business

If you’re thinking about selling your business, the primary thing you need to keep in mind is that selling is neither a quick process nor an easy one. A successful sale is often many years in the making and involves extensive work getting everything aligned and prepared.

However, this work is both necessary and worthwhile, as a business sale, properly-prepared, can command a significantly higher asking price. It’s also nothing to fear, as small business owners are used to hard work. It’s important to apply your entrepreneurial spirit to selling your business with the same intensity that you did building it.

Make Yourself Unnecessary

Before you set a price or begin looking for buyers you need to start backing yourself out of your business. This is because you’re the one asset that doesn’t convey when your business is sold.

Many small businesses are built on the owner’s talent and a small team of employees. Prospective buyers will be leery of investing in a business that seems too dependent on its owner’s involvement as they fear that the business won’t support itself without you.

To deal with this, make a long term plan for removing yourself from the day-to-day operations of the business and begin implementing it well in advance of listing your business for sale. You want to be able to demonstrate to your prospects exactly how unnecessary you’ve become.

Freeing yourself from the daily grind has a secondary purpose as well. Your time will need to be devoted to the sale of the business, not to running the business. If you choose to manage the sale yourself you’ll be spending quite a bit of time on the process. But even if you work with a broker, the time commitment for the owner is significant. Make certain your business can run without you.

Determine Your Company’s Value

Determining the proper value for your company is a critical step in the sale process. If you ask for too much you’re likely to waste precious months chasing buyers that aren’t interested, and if you ask too little you’re cheating yourself out of the value that you spent years building.

It’s best to get professional help at this stage, to be certain your asking price is set properly. There are third-party valuation companies that will do a thorough review of your company’s financials, your competitive positioning, and your future prospects to arrive at a proper dollar amount.

If you’re planning on hiring a business broker to help with the sale, they’ll handle computing your company’s value, so you won’t need a third party.

Company value is normally listed as a multiple of either revenue or cash flow, depending on the industry. In general, higher cash flow levels will command a higher multiple, so it behooves owners to do what they can in advance of a sale to improve their company’s bottom line.

Boost Your Overall Financial Picture

The more value you can add to your business, the more you’ll be able to charge for it. Spend time trying to cut costs and boost your sales to improve your revenue and cash flow. Work on training your employees to be better at their jobs. Hire extra salespeople if the math works out in your favor.

The higher you can boost your revenues, the more your valuation multiple will work for you and the higher you can push your multiple. This means every dollar you can add to your bottom line will do its share to increase your potential sale price.

Make some positive press releases of your company, so that when a potential buyer does some research of your account they find only good news. PRWeb is a great press release site.

Clean Up Your Financials

Work with an accountant to make sure you have at least three years of clean, accurate, healthy financial documents. Prospective buyers will demand proof that your company is worth what you’re asking for it. Don’t give them a reason to balk. Be sure there’s nothing fishy in your books and that all income, assets, and expenses are accounted for.

If you have too many accounts receivable, hire a professional collection agency to help you recover money from delinquent accounts. 

Find the Right Broker

Hiring a broker is usually worth the 5 to 10% commission they’ll charge for handling your sale. They’re professionals that handle business sales all the time. You’re likely very good at what you do, but you don’t sell businesses every day, so if you try and handle things on your own it’s possible for you to miss something or make a mistake.

Broker’s leverage their knowledge, experience, and their wide network of potential buyers to sell your business far more quickly than you’re likely to on your own. They’ll also pre-qualify buyers and make sure they’re a good fit for your business before you go down the rabbit hole with them.

Just be sure the broker you choose is a good fit and that they have the credentials and numbers to back up their promises.

Promote, Promote, Promote

If you opt to skip a business broker, the full sales burden will fall to you. It’s critical that you get the word out early and often. Explore all of the resources and sales channels available to small business owners and maximize your use of them.

Self-promotion is important even if you are using a broker. They will certainly make your life easier, but it’s a mistake to rely on their efforts entirely. No one know your business better than you do, so there’s no one better suited to make the pitch.

There are a number of companies that offer small business sale listings. Some of these include:

• BuyBizSell.com : The single largest online business listing service. According to their website, they’re visited by over a million business buyers a month and have facilitated more than 100,000 successful business sales.

• BuyBizSell.com  : Smaller than BuyBizSell, BizQuest is still a thriving marketplace that offers relatively inexpensive business listings with no commissions and no hidden fees.

• BusinessBroker.net : BusinessBroker is a complement to the first two services on this list. They operate with a model similar to BizQuest, with a slightly smaller audience. They’re affordable, so it can be worth listing with all three.

Along with listing your business for sale in multiple places, you’ll want to network as much as possible. It’s likely that someone you know, or someone that they know might know someone looking to break into your industry. Your future buyer may already be in your sphere of influence. You need only find them.

 

Scaling a business is no easy feat. Entrepreneurs who have successfully scaled their businesses have experienced many tough circumstances. They had to learn scalability techniques to expand their entrepreneurial horizons with minimum effort.

This blog covers numerous techniques and valuable insights to help you scale your business and experience sustainable growth.

1. Focus Focus Focus: No deviating from your goals.

Scaling is all about bringing your business to a place of continuous growth. When in the scaling process, it is pertinent to base your decisions on what you want your business to become and not where your business stands currently. To scale, you must focus on the key activities that are going to move your business forward in a strategic way. Expound on the core activities you need to focus on, and then set boundaries around these activities to prevent stagnation.

2. Have you established a standard process?

To scale, you need to establish processes and procedures that facilitate, align, standardize and streamline core functions. You need to implement standardized and properly delegated processes to simplify everyday tasks.

By doing so, you’ll be able to quickly build a solid foundation that will guarantee steady and continuous growth and thus accomplish larger business goals with ease.

3. Develop a cash flow strategy.

One of the most prevalent reasons why small businesses fail is because they lack the needed cash. Solid finances underpin healthy business growth. So you need to have an effective cash-flow strategy in place to ensure that you’ll always have enough money to cater to your business’ financial obligations. Having a stable cash flow means that you are in a position to optimally exploit all the profit-making opportunities available to your business.

4. Evaluate options for expansion.

Entrepreneurship is about taking calculated risks. Perhaps one of the best ways to scale your business is to venture into new markets. While this might be a risky proposition if carefully managed it can prove to be a very rewarding endeavor for your small business will be able to tap into a new revenue stream at a low cost with boosted profits as a result.

5. Automate processes, saves a ton of money

A business that is labor-intensive is not scalable hence automation is inevitable for entrepreneurs with future projections. Automation is great as it makes the processes in your small business much easier. In addition, automation allows you to run repeatable processes smoothly at a lower cost and more efficiently by minimizing your manual work. With automation, entrepreneurs can improve the delivery time of any task performed and further reduce the risk of human error to boost productivity.

6. Articulate your competitor’s strength.

As your business matures, you will start to understand your market and products better. To successfully scale your business, you will need to clearly articulate your company’s competitive strength and how it related to internal processes and knowledge. By doing so, you will identify the relevant growth path that will allow scaling to happen without you falling into a complexity trap.

7. Identify core competence.

It is difficult to create strategies if you are unaware of your core competencies. While some start-ups have evolved by doing certain things without articulating their core competence, this is not the ideal method to follow while you are in the process of scaling. You need to identify and emphasize your business’ core competencies and utilize them to invest in focused growth.

8. Establish your team.

It takes more than a founder to take a business from its initial stage to thriving. As you scale and grow your business, you need a strong team to take yourself out of the critical path as scalability demands an expanded skill set. As such, you should build a team with extensive and complementary skills. Consistency and quality are paramount in such a dream and will help your business excel. All team members must be properly engaged, motivated, recognized and rewarded.

Also, if need be, do not hesitate to invest in your team as their education will ultimately reduce your work and allow you to scale your business effectively.

9. Network and collaborate.

Fostering growth and scalability requires collaborations and partnerships outside the business. The growth approach needs to extend to a network of collaborations with people and organizations, for instance, service providers, sales partners, suppliers as well as customers as they may be willing to assist you by providing important market statistics.

10. Boost marketing.

Scaling marketing operations is one of the top priorities of any business. When you scale your marketing operations, your business will be able to stay lean, agile and on the verge of growth and able to improve their productivity and efficiency. You will be able to deliver marketing campaigns that will impress your customers.

11. Increase lead generation and conversion.

It’s simple, more customers equal more sales, and therefore increased opportunities to make more profits. To create more customers, you’ll need to attract interested prospects first i.e. lead generation. These prospects must then be converted into paying customers i.e. lead conversion. However, attracting and converting should be done in a cost-effective manner thereby ensuring that only a minimal cost is incurred for each customer acquired.

This consideration must, therefore, inform your preferred means of advertising and promotion. Nevertheless, one of the most effective ways to attract and convert prospects is via referrals from satisfied customers.

12. Increase transaction frequency.

Scaling your business obviously means you are making business transactions with each one of your customers as frequently as possible to increase your sales volumes and profits. In order to do so, you must have an effective sales plan in place which will assist you to generate more sales for your business. You can do so by having each customer purchase more each time you are transacting business by using effective up-selling, cross-selling and diversifying techniques without coming across as being too pushy.

Final words

To wrap up, if you think about scaling your business, you must have a clear idea of what you want to become in the future. By implementing the above-mentioned tried and tested strategies, you can be assured that your business will flourish and grow in the right direction.

Healthcare is a complicated and highly politicized topic. Google this post’s title, and you’ll find ample opinion both for and against Medicare for all, a solution proposed by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and others. When it comes to small business owners, however, opinion is less divided, with a growing number of supporters. But, politics aside, how would Medicare for all potentially affect small businesses? The answer starts with a more in-depth look into our current system and the proposal to change healthcare.

Medicare – our national health insurance program

Currently, Medicare is the national health insurance program primarily for those over 65. Medicare also covers some younger people with disabilities and other conditions, but in general, the program’s scope is limited to older adults. While the current plan’s eligibility is limited, funding comes from payroll taxes imposed on all workers and employers. Workers pay a 1.45% tax on their earnings, and employers pay an additional 1.45%. Also, some Medicare costs are paid by plan participants through monthly premiums, copays, or other fees.

Small business and healthcare

Under the current state of affairs, small businesses that have fewer than 50 full-time employees are not required to provide health insurance. Larger companies that fail to do so, as provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), are subject to fines. But if we focus on those businesses that are exempt from the ACA, the mandatory cost of healthcare to a small business at present is 1.45% of wages

Despite what may or may not be mandatory, businesses often provide health coverage as a benefit, and failing to do so can cost them good employees in a thriving job market. So, in reality, the actual cost of health care to small businesses can be much higher than just Medicare tax.

The expansion proposal

Medicare for All would replace our current healthcare insurance system, which primarily involves private insurers and some government services provided to a small group. Every citizen and legal resident would be entitled to coverage. Under some proposals, Medicare will be an option for all, but those with private insurance could continue to pay for healthcare coverage privately. Cost estimates vary depending on which study you read. Still, it’s safe to assume that the cost of covering everyone versus only a small percentage of the population will be much higher than the combined 2.9% payroll tax will raise.

The tax effect on small businesses

Under Sanders’ plan, for example, the employer portion of Medicare tax will increase from 1.45% to 7.5%. This increase would only apply to the first $2 million in wages, so smaller businesses that fit under this ceiling will not see an increase. The current plan has similar protections for small businesses, with no premium for those with under 50 employees. Still, these businesses currently pay 1.45% on every penny they spend in wages, regardless of the number of employees or their total payroll.

The wellness effect on small businesses

Looking beyond payroll, proponents of Medicare for All believe the program will result in a healthier population in the country. This, according to backers of the reform, translates to fewer sick days, happier employees, and increased productivity.

Also, Medicare for All will potentially remove the connection between employment and insurance. In other words, employers and employees will be free to negotiate terms of employment without bringing health benefits into the mix. The precise effect of this situation is unknown, as employers who no longer have to pay a share of a premium may have this savings canceled out or negated through additional taxes.

Healthcare reform is an essential issue for small businesses. An increasing amount of these businesses are calling for a change, as healthcare continues to become more and more expensive.

It’s getting easier and easier, and considerably cheaper to find great candidates in the digital age. New marketplaces and job boards are popping up all the time, some leveraging novel strategies to bring employers and job seekers together. Many of these fall into the category of free job posting websites.

Recruiters, head hunters, and traditional employment agencies still have an important role to play, particularly for high-value, high-skill positions. But for the lion’s share of open jobs, there are a plethora of free or inexpensive options that can deliver qualified candidates directly into your inbox. Here we feature some of the top choices.

Google for Jobs

Google for Jobs is one of the newest entries in the free online hiring space. Unlike traditional job sites that maintain their own database of listings, Google’s search algorithms trawl existing job listings on other people’s sites.

The easiest way to list with Google is to add your job opening to any of the services that have already partnered with Google. These include Glassdoor, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter.

If you post job openings on your own website you can have them included in Google searches as well by making certain to format your HTML properly. Once this has been set up, future job postings will be automatically added to Google’s listings.

Indeed

By far the most popular job board in the U.S. Indeed allows completely free job postings, and millions of employers take advantage of the service.

Indeed’s high traffic volumes assure that even basic posts will be seen by good candidates, particularly now that posts will also be included in Google for Jobs searches. But if you want to be certain your post gets maximum exposure you can boost your visibility with PPC (pay per click) ads.

Jora

Relatively new, their model is similar to Indeed. They offer free job posts for employers and does not offer a paid or sponsored tier.

Angellist

Free job postings that tend to reach people in the techhnology and those in startup mode.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a massive hub for business connections around the world, and while you can’t post a job listing for free, you can exploit the site’s search features to look for candidates on your own. There’s no charge for these sorts of searches, and there are plenty of qualified candidates in your extended network waiting to be discovered.

LinkedIn also features job postings and their Recruiter Lite component that feeds you passive candidates that are outside of your network, but these are both paid functions.

Glassdoor

Glassdoor isn’t technically free to post, though a new trial account will give you ten no-cost job postings. After that, the price per post is fair based on the other value Glassdoor brings to the table.

Not only is Glassdoor an employment marketplace, but it also allows employees and clients to rate companies based on their experience. Companies that offer a great place to work and good customer service are rewarded with excellent ratings on the site. This makes it easier to attract top talent to your job postings.

Craigslist

The venerable classifieds service that was introduced 25 years ago is still a good source for low-cost job listings today. Posts cost between $15 and $75, depending on the size of the city where you’re posting, and last for 30 days.

Interest in Craigslist job postings is still fairly robust, even with all of the other options available. However, don’t expect any of the extra functionality present on sites built specifically for job listings.

Ladders

Ladders distinguishes itself as a platform for jobs that pay $100K or more per year. The site is structured in a similar way to services like Indeed. You can post your job listings for free and then optionally boost them, for a fee, to increase their visibility.

Neuvoo

This is currently the fastest-growing worldwide job site, and it’s free! Employers can post to get access to the site’s estimated 75 million visitors each month. As with many services, if you pay to boost your listing you’re promised a tenfold increase in the number of candidates seeing your ad. The site doesn’t many bells and whistles, but it’s a solid, standard job board.

Smartly

Smartly takes a novel approach to recruitment. The company’s primary business is technology and business training. This creates a pool of newly-minted professionals looking for work. The top 10% of their trainees qualify for Smartly Talent, a hiring service that allows employers to post inexpensive ads to recruit these candidates.

It’s a win/win. Trainees get an exclusive marketplace for their talents, and employers get a low-cost option for talented individuals.

ZipRecruiter

ZipRecruiter is immensely popular, but not because of the price tag. The service is neither free nor low-cost. However, we include it on this list because it’s extremely effective. According to their marketing materials, 80% of employers find quality candidates within the first day, and customer experiences seem to bear this out. If you’re looking to fill important positions quickly, ZipRecruiter offers value commensurate with its costlier price tag.

The service broadcasts your job listing to over 100 individual job boards. Additionally, you can choose email placements and access to their database containing millions of resumes. The service isn’t inexpensive, but if you need to hire for a lot of positions, the price can be worth it.

If you own or manage a business, you know that your time is at a premium. You have numerous tasks each day — some require the unique set of skills you’ve developed over your career, but many of these tasks are repetitive and somewhat simple, lower-level items on your to-do list. In today’s busy and fast-paced world, those who are overburdened by their workload either fail to complete their jobs each day or do a less-than-optimal job because they are stretched too thin. A simple solution to this problem is to delegate lower-level tasks to someone else, so you can focus your skills and expertise in the right areas to ensure maximum productivity.

Increasingly, businesses and individuals are using virtual assistants to help get a handle on workloads. Virtual assistants can handle a wide range of jobs, from helping to manage schedules to providing marketing support and beyond. No matter your need, there likely is a virtual assistant service that can handle it and make your work life a bit easier. The key to getting the most value from a virtual assistant (VA) is in understanding the services provided and finding the right assistant provider.

Popular virtual assistant services

Imagine if your business had an unlimited budget and could hire anyone to help complete a job or to ensure that you have a helping hand every day. If money were no object, you would likely hire as many people as necessary to get the work done. In reality, businesses struggle with balancing staffing needs with actual budgets. With a VA service, companies only pay for the services they use. But, more than a budget-friendly approach to staffing, VAs helps businesses tap into expertise, on-demand. Common VA services include:

• Calendar management
• Travel arrangements
• Marketing support
• Project research
• Social media posting and research
• Data presentation
• Writing
• Voicemail

The list goes on, with more specific, technical, and C-level support services. From simple clerical tasks to high-level executive assistant capabilities, VA services handle all that today’s businesses need.

The true value of a virtual assistant

Virtual assistants offer an additional benefit over new hires. Even experienced new employees have an adjustment period before they reach optimal productivity levels. The first few weeks might involve training, administrative onboarding tasks, and other activities that do not directly impact revenue. A virtual assistant provider offers seasoned professional help on-demand without the need for an extended and unproductive learning period. The best VA providers can offer immediate access to productivity because they prioritize customer success by assigning a dedicated staff member to manage the client.

It’s crucial, then, to think of a VA service as more than just a tool for getting a particular task done. Properly used, VA services are an ongoing process of increasing efficiencies and productivity in your business.

While there are hundreds of VA services, with some specializing in certain industries or tasks, here are five of the most popular VA service providers, with details and review information.

Zirtual

With its promise to “streamline your success,” Zirtual offers assistants that handle email management, scheduling, travel, research, expenses, and personal tasks. Zirtual’s virtual assistants are college-educated and U.S.-based, are proficient in Microsoft Office and Google G Suite, and receive ongoing training. Zirtual also provides a dedicated account manager for customer support and service, such as changing assistants, pausing subscriptions, adding hours, and addressing special projects.

Zirtual bills monthly, ranging from $449 a month for 12 hours of task work to $1,499 a month for 50 hours.

 Vasumo

With a mission to help you get your time back, Vasumo provides virtual assistants that can cover all of your business needs. Vasumo provides over 300 different tasks, all with U.S.-based contractors. The company invests in training and certifying its assistants, providing an easy method for customers to choose assistants with the needed skills for any project.

Vasumo’s pricing is simple and low, ranging from $398 to $598 a month for from 25 to 55 hours.

Belay

Focusing on the productivity benefits of delegation, Belay provides virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and web specialists. Belay focuses on these three general task areas as critical components of growing a business. Its contractors are based in the U.S., with proven and tested experience.

Belay’s pricing varies depending on the work needed, project duration, and other factors, but charges an hourly range from about $38 to $45.

Task Bullet

TaskBullet distinguishes itself from the others in this list with its Bucket System. Customers purchase a bucket of VA hours, ranging from $220 for 20 hours of VA services, to $1,560 for 240 hours. The bucket hours are valid for three months, so users have the benefits of on-demand skilled work, without a monthly subscription, extra fees, or complicated billing.

 Time etc

Providing a wide range of virtual assistant services, Time etc wants to free your mind from to-do list stress. Its assistants cover everything from writing a blog post to finding the best flights for an upcoming trip — any task that people are likely to procrastinate completing.

Time etc offers dedicated U.S.-based assistants from $250 a month for 10 hours to $1,260 a month for 60 hours.

Companies and individuals can benefit from working with a VA, but finding the right VA provider is the key to success. VA companies essentially sell time so you can spend more of it improving other areas of your business, or simply enjoying it with your family.

As long as your business has customers, there will be customers who have trouble keeping up with their payments. The financial side of your business can be absolutely fraught, especially because you don’t want to compromise your business’s customer service reputation by being too aggressive with debt collection. The best way to avoid this? Do everything you can to avoid customers defaulting on payments in the first place.

Of course, you have limited control over your customer’s financial situation, but there are ways you can minimize the chances that a customer defaults on their payments. Using these tactics, you can incorporate measures to avoid late payments or total defaults from your customers.

1. Be Transparent

This is not only a basic courtesy to your clients and part of an honest sales process but also critical when making it clear what you expect your clients to pay. Your customers aren’t going to be able to prepare effectively for your bill if there are hidden fees or unexpected expenses. Before anything else, your client should know exactly how much they’re going to be billed for. Which leads directly into our next tip.

2. Avoid Billing Mistakes

Your customers expect you to keep track of how much they owe and be accurate when requesting payment. If you accidentally undercharge your client, they’ll feel cheated when you reach out to collect the full amount. If you overcharge your client, they’ll feel like they have to pick through every bill with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that they aren’t being cheated. Make sure that your billing practices are locked down before you send out a single invoice.

3. Send Automated Reminders

In this day and age of auto-pay, it can be tough to remember to submit all of your payments on time. Regardless of the format in which you collect your payments, you should send out automated reminders about when the bill is due and/or when the money will be automatically withdrawn from your client’s account. That way they can remember to either make sure the account has sufficient funds or manually send in payment. Repeated reminders are the best way to prevent customer defaults on your bills.

4. Accept Partial Payments

The fact is, sometimes unexpected circumstances happen. If you’re seeing that a client is scrambling to make the payment but doesn’t have the full amount, accept what they have and make a note of the continued debt. It’s not a perfect solution, but it allows you to handle the situation gracefully and helps you build a rapport with your client by being understanding.

5. Send Itemized Invoices

If you’re consistently seeing questions about your bills, the lump sum at the bottom is probably to blame. This goes back to transparency as well. Sending an itemized invoice allows your clients to look at everything covered by their lump sum payment and break it down in their own minds to understand where the money is going.

6. Implement a Process for Debt Collection

No matter how careful you are, debt will happen eventually. You don’t want to be approaching the situation without any plan at all for how to handle it. Before it becomes an issue, make sure you have a process in place for managing overdue bills.

7. Offer Payment Plans

If your client is suddenly in a situation where your bill has become a problem, you can offer to set up a longer-term payment plan that gives them more time. It’s not an ideal situation, but at least it forces a conversation about the overdue bill and sets a plan in motion for them to pay it. You may not be able to prevent customer defaults entirely, but if you receive even a portion of accounts receivable, consider this as the bonus money which you would have not got if you were trying to recover entire payment in one transaction only.

8. Be Timely

You don’t want to sit on unpaid bills or problem debt. They aren’t going to go away on their own. Address the problem as quickly as possible and make it clear to your client that you aren’t going to simply forget about the money owed on their bill.

9. Keep Records

Every step of the billing process should be recorded, as should every step of the debt collection. If it comes down to it, you don’t want there to be any doubt about what amount is owed and how you took steps to address the situation.

10. Hire a Debt Collection Agency

If a lack of payment is an ongoing problem, it’s time to call in the professionals. A debt collection agency can handle the debt issues you might be facing, and you can go back to focusing on your business.

Financials are one of the more complex aspects of business, but they are what allow businesses to succeed! They allow you to expand your business plan, hire new employees, and ultimately measure your business’s worth. There should be no doubt when it comes to receiving the money that you are owed, but in the event that there is a problem, you can manage it. Implementing these practices into your business plan early is a great way to set yourself up for long term financial success. And if all goes well, hopefully, you’ll never need to worry about debt collection. Collection agencies are the best way to prevent customer defaults on your bills once the boll is over 90 days past due.