Do you know yourself? Do you know your clients? What Kind of business owner are you?

I had a chance to meet with John Warrillow recently. He's the author of an excellent new book that talks about business owners and how they think. It's titled Built to Sell

If you have a dream of selling your business or growing your small business into a bigger business that one day can be sold, this book should help you.

If you're a business owner, or hope to one day be a business owner, this book is important for you...if you are an advisor to business owners this book is critical!

What kind of business owner are you? What kind of business owners are your clients?

• Mountain Climber
• Freedom Fighter
• Craftsperson

Take the time to figure it out, it could be worth a lot of money to you one day soon.

Give it a read, I'll bet you'll be glad you did.

Click here for the link to the book.

Thinking about buying a business? Here's a way to figure what is possible

If you want to own your own small business there are really only two ways to get into business. You can start a business from scratch, often called a start-up. Or you can buy an existing business from a business owner who is ready to sell their business.

There is much written about starting a business. The biggest problem with a start-up is in the time it takes a start-up to become cash flow positive and unfortunately many never become cash flow positive and they fold.

Buying an existing business is often a good choice. If you do it right you can be cash flow positive immediately and financing for purchasing a business is often very favorable. In a previous post I wrote about "Why would someone sell be their perfectly good business?" and it talks about why business owners choose to sell good businesses.

If you want to buy an existing, profitable, business you need to answer a couple of questions about your situation before you begin your search.

First, how much money do you have available for a down payment before borrowing any money from any banks, credit cards, etc. It will be very, very difficult to buy a good business without a down payment.

Second, what's the minimum amount of money you need to make from the business to live on once you buy the business.

If those two numbers are reasonably close to each other you have a decent shot at buying a business.

Here is a "typical" deal:

Business earnings (Seller's Discretionary Earnings)  $75,000
Selling Price of business   $200,000
Down payment    $50,000
 Earnings/Salary you need  $50,000
Get an SBA Loan for $150,000
Annual Payments for your SBA Loan $20,500 (10 years @ 6.5%)

Business earnings $75,000 - $20,500 (debt payments) = $54,500 to you the new owner.

Also, when thinking about your down payment there is a mechanism to use you 401(k) funds to buy a business without incurring early withdrawal penalties nor tax obligations.

If you want to be in business for yourself it's always a good idea to get informed and look at all your options.

Why would someone sell me their perfectly good business?

Often small business buyers wonder about this. There is an all too frequent buyer attitude that says "If it is a good business they wouldn't be willing to sell it to me!"
Here are some reasons we see business owner want to sell:

1. Divorce of husband and wife owners
2. Partnership disputes
3. Owner health issues
4. Kids don't want the business and the owner has gotten to retirement age.
5. The business has gotten bigger than the skills of the owner
6. The business needs professional management
7. The industry is changing faster than the owner wants to change (in this case the owner is always convinced the market is wrong and he is right).
8. The business is totally debt free and the owner doesn't want to take on debt to grow.

There are many other reasons that make sense to the seller, even if it doesn't always make sense to the buyer. the tricky part is, because confidentiality is so important it takes some work to locate a good business to buy. Finding a good business for sale and buying it from a seller who has a good reason to sell could be a formula for success in a business acquisition.

A New Year's resolution list for small business owners......

In the spirit of the holidays I've decided to give small business owners a ready made, no assembly required, New Year's resolution list. It's only 5 items and it's designed for every business owner.

Here's your list............ yes that means you!

1. Smile more - business life is never as bad as it seems when things aren't going well. From a business perspective there is always a way out...always.
2. Read more - I don't care how long you've been in business nor how smart you think you are...you can learn something from someone else. I suggest that you read things that are not directly related to your industry. Skimming your trade journal every month to see who got fired is not real reading.
3. Plan more - Set aside specific blocks of time, away from the office, where your only job is to think about your business 6 -12 months in the future. In spite of what you may believe, planning is not the same as updating a to do list.  
4. Say thank you more - to your spouse, your parents, your kids (yep, I said kids), to your customers, to your employees, to your vendors, etc. You get the idea, right?
5. Wish less, Do more - I recently read (see #2 above) that the best productivity tool in the world is to do something. Makes sense to me, we can talk about doing something or we can actually do something. If we're talking about doing something it's still on the to do list, if we actually do it...by golly the list is shorter.

There's your ready made, easy to use list. And by the way it's my list also for 2011. And... thank you for reading this blog, I'll try to make it better than ever in the new year.

If you don't use this list I'd love to see your list! 

Happy New Year!!!

Holiday Reading Ideas for a Better Business

My New Year's resolution (well, one of them anyway!) is to provide more tools for small business owners to start or buy a business, then grow it profitably and sell it! As part of that I am kicking off the New Year with a specific book recommendation. Although I can't say I agree with everything in this book it is loaded with ideas that might help get you focused on creating a business that you run, instead of a business that runs you.

Making Money is Killing your Business contributes greatly to the argument that running a business by the seat of your pants is not always a great idea.

A core and unique concept of the author Chuck Blakeman is that a business should throw off money and time. If you start thinking about your business this way I think it will change some of your decision making. In an earlier post, 'Tis the season...  I warned about creating an atmosphere in your business where you are cynical about your business and you lean on an "it's me against the world" view of ownership.

This book gives clear ideas and examples of how to mange that natural tendency.
Don't get hung up in the references to a specific industry. Analyze the concepts and I think you'll be able to apply improvements to your business quickly. Good luck and let me know what you think about the book.