The exit strategy you must have if all goes right

After a few years, you might find yourself with a successful home business. After a few more, you might find yourself sick of it and ready to retire, only to realise that you have no idea what to do with the business and all the customers who rely on you if you take that course of action. Here's what you need to do to get out of your business without destroying it, and come away with a good nest egg. Selling Your Business. A business has more value than you might expect. As a rule, businesses are bought and sold for somewhere between one and two years' worth of their profits. If you wonder why, consider that the person buying a business gets not only a proven business model, but also all the marketing materials and other intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights, patents), an existing customer base, and years of built-up goodwill. Home businesses, however, can be more problematic to sell than other businesses, for the simple reason that they do not come with business premises. You might have the best luck allowing one of your larger competitors to do a 'takeover' of your business, in which they are mostly paying for your name, branding and customers. This can be lucrative for them, as they get to both eliminate a competitor and expand their own business at the same time. You will need to put some effort in to make your business attractive to potential buyers -- do some analysis on what each element of the business is worth. Show that you have made lots of sales in the past and will make many more in the future. Above all else, buyers are looking at your balance sheet, and the business' potential for growth. They're in this because they want their future earnings to be more than the amount they pay, and if you can demonstrate that they could make that happen quickly then they'll have no reason not to buy. Getting the Right Price. Don't sell your business to the first person who offers, however good their offer might sound -- you need to get offers on the table from everyone you can think of who might be interested. You may even find that they're quite willing to have a meeting with you as a group, and get into a little bidding war. Alternatively, if you already have staff, you may wish to offer them the option to bid too, providing them with a finance agreement. Before you do anything like this, though, it's good to get your lawyer and your accountant to advise you on the best course of action. You will do better on the price of your business if you've planned your sale in advance, instead of waiting to the last minute. The people who get the best prices are the ones who take years to sell their business, and are always prepared to walk away from the negotiating table. Time to Skim. One thing you need to remember when you sell your business is that if there are any shareholders other than yourself, they need to receive their percentage of the business' final sale price. Depending on the terms of the agreement, you may have to buy their part of the business before you can sell it, or give them the option to buy your part before you offer it on the open market. On top of that, you will also have to pay tax on the sale of your business. Always consider how much an offer is going to be worth to you after tax, not before. Starting from a Powerful Position. Once you've sold your business, there's one thing left that you can do. With the lump sum you just got from the sale, you're in a great position to start a new business! If the sale didn't include your equipment, then it shouldn't be too hard to get started again -- and this time, you'll have a lot of money to invest. Not only that, but you've proven yourself to be good to lend to, so any finance you need should be far easier to obtain. Keep building businesses and selling them every few years, and you can quickly get hold of the resources to build something truly great. Good luck!

Climb out of the box of bad meetings how to hold effective meetings

Out of the box thinking is a popular fad today. And yet, in order to leave a box, you have to realize that you are in one. For example, the Indians who lived in the Grand Canyon believed the entire world was like the canyon. And so they didn’t try to find Kansas. This can be okay, if you’re in a beautiful place like the Grand Canyon. It can be a rut, however, if you’re stuck in bad meetings. For example, many leaders truly believe that it is normal to spend hours in a meeting engaged in pointless chit chat. Some believe that a meeting should be conducted like a Medieval court where the subjects listen while the boss talks. Others even believe that a group of people will be able to guess the purpose of a meeting without receiving a hint, like an agenda. They may be like the VP who left his staff meeting after it had gone on for 30 minutes to ask his assistant, "Do you remember why I called this meeting?" Or the manager who invited 30 software experts to a two-day meeting in Houston (actually a $50,000 argument) with no agenda because he didn't want to "spoil the spontaneity by imposing a structure." Or the manager who was told to reduce the number of meetings that he held and responded by calling an all-day meeting to figure out how. All of these executives are working inside a very small, very unproductive box. Instead, they should climb out of the box and run their meetings like a business. They should: 1) Have a Plan. Every meeting should have an agenda. Your agenda should begin with a clear, complete statement of the result that you want. Begin by writing out your goal for the meeting. Then study it. Review it. And revise it until it reflects exactly what you want. Let's play with a simple example. Suppose your goal was to reduce the budget. Now, is that what you really want to do? Would a better goal, for example, be something like: figure out how to reduce spending on utilities, or reduce the cost of materials, or maintain productivity without buying new equipment? Notice that these goals reduce the budget while producing results more valuable than simply making numbers smaller. Of course, your goal will depend upon your situation and what you want to accomplish. Once your have the goal, then plan activities that will accomplish it. Most meetings are conducted using a discussion, which is the least effective process for reaching agreements and making decisions. Instead, use activities that equalize participation and lead to consensus. 2) Earn a Profit. Most meetings produce a loss. That is, the cost of the meeting exceeds the value of what it produces. Begin by estimating the value of the result that you want from your meeting. If the value seems low or uncertain, then ask yourself if a meeting is warranted. Perhaps, it would be more cost effective to write a memo, make a phone call, or visit the manager next door. Then design your meeting so that you earn a profit. Estimate the cost by multiplying your budgeted labor rate by the number of participants multiplied by the length of the meeting. Add the costs of travel, services, and materials. Finally, compare the cost with the value. If the cost, exceeds the value, change the scope of the meeting. Staying in the box, may be okay for executives who want to play make-believe games with their time. But those leaders who want to be part of the future will run their meetings like a business.

Designers and architects are aesthetics more important than practicalities

As a cleaning company we get called in to carry out builders cleans on new builds and refurbishments. Time and time again what we see is that the designer has had something built, laid or put in place solely on the grounds that it looks good with no regard as to how it will stand up to use or the practicalities of trying to keep it clean and looking good. They produce their design, see it through to the finish and then walk away. Only later does it become apparent that it is completely impractical from a cleaning point of view but they do not seem to learn from their mistakes because the same ones keep being repeated. Let us take some classic examples. Car showrooms are a prime example. Car dealers require a nice environment to show of their brand new cars. So what do you need? A large rectangular space in which to fit the cars. Large windows so that the cars can be viewed easily by passers by. Clean freshly painted walls with some nice pictures placed strategically. A potted plant or two. Modern desks for the sales people. Some colourful stands advertising the products interspersed between the cars. All pretty standard and nothing exceptional to allow the designer to soar into the realms of artistry. One thing however is missing from this list and that is the flooring. Now it is here that the designer has something to get their teeth into. What do they come up with? Bright, shiny, white or cream floors in ceramic tiles. This is really good, because the light coloured shiny floors set the cars off really well because the majority of them are in relatively dark colours. So in the building or refurbishment programme this is the type of flooring detailed and once laid and cleaned it looks marvellous. Then they start to bring the cars in and the customers walk in and then the trouble starts. Invariably the cleaners are blamed for not cleaning properly. The tiles are smeary, or the trye marks are not being removed, water marks are being left and so the complaints go on. What is actually happening is that oil and fuel spillages occur, even small amounts are sufficient to create problems. Tyre marks are left on the tiles and new tyres are coated with a resin to make them look shiny and clean and small amounts of this are deposited onto the floor. Normal cleaning fluids will not remove these completely and they will become spread over all the tiles in time by the mopping or other cleaning process employed. So tyre impressions and footmarks will be clearly visible even after cleaning. The only answer is to clean with a scrubber and a degreasing solution. However this adds considerably to the cost of cleaning the showroom and most garages are not willing to pay this additional sum so they continue to blame the cleaners. It could be easily solved if patterned tiles were used which would disguise these impressions and then normal mopping and cleaning would be sufficient followed every three months or so by a scrub with degreasing solution. Have garages or designers twigged this yet? No, because plain tiles have continued to be used in showrooms up to the present day.