Tag Archives: entrepreneur

The hidden goal of the smartest business owners

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

What are your business goals for the year? If you’re like most owners, you have a profit goal you want to hit. You may also have a top line revenue number that’s important to you. While those goals are important, there is another objective that may have an even bigger payoff: building a sellable business.

But what if you don’t want to sell? That’s irrelevant. Here are five reasons why building a sellable business should be your most important goal, regardless of when you plan to push the eject button:

1. Sellability means freedom

One of the fundamental tenants of sellability is how well your company would perform if you were unable to work for a while. As long as your business is dependent on you personally, there’s not much to sell. Making your company less dependent on you by building a management team and creating just-add-water systems for employees to follow means you have the ability to spend time away from your business. Think of the world of possibilities that would open up if you could choose not to go into the office tomorrow….

2. Sellable businesses are more fun

Running a business would be fun if you were able to spend your days on strategic thinking and big picture ideas. Instead, most business owners spend the majority of their day on the minutia: the government forms, the employee performance reviews, bank reconciliations, customer issues, auditing expenses. The boring details of company ownership suck the enjoyment out of owning a business—and it is exactly these tasks you need to get into someone else’s job description if you’re ever going to sell.

3. Sellability is financial freedom

Each month you open your brokerage statement to see how your portfolio is doing. Not because you want to sell your portfolio, but because you want to know where you stand on the journey to financial freedom. Creating a sellable business also allows you peace of mind, knowing that you’re building something that—just like your stock portfolio—has value you could choose to make liquid one day.

4. Sellability is a gift

Imagine that your first-born graduates from college and as a gift you give him your prized 1967 Shelby Ford Mustang. Your heavily indebted child takes it on the road, but after a few miles, the engine starts smoking. The mechanic takes one look under the hood and declares that the engine needs a rebuild.

You thought you were giving your child an incredible asset, but instead it’s an expensive liability he can’t afford to keep, and nor can he sell it without feeling guilty.

You may be planning to pass your business on to your kids or let your young managers buy into your company over time. These are both admirable exit options, but if your business is too dependent on you, and it hasn’t been tuned up to run without you, you may be passing along a jalopy.

5. Nine women can’t make a baby in one month

There are some things in life that take time, no matter how much you want to rush them. Making your business sellable often requires significant changes; and a prospective buyer is going to want to see how your business has performed for the three years after you have made the changes required to make your business sellable. Therefore, if you want to sell in five years, you need to start making your business sellable now so the changes have time to gestate.

Why not find out now if your business is sellable?

This free online tool is the only no-risk step you can take to determine if your business is ready to get full value. Fast-track your analysis by taking advantage of this free, no-obligation free online tool.

This Sellability Score you instantly receive is a critical component to any business owner’s complete financial plan and is something that, until now, we have only made available to existing clients.

However, we recognized that there is value in knowing in advance of working with a financial planner whether or not your largest asset is ready to be exchanged for your retirement nest egg. Our view is that you are better to learn more about your businesses sellability today and find out how your business scores on the eight key attributes so that you can ensure you obtain full value.

If your business part of your retirement plan, finding out your sellability score will be the best 10 min. you could ever spend working “on” your business.

Take the Quiz here: The Business Sellability Audit

Sellability ScoreFor more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Do you have a billion dollar business hiding inside your company?

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

Asking customers to pay to join a special group of your best patrons can increase your revenue, encourage customers to buy new products and services from you, and provide a healthy boost to your cash flow. Just ask Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and the chief architect behind Amazon Prime. In exchange for $79 a year, Amazon Prime customers get:

  • Free two-day shipping on millions of items
  • Unlimited streaming videos and TV shows
  • 350,000 books to borrow for free.

It’s a compelling offer, which is why, according to TIME Magazine, more than 10 million people have signed up. If you do the math, that makes Prime close to a billion-dollar business for Amazon. And like most programs, members pay upfront, giving Amazon a big injection of positive cash flow.

But what is even more interesting is what being a member of Prime does to the buying behavior of the average Amazon customer. Prime customers pay their $79 upfront and therefore are eager to ‘get their money back’ by purchasing a bigger and broader array of products from Amazon. With free shipping and a $79 nut to recover, Prime customers go well beyond buying books from Amazon and now get everything from tires to turtlenecks from the e-tailer. According to TIME, the average Prime customer now spends $1,224 per year with Amazon vs. the average non-Prime customer who spends just $505. In other words, Prime customers spend almost three times more per year than non-members.

Most businesses have some sort of loyalty program (buy nine sandwiches and the tenth is on us or get five hairs cuts and the sixth is free). The difference with Amazon Prime is they are charging customers to sign up for their special club and the fact that customers pay to join changes their buying behavior to want to recover their membership fee.

Amazon did not invent the pay-to-join-our-club business model. Private members clubs have been doing it for years. To join an elite golf club, you pay an initiation fee of tens of thousands of dollars, which then acts as a barrier to ever leaving. But as with Amazon Prime customers, becoming a member also changes a member’s buying behavior regarding other items. When compared to someone shooting 18 holes at a public course, the average golf club member is much more likely to buy balls from the shop, lessons from the pro, and dinner from the dining room.

The “AMC Stubs” loyalty program charges moviegoers to join the club. In return, customers get free upgrades on the size of popcorn and drink orders, along with $10 of Stubs rewards to spend on anything in the theatre in return for every $100 spent. AMC’s best customers become even better customers by going to the movies even more often and filling up with goodies while they’re there.

Look at the spending patterns of people who pay a premium to join a credit card company’s loyalty program. Customers who pay upfront for a premium card charge a much broader and deeper set of services to their card than people using a freebie card.

Getting your customers to pay to join your elite customer club requires that you design a compelling offer as Amazon Prime and AMC Stubs have done. But if you build it right, not only will the club itself turn a profit; it will also provide a quick boost to your cash flow and create a legion of sticky customers who buy more because they paid to become a member.

Why not find out now if your business is sellable?

This free online tool is the only no-risk step you can take to determine if your business is ready to get full value. Fast-track your analysis by taking advantage of this free, no-obligation free online tool.

This Sellability Score you instantly receive is a critical component to any business owner’s complete financial plan and is something that, until now, we have only made available to existing clients.

However, we recognized that there is value in knowing in advance of working with a financial planner whether or not your largest asset is ready to be exchanged for your retirement nest egg. Our view is that you are better to learn more about your businesses sellability today and find out how your business scores on the eight key attributes so that you can ensure you obtain full value.

If your business part of your retirement plan, finding out your sellability score will be the best 10 min. you could ever spend working “on” your business.

Take the Quiz here: The Business Sellability Audit

Sellability ScoreFor more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.