Insights, Ideas, Results
We mentioned in the previous post that you need to watch for several pitfalls when hiring a business broker to search for a suitable business. Buying a business is time consuming and tiring process. You don’t want to waste your and broker’s time looking for business that is not suitable to you.
So how can you make sure you are hiring the “right” broker for your needs? Below we have listed 10 questions you can ask the broker before making decision to engage him/her.
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Many small business buyers hire business brokers to find a suitable business that is available for sale. Hiring a business broker makes the search easier. A business broker can search for businesses from the large database of available businesses and filter the suitable ones based on your criteria. In some cases, they can also help with the buying process, including document preparation and negotiations – particularly useful when you are new to business.
However, working with business broker is not without pitfalls. Typically, a business broker represents the seller. They make money from the commission paid by the seller – similar to real estate agents. This may cause them to keep seller’s interest ahead of buyer when there is a conflict.
Below we have highlighted several tips you want to keep in mind when hiring a business broker.
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Mary Ellen Slayter at SmartBrief has an interesting article on how she successfully hired 10,000 people in her recruiting career and did a pretty good job of choosing the right candidates. Although, she did this at a large, public companies, we think it applies equally well to small businesses. We would argue that it is even more important to hire the right people in small businesses because it doesn’t take long for your businesses to go down when one or two employees fail to do a good job.
For any small business that is hiring employees for customer facing roles the need to hire people who are enthusiastic and outgoing is critical. Mary Ellen describes a simple test – “handshake” test – she used to do when hiring employees. She would walk up to the job candidate unexpectedly, smile and introduce herself to him/her. If they reacted with enthusiastic smile and greeted with cheer, it was safe to assume that they would behave the same way with customers.
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Every small business owner needs to look at the business reports daily, weekly and monthly on a regular basis to stay up-to-date with how their business is performing. You need to understand what key performance metrics to look at in those reports. We showed how to identify and track key performance indicators in this post.
You don’t have to start from zero when looking for key performance metrics for your business. Many types of small businesses have “standard” set of metrics. As a small business and franchise owner you should be aware of these metrics. In this post we will summarize the key metrics for retail businesses and fast food / restaurants.
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In the previous post we mentioned that many small business owners find it difficult to explain how their business is doing with the numbers backing up their words. It is even more difficult to predict how the business is going to perform few months down the road. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.
By identifying and tracking few key performance indicators (KPIs) any small business owner can not only figure out how the business is performing; but also forecast where it is headed. This is no different from when the doctor checks vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, weight, etc. of the patient to find out what is wrong or could go wrong. You only need 5 or so KPIs to get a feel of the business performance.
Typically, these KPIs will be different for different industries. For example, the retail store should look at comparable sales and inventory turnover; while exercise facility would track customer turnover and average sales per customer. Most large publicly traded companies include these KPIs in their annual reports or in the financial analyst reports.
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Many small business owners remain dissatisfied with the return they are getting on their advertising spend. They continue to spend money on advertising month after month just because everyone else is doing it. When asked about what they are getting in return they remain as confused as everyone else.
We think the reasons small business owners are not happy with the return on their advertising spend is they don’t understand how to go about asking the right questions before putting their money down. They should pay attention to few fundamental principles of advertising before sending their next check to the advertising company.
Below we have distilled those principles in the form of questions that every small business owner must ask BEFORE placing an advertisement. By answering these questions and taking appropriate actions you can get the maximum return on your advertising spend.
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Many small business owners we have met have misconceptions about marketing. They think of marketing as doing flashy advertising with catchy pictures and some coupons in newspaper insert or with a direct mail company. This underestimates the power of marketing and the value good marketing can bring to your small business.
We ourselves have fallen into this trap when we owned businesses in the past. The reason many small business owners, including ourselves, do this is because of lack of time and lack of understanding of what marketing is all about. We have thought long and hard about this when we operated small business and afterward. Based on that we have come up with 5 fundamental rules of marketing that when used properly are sure to improve your sales. Here they are in no particular order:
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Whether you are buying a business for the first time or you have purchased and sold number of businesses you cannot underestimate the importance of due diligence before signing on that dotted line. The mistake made at this stage can not only be costly in terms of financial losses; but it will get you stuck with bad business for a long time.
So what is due diligence? Due diligence is the process of looking at the business you are planning to purchase from multiple angles to verify that the financials match with what the seller promised earlier. Presumably, you have already done your homework in terms of market analysis, competition, and future potential before putting an offer with the seller. The due diligence comes into picture after the seller has agreed to your offer. It is usually one of the last steps in the buying process before you start preparing the closing documents.
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In 1961 President John F. Kennedy made a bold statement in his speech. He promised to American people and the world that before the end of the decade America would land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth. When you think about it this was an enormous challenge. We didn’t even know what technology we would use to accomplish this. Many aspects of this mission had huge risks. And still, we found a way to accomplish this goal.
Such is the power of deadline. By setting a challenging deadline for the mission he set the entire nation into motion. Having a deadline somehow springs everyone into action. People simply find a way to make it possible one way or another.
The reason deadline works is because of how human mind is wire to react. When you give someone, or even yourself, a deadline they don’t want to disappoint the promise. Deadline gives them a target to shoot for. Without it they will not only not push themselves to complete it; but also keep the work going forever.
So how can you use the power of deadline to help you accomplish your goals even if they may not be as ambitious as putting the man on the moon? We have identified several ways from our own experience.
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Chances are many of us today will have forgot to complete at least 1 task they set out to do at the beginning of the day even though they had all good intentions and time to do it. The problem is we just couldn’t remember it at the right moment. If you have got a feeling at some point where you think you need to do something; but can’t recall what it is then you know what I mean.
There is a simple, yet effective, tool we have used that is sure to help you remember things and increase your productivity. The “To-do List” in its various forms can make sure you remember what you need to do when you need to do it. In the previous article we have mentioned other techniques you can use to improve productivity.
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