I came to while in this search was wix.com and it was a great looking website builder, very reliable as I look at it as it would not have been trusted by 2 million users already had it not been that great and reliable. I was able to make the website here as it was very user friendly and now I can say I have a great contribution now to my sisters wedding plans as the website is up and about, looking great, but most of all, all the other relatives and friends can now check updates and details about the events prior to and during the wedding itself.

It has often been quoted to the 10th best Titan Poker Coupon Code player in the world would lose money if she only played with 9 players better.

How many online poker players do not realize is that this quote is not only very relevant to them, but ignoring this fundamental issue may actually cost money!
Selection of tables in online poker is a skill as important as choosing which hands to play. After all, profits from poker opponents make mistakes – it really pays to find tables with the weakest opponents, regardless of games and limits you play at. Below are 5 important tips to help you choose the right table:

Online Poker Table Selection Tips # 1
Most online poker sites showing statistics on the percentage of players who see each flop in its main lobby. Look for the tables with the highest percentage, 35% + is a good rule of thumb. Strong players see fewer flops – so this is a good indicator of weaker opponents.

Online Poker Table Selection Tips # 2
The average pot size is also displayed by the online poker rooms. Here we are looking for a larger pot size. This indicates that you are more likely to get “paid off” when you hit a big hand. A combination of # 1 and # 2, large pots with a large percentage of players see the flop, is ideal.

Online Poker Table Selection Tips # 3
Once you have identified any target tables look at the chip of the opponents were already sitting. If there is more than 2’short-stacks’(between 10 and 20 big blinds only) it may be worthwhile to look for another table. Short Stack can play after the flop hard and will tend to make larger bars sharpness when they are involved in a hand – then your goal is to Big Stack’s money that you do not want that to happen! Why not try your luck and Play Roulette or in case you need something new you could try to Play Keno Online at any online casino out there.

Online Poker Table Selection Tips # 4
Keep a ‘Buddy List \’, when you look particularly bad opponents add them to your friends list (where your poker room supports this). You can then search for friends before choosing a table and make sure you sit down with the worst opponents.

Online Poker Table Selection Tips # 5
Take notes and take action! When you have a large number of notes on a particular site that you can use these to help you choose

When you’re ready to play and gamble online for real money, just go ahead and enter the online casino for best casino games. The casino games are to play the best at online casino and there are many players who are waiting in time for such access on the road. The casino games are offered in many ways and it is important that you know how to play these things around. The games are important and it’s fun to make long search directly to you. As you visit the online casino, there are online casino gambling games to consider and if you want to make the access easy, you need to take this real games next to you. Many players from around the world await you and you can have the chance to bet money online. Many offers are for real and you should not dare to miss such kinds. Enjoy such things and I know many people are looking for the best games online now.

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Because of the competition in the world we all have to prove ourselves in our profession. Because of this rushing mindset we may do mistakes in the business. This will leads to heavy loss in the business. To tackle this situation and relieve our mind is very challenging one. But we must relieve from this and give a better performance to get a leading point in the business. Money is the big problem for relieving from that situation. We all need a helping hand to solve this problem. But bank loan takes much time to process. One solution borne through online. payday advance is a type of pay day loan. This is a simple short-term loan which helps in critical situation of the people. It has many special features. For getting this loan you have to fill a online application form. It should have clear address and contact details of the borrower.

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