What To Know When Buying A Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Buying a Business|What To Know When Buying A BusinessBuying a business and being your own boss is like living the dream. However, without carefully stepping into the new business and considering every little detail, your dream could easily turn into a financial nightmare. Here are some critical aspects to consider when starting down the path of small business owner.

If it’s profitable

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s important to ask the previous business owner the right questions, including:

  • Why are you selling?
  • What condition is the building in and are there any repairs that need to be made as soon as possible?
  • What the sales system looks like and what the target demographic is?
  • What is employee turnover like?
  • Who are your vendors, and what is your relationship with them like?

All of these factors can impact your new business’s bottom line, and you don’t want to enter into an unprofitable business from the start because you overlooked an important question or two in the preliminary stages. Determine the risks before jumping in with both feet, and you’ll thank yourself later.

If it’s in a good location

When you take over an already-established business, you inherit everything that goes with it, including its shortcomings. If your business involves customers coming in person to your brick-and-mortar, you want to make sure the location is good and going to attract the right customers. Also consider other factors against it, like the cost of rent compared to other favorable locations.

If the location you’re inheriting is not ideal and you want to purchase a commercial property and move the business, it’s wise to enlist the help of an experienced real estate lawyer, like Watts Law Firm PA. They can help you navigate the complex process with ease, advise your purchase, and if need be, help solve any legal conflicts.

What kind of branding and marketing already exists

Branding and marketing are crucial in today’s connected world. A business’ social media presence can make or break them, just as one bad piece of PR can. Decide if you want to keep with the established branding or if you want to totally rebrand the business. Keep in mind the pros and cons of rebranding before deciding:

Pros: Established brand awareness, retention, and satisfaction among previous and repeat customers; one less task to think about on your plate.
Cons: Possibly inheriting poor branding; don’t get to personalize your business to your liking.

Either way, it’s good to know what kind of marketing efforts have been made and are currently underway, if any. This way, you can understand what worked and what didn’t for the target demographic, which will give you a jumpstart on your own efforts.

If your financing is secure

Yes, buying a business is a huge expense – it isn’t a secret. You want to ensure you’re coming out of the gate swinging in order for your new company to be a success. Avoid the financial headaches and stress by securing your funding far in advance and having a plan to pay back any loans. You can acquire funds by taking out a bank loan, a loan with a financing company, or using your home as collateral for a home equity loan. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to a financial advisor to set up a savings plan if that is the route you want to take.

4 Small Business Tips To Save You Stress

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Tips for Small Business Owners|4 Small Business Tips To Save You StressOperating a small business is no easy feat and certainly not for the faint of heart. There are employees to hire, train, and keep on top of, expenses to cover, meetings to plan, clients to acquire, and so many other day-to-day aspects of the business to stay on top of. With so many different elements of your company to consider on a daily basis, it can be easy to get lost in the stress of it all and be consumed by those worries. How great would it be if you could take some of that stress off your plate and save the headaches? Here are four tips for small business owners that you might not have considered yet, which can save you time, hassle, and hours of unproductivity caused by worrying or planning.

Set up an LLC

If you haven’t done this already, the first thing you should do is keep your business finances separate from your personal self and set it up as its own taxable entity. Even if you’re a self-funded, self-employed business of one employee—yourself—this is still critical. Registering your business as an LLC involves a cost, yes, but it’s not as much as you would expect, and it will protect your business from any legal trouble that might come your way. Also, you won’t have to worry about company finances creeping into your personal finances, which is a huge plus come tax season.

Use accounting software

A good number of small businesses don’t have the capital to hire an accounting department, which is fine but can also lead to trouble if the accounting isn’t taken care of properly. If your business is looking to save money in this area, consider buying accounting software instead of hiring a team or person to take on this task until it’s necessary. There are a wide variety of software programs available at a number of price points; it wouldn’t make sense not to take advantage and utilize them fully.

Have a lawyer on retention

As much as you might not want to think about it, sometimes dealing with other companies and clients can get messy, especially when it comes to payments. If your small business relies on contracts with clients, or clients paying for work that has already been completed, or both, you might feel better knowing you have a lawyer on retention to escalate and sort out any issues. CharlestonLaw.net has top-rated employment lawyers who can help protect your business.

Invest in quality marketing

Many small business owners can think they can get away with cutting corners and saving costs on marketing efforts because “how hard can it possibly be?”. That is until they try to do it themselves and get little to no return. Unless you are educated in the field and stay on top of marketing trends and strategies, marketing is best left to the experts and professionals.

How small businesses can advertise is constantly changing, between Google algorithms and social media playing a huge role, it can be challenging to understand and keep re-educating yourself on successful strategies. Is that something you want to add to your to-do list when there are probably a hundred other tasks you should be worried about already? Invest in a freelancer or small marketing company (depending on the size of your business and your marketing needs) to take this off your mind and get the results you want.

5 Telltale Signs of Fear-Based Leadership

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StrategyDriven Business Politics Practices Article |Fear-Based Leadership|5 Telltale Signs of Fear-Based LeadershipFear is bad for business. It significantly lowers engagement, morale, and ultimately, performance. Despite clear and overwhelming evidence of fear’s debilitating impacts, many leaders still resort to stoking people’s anxieties to get work done.

Consider these facts:

  • According to Human Resource Executive magazine, roughly one-third of U.S. workers spend at least 20 hours at work every month complaining about their bosses, instead of performing their jobs.
  • Gallup reports that American workers who are unhappy with their bosses are significantly less productive, to the tune of $360 billion in lost productivity each year.
  • A study published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology found that people who are mistreated on the job are twice as likely to be depressed at work and 33 percent more likely to report exhaustion and sleep disorders, which all disrupt productivity.

Given how damaging fear can be—and given the financial consequences—how can you assess if your organization is operating under fear’s grip? Look for these five telltale signs:

CYA Rules the Day. If employees spend an inordinate amount of time generating proof that they’re doing their jobs, they’re fearful—and worried about saving their tails. This may take the form of long lists of people cc’d on mundane email exchanges, obsessive meeting summaries, and employees who request formal approvals for everyday tasks.

Leaders Are Oblivious. When leaders are insulated from employee feedback, they become dangerously blind to themselves. Typically, the higher up you go in the organizational food chain, the less performance feedback is given. In most organizations, feedback flows downward, keeping leaders dangerously and blithely oblivious.

Bean Counters Call the Shots. In fear-based cultures, the educational backgrounds of C-suite leaders can disproportionately favor finance and accounting, which causes organizations to be hyper-analytical and risk-averse. When financial acumen is valued more than creativity or innovation, decisions end up being driven solely by the numbers, or by the fear of not meeting those numbers, instead of what’s in the best interest of the organization.

Everything Is Needed Yesterday. When fear-based leadership reigns, work environments turn toxic, permeated by anxiety and urgency. In such places, regardless of their roles, everyone seems to have the same job: firefighter! By jumping from one blazing inferno to the next, workers lose focus and their performance suffers.

People Are Crucified for Mistakes. When leaders rule through fear, even smart mistakes are punished swiftly and harshly, creating a play-it-safe-at-all-costs environment. Workers end up hiding their mistakes or blaming others for them. They cry, “Who caused this to happen?” instead of “How did this happen?”

Fortunately, despite all of its badness, fear does have one redeeming quality: it’s an invitation to courage. As such, fear, or more precisely, the courage that fear often prompts, can help you encounter your better self. By setting the tone from the top, you’ll set the stage for courage to prevail.

About the Author

Bill Treasurer is a workplace expert, courage pioneer, and author of Courage Goes to Work: How to Build Backbones, Boost Performance, and Get Results. Founder of Giant Leap Consulting, a consulting and training company specializing in courage-building, he advises organizations — including NASA, eBay, Lenovo, Saks Fifth Avenue, Spanx, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pittsburgh Pirates — on teaching workers the kind of courage that strengthens businesses and careers. Learn more at GiantLeapConsulting.com.

3 Unusual Jobs That Pay Well

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Career Hunter|3 Unusual Jobs That Pay Well Looking for a career that is different and considered unusual can often be found at the top of career hunter’s requirements. As well as looking for something that is unusual you probably want to earn a decent wage at the same time. It can definitely be a challenge to find careers that pay well and tick the box when it comes to being a little different, it can be hard to find one that is going to give you both and so people sometimes compromise.

However, with a little bit of hard work and dedication, you’re sure to find that unique job that also enables you to earn a fantastic living. Check out these occupations that are seen as little unusual but still offer you a good rate of pay.

Acupuncturist

Most people will be familiar with or at heard of this ancient Chinese practice. It’s where fine, sterile needles are inserted into your skin at certain pressure points. Sometimes electrical stimulation, heat, and pressure are also used to provide therapy to these areas. Acupuncture is a therapy that is used to release energy blocks in order to restore balance. It is often used to treat disorders that are involved with cardiovascular, digestive, immune systems, and nervous systems. As an acupuncturist, you will be dealing with patients’ health history and issues by performing physical assessments and performing therapies. You will often come across conditions such as back pain, Anxiety, Addiction and Migraines. There are several different routes to becoming a qualified acupuncturist depending on your location so it’s best to research this.

DNA/Forensic Analyst

This is a very interesting and rewarding career that requires a lot of focus, patience, commitment and discretion. Made a little more well-known thanks to crime dramas such as CSI DNA Analysts career have become a little more sort after than ever before. However, this doesn’t make them any less unusual or rewarding. You will be working closely within crimes scenes and laboratories to help assess DNA from blood, hair, bodily fluids and saliva to convict or relieve and suspects in a crime. You will use specialist equipment such as DNA extraction tools, microplates and a 96 deep well plate to complete your work and be in charge of maintaining and keeping it clean. Although a very high demanding job and the chance of been called out at any hour this type of career can be very rewarding as it plays a critical role in our jurisdiction system now.

Food Scientist

Ever wanted to make food fun? Then a career as a food scientist may be the role for you! If you’re interested in science but also love your food you are onto a real winner. Nearly every single food product that you see on the shelves in the supermarket has been seen or dealt with by a food scientist. They are the people who have the responsibility for making sure the food isn’t going to make people ill, the levels of nutrients held within the products and developing new foods and tastes. Food scientists take charge and conduct research, experiments, and often complete clinical trials to help make safer foods and preservatives. They even have a hand in creating food processing techniques, packaging and new products that could benefit how food is preserved and developed for consumption. They are often the hidden masterminds behind all our favourite flavours and tastes. Educating yourself in microbiology, chemistry or food science is going to give you a good lead on starting a career like this.

The Right and Wrong Way to Grow Your Digital Presence

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Digital Presence|The Right and Wrong Way to Grow Your Digital PresenceFocusing on your digital presence is a sure-fire way to grow your business, but there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding it. For instance, many people read outdated articles about how important advertising is, but the reality is that as the internet evolves the strategies we need to use have to change as well. So in order to demystify these problems and give you a better chance at growing your business, here are some tips on the right and wrong way to grow your digital presence.

Wrong: Focusing solely on advertising

Advertising is a great way to improve your digital presence, but there’s a single problem that makes it a terrible idea for most startups and SMEs; competition. While you could probably advertise on a similar level to larger companies, they’ll ultimately have a lot more money to spend, a larger marketing budget and ultimately more power than you. You simply don’t win when it comes down to who has more marketing power.

Right: Changing the approach depending on your budget

That’s why it’s incredibly important to change your approach depending on your budget. Smaller companies with less capital can focus on social media-based approaches. This involves joining communities, getting to know your audience and paying more attention to their needs as you try to meet them.

Wrong: Doing everything yourself to save money

There are far too many entrepreneurs and SMEs that would rather use their employees or even their own skills to try and grow their digital presence. This could include learning to design your own website, trying to use free SEO tools to get noticed on Google or even trying to manage your social media accounts alone. This is a poor approach because it takes a lot of your time and you simply don’t have the knowledge or skills required.

Right: Investing into services wisely

That’s why it’s important to partner yourself with an SEO agency, web design company or even a community manager. The idea is to always rely on specialists when possible because they’ll be capable of handling the tasks you’ve set while you can focus on striking more deals, developing new products and ultimately scaling your company. You can leave the design and technical work to specialists instead.

Wrong: Automating everything that you can

There are far too many services and tools that can help you automate tasks that really shouldn’t be automated. For instance, there are tools that will automatically update your social media pages with random bits of content, there are email templates and services that will spam emails to various accounts and there are tools to automate lead followup. This might work for larger businesses, but if you value customer interaction then there’s another option.

Right: Personalizing your content

Personalizing all of your content makes you more human and thus approachable. If you’re going to grow your digital presence then you absolutely need to write and send your own emails, curate content that you wish to display to the public and follow up on leads in person.