Archive for August, 2008

Watch Out For Folks Going To Bible Study

This is an OLD experience for my family. It happened many years ago. Can it happen again?? It almost did just 3 years ago. YOU can never let your guard down when doing business. There are just too many folks ready to make the easy dollar…. AT YOUR EXPENSE.

Our primary GOAL in writing about personal and business experiences is to put YOU on guard. We want to keep you SAFE from the barracudas. They are HARD to recognize! Like a CON MAN. You never recognize them UNTIL they take YOUR MONEY….and disappear! When you are faced with major decisions, we want to be there. Those decisions that have a big impact on your success. Where financial rewards are important. YOU don’t want to get left at the starting gate by a CROOK!

Vending Service Experience

My brother had just completed 4 years in the Air Force. He and a buddy had MUSTERING OUT PAY. After receiving their final paycheck from Uncle Sam, they were ready for the world. Just outside the gate, there was a SUPER salesman waiting! If you have been in the military, you know the rest of the story (according to Paul Harvey!). A VENDING MACHINE SALESMAN! BUY 3 machines that sell coffee, hot chocolate, soup, etc. AND you’re in YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

Vending machines BREAKDOWN! If the machine fails to give coffee (10 cents!) you can bet some burley REDNECK is going to turn the machine OVER or kick it until it works. Or gets HIS money back! (The year was about 1957!) Can you imagine 10 cents for a drink?

Unfortunately, the “buddy” grew up in Idaho. HE was the MECHANIC! Got HOMESICK and we haven’t seen HIM since.

Competitor Wants to Buy our Business…..Why?

Why did he want our little business? This guy was in his own drink vending business. HE WANTED OUR MECHANIC! Obviously, buy our business and he would get the mechanic. He had a nice warehouse, his own offices, and was mature in the world of operating a business.

In his office on a Wednesday night about 6 PM we had a meeting. His phone rang. After a few minutes on the phone, he turns around and says I let PRAYER MEETING slip my mind. HE HAD TO GO! A RED FLAG said to us…don’t do it! Something is not right.

Contracts Can Backfire In Your Face!!

Some years ago, our firm had an employee who was labeled as the MARKETING Manager. Also, the Sales Manager. Obviously, a very IMPORTANT position. YOUNG and ENERGETIC! SINGLE! A real GO-GETTER!! As you might expect, HE got engaged, then married to a NICE GAL. Intelligent. A good businesswoman, too.

Not a bad situation for him. OUR PROBLEM?? His new wife was 3 HOURS away! How can we keep THIS valuable employee? WE had NO BUSINESS in the CITY where he needed to live with his new wife. He wanted to stay in the business and we certainly desired his continued employment with us.

ACTUALLY, he had gone to SCHOOL and LIVED in the city before. An obvious benefit to him and to us. He would have FRIENDS who could be PRIME prospects to become clients/customers. We LICENSED him to do BUSINESS…be HIS OWN BOSS! He was the OWNER of the business. It would give us an introduction into a NEW MARKET. A NEW BEGINNING…. with OUR BLESSING.

We were pleased as punch. EVERYTHING was off to a wonderful beginning. The business came in and grew QUICKLY. He was the PRESIDENT and brought in the business. We gave him BACK-OFFICE support…materials; payroll; billing, etc. We had a LEGAL agreement to provide services on a FEE basis. A good deal for BOTH of us. Our fee was FAR below industry norms. Even then, we REDUCED our fees further when he had difficulty with expenses.

According to industry standards, we had set our LICENSE FEES at a discount in the very beginning. A CONTRACT was WRITTEN and SIGNED! We wanted our former employee to succeed in his new business. It was not our intention to saddle him with unreasonable expenses.

Our Generosity Backfires…

We REDUCED the LICENSE fee WITHOUT changing our AGREEMENT. It seemed like a very generous act on our part. We saw no reason to bother with re-writing the contract. We were giving him a bigger slice of the pie with no strings attached. Not a good idea!

It was a TOUGH lesson for us to learn. We had to PAY THOUSANDS of extra dollars on a BUY BACK formula when we purchased the business from our licensee. In effect we had changed the contract by our action which caused the formula to change on our buy-back agreement.

BUSINESS TIP: NEVER do anything without YOUR attorney (legal advisor). It seemed so SIMPLE. Kindhearted. FAIR! Legal issues are LEGION. DON’T try to be your own advisor. AVOID TROUBLE WITH GOOD COUNSEL.

So You’ve Decided to Start an Online Business

Many people ask: Can you start an online business to make money? A better question would be: Can you start an online business that will be profitable? Starting an online business requires patience, skill, knowledge, and belief in your ability to succeed.

Yes, it’s easier and cheaper to start an online Internet business, than a brick and mortar business. Yes, your online business will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (24x7x365). Yes, millions of people, around the world, will be able to access your web site. Yes, you can make a lot of money on the Internet.

Unfortunately, “If you build it, they will come” worked fine in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams”, but it will not work on the Internet without effort and dedication.

Many people assume that it is too late to start an online business, that the Internet is too competitive, all the good products and services are taken, and the skills required to succeed are too difficult to learn. These assumptions are false. Learning how to start a profitable Internet Business doesn’t have to be complicated. If you can use email and navigate the Internet you can learn basic Internet marketing skills, concepts and techniques.

If you have an idea for an Internet business, Cire Web Site Design & Hosting can help you turn your dream into a reality. They have have been in business since 1996. Cire offers affordable web site design and hosting. They will help you choose and obtain an appropriate Internet domain name for your online business.

Unlike other web design companies, Cire cares about the success of your Internet business. The knowledge, expertise and marketing experience they possess can turn your idea into a profit maker. They will show you how to get visitors to your web site, how to get listed on the major search engines, how to improve your search engine rankings, how to inexpensively accept online payments, and most importantly how to be successful with your Internet business.

Remember, this is your online business and you have to treat it as such. No one is going to do the work for you. If you think an Internet business is self sufficient or that you don’t have to put any work into it, you are wrong. It may take many months before you begin to see a profit for your efforts, but if you devote the time, money and energy into building your online business, you will succeed in reaching your goals.

This blog is dedicated to providing the knowledge to succeed and to turn your dream of a profitable online business into a reality.

Use a Blog to Attract More Customers

If you want to establish credibility, attract more customers, or gain a larger audience, creating a blog is an ideal way to accomplish that goal. Search engines will index your blog content, making it easier for potential customers to find you and the products or services you offer. A blog is a simple, cost effective way to create a professional online presence.

What is a Blog?

A blog is a web site in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order that can be viewed in a web browser. The term blog is a shortened form of web log. Creating a blog, maintaining a blog or adding content to a blog is called “blogging”. Individual content on a blog are referred to as “blog posts”. A person who posts content is called a “blogger”. The blog software that allows you to manage your website is called “CMS” or “Content Management System”.

A blog allows you to quickly post your thoughts, interact with other people, and to establish yourself as a subject matter expert. Your blog may contain text, video, images, and links to other web sites. The hardest part of writing a blog is keeping it updated. Fresh content is critical to the success of your blog. It should be updated frequently in order to attract new visitors and to maintain your readers’ attention.

Technorati, which is among the most popular blog search engines, provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings. Blogs have reshaped the Internet, impacted politics, changed journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others. It has also created a new affordable low cost method of Internet marketing.

Blogging gives you the opportunity to reach hundreds or even thousands of people each and every day. Cire Web Design & Hosting can provide you with an affordable web design, that is customised for you. They have the expertise and experience to design and host your blog and to turn your blogging efforts into a well tuned money maker.

Are You Ready to Buy a Franchise

Lots of folk think all you have to do is buy a franchise from some company and you are on your way to great success. NOTHING is farther from the truth!!

How do I know? Been there! Done that! It is more often than not a bad deal and a lot of money up front. You’ll pay FUTURE fees for the privilege of doing business. If you don’t like to be told what to do and how to do it, then you probably want to look long and hard before buying a franchise.

It is not a cookie cutter kind of deal. Many of the reasons a franchise is successful in one area of the country may not exist where you live. It could be the weather. Maybe senior citizens. No yuppie folks available to buy your product. Who is your customer? Do they exist where you are? There are many reasons a franchisee fails.

My own experiences prove you have to do your own research. How important it is that you know WHY a franchise is extremely successful. There are lots of reasons. Is it the area of the country? What is your area like? In 1966, 32 years ago, I bought a personnel agency franchise. (Obviously, I was very young!) Which means I didn’t know what I was doing, I let my ego guide my decision.

My own business was an exciting idea. President of a personnel agency with ownership. The home office (franchiser) was doing great and there was every reason to believe that we could do the same in our city.

What Did We Miss??

It just happened to slip by us that the manager of the home office was hired to run the company AFTER being very active (an officer) in the personnel association in his city. Do you already see OUR problem? The buyers of personnel services belong to the personnel association! NO ONE on our staff was a member nor were any of us known by the members of the personnel Association. He had an inside track!! He already knew the buyers, not only as trusted friends, but they knew him as a trusted and knowledgeable personnel executive.

I’ll tell you later how I came out ahead in this deal. It takes us back to realizing that we are on a journey, not a destination. This is not where we ended. Good things happen when we keep on keeping on thru life. We can’t give up!

BUSINESS TIP: Buying a FRANCHISE is NO GUARANTEE of Success. YOU must know the reasons others are successful. LOCATION is important. FINANCES are extremely important. BEST DEAL…go WORK for another franchisee… FREE! YOU will quickly LEARN more than you ever wanted to know…

Foreign Outsourcing of American Jobs

Is foreign outsourcing of American jobs by American Companies immoral? I Say YES!

Lawmakers in more than 25 states and in the United States Congress have identified foreign outsourcing as a threat to US employment and prosperity. Legislators must ban federal or state contracts with companies that would outsource jobs to foreign countries.

If no action is taking, US companies will continue to fire American workers in significant numbers and replacing them with foreign workers in low-wage countries such as India, China and Eastern Europe.

Of course, outsourcing is nothing new. The US and State governments and American Corporations have been outsourcing domestically for decades such services as data base management, janitorial services and payroll.

The recent increase in foreign outsourcing in which US companies buy services from foreign-based providers has been make increasingly cost effective due to the personal computer and the Internet.

According to the data from several experts, over one third of the world trade growth has been achieved by means of foreign outsourcing to other countries. This has caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States and has had a major effect on the US Economy.

Foreign outsourcing has changed the demand for skilled and unskilled labor and altered the structure of wages in the United States. Foreign outsourcing sends production to countries where labor costs are lower than in the US.

As a professional web designer, I have seen many American businesses outsource their web projects to foreign countries. American businesses fail to realize that they are spending their money overseas and not supporting the US economy. They are causing American workers to lose their jobs.

Cire Web Site Design & Hosting provides affordable web design and hosting. We have been in business since 1996. Due to foreign outsourcing we have been forced to reduce our workforce by over 70%.

Buying American may cost more, but it is the moral thing to do. Stand proud America and buy American.

How to Create an Email Signature

An email signature is a block of text appended to the end of an email message often containing the sender’s name, address, phone number, web site link or other information you wish to share with your email recipients.

Your email signature is an easy way to show people you take your work seriously and what you’re up to. Adding an email signature is not only an easy and fast way to draw attention to your business, it’s free advertising.

To Create an Email Signature in Outlook

• Select Tools | Options… from the menu in Outlook.
• Go to the Mail Format tab.
• Click Signatures… under Signatures.
• Go to the E-mail Signature tab.
• Click New.
• Enter a name for your new signature.
• You can have more than one signature for different purposes.
• Click next.
• Type the desired text of your signature under Edit signature.
• Click Finish.
• Click OK.
• Click OK again.

To Create an Email Signature in Gmail

• Select Settings.
• There’s a signature option in the middle of the page.
• Type your signature into the box.
• Save your signature.

Now when you start a new email your customized signature will automatically be inserted allowing you to promote yourself and your business.

No Personal Guarantees….Your Best Deal!!

Things you may not expect USUALLY HAPPEN! Here’s what happened to a good friend of mine several years ago. Timing doesn’t matter, it could happen TODAY.

My friend went out of town on vacation. Upon his return, he discovered that his “PARTNERS” had signed a MAJOR contract to PURCHASE an expensive computer system WITHOUT even consulting with him.

This is why your AGREEMENTS are so IMPORTANT and MUST be in WRITING! My point is…this can happen to you unless your LEGAL advisor has PROTECTED your best interest in the business. You DO NOT want someone making decisions for you when it is YOUR money at RISK. Even more serious is being on the hook for any borrowed funds from your banker.

Small business owners usually sign PERSONAL guarantees with their banker, which means everything YOU own backs up the company debt. Your % ownership is NOT CONSIDERED unless your legal counsel has protected YOU!

It is a MAJOR decision on your part, just as it has been in my case, to be involved with diverse ownership of your business. You could own 8%, 10% of the firm, however, if YOU sign personal guarantees for the debt of the company then you are backing up 100% of the debt, not just the 8% or 10% based on your ownership.

This is very important for you to understand in your business dealings. Do not THINK these personal guarantees don’t hold “water”. Heaven forbid, but IF your business fails and you (your company) owe the bank money, YOUR FRIENDLY BANKER changes his/her personality.

He now becomes your friendly COLLECTOR and demands full payment (immediately!). It is an amazing sight to see. But, you will not be a happy camper with this new person you are about to find on your doorstep.

Keep in mind, the bank will go after the most LIQUID ASSETS owned by you and/or the other partners. Or the easiest property to sell and convert to CASH. It makes no difference to the banker (now collector) who the fortunate one is to cough up the assets or cash from PERSONAL assets.

The bank expects to be PAID. The bank has ONE concern. Protecting their client’s (customer’s) money. You are facing tough times, yet you agreed to hold them harmless by backing up your loan with personal assets.

With good legal advice, you may be able to limit your liability to the % of stock owned rather than to the whole amount owed. You must put this in place as part of your agreement with the bank at the beginning, not after things go sour.

Obviously, NO PERSONAL GUARANTEES is the best deal of all for YOU! Seek your funds from different sources and try to find a bank that will NOT require a personal endorsement. You have served your firm well when you accomplish this goal.

BUSINESS TIP: Let your legal advisor guide you in everything you do; every paper you sign; every decision you make in business. PROTECT the INTEREST of YOUR LOVED ONES!! Do not think, NOTHING can go wrong!! Hire the VERY BEST COUNSEL. OWN 51% of the Stock in your company. THINK long and hard BEFORE accepting any less. Consider all the options available to you

RSS

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. It is a free and easy way to promote a web site and its content without the need to advertise or create a complicated content sharing partnerships. RSS technology is being used by millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favorite web sites.

The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats:

• Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
• Resource Description Framework Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

RSS is a powerful tool, and easy to handle. The big consumer benefit to RSS is that consumers opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information they receive. RSS feeds make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies.

To fully understand what RSS is and how to use it, I am attaching a short video that explains “RSS in Plain English”.

Now that you understand the power of RSS. You can sign up for the Free Google Reader at http://www.google.com/reader and be sure to subscribe to our blog so you do not miss any of the informative content we provide.

EBITDA – What Does It Mean To You??

If you are just starting your own business, great! If you already have a business, GREAT!! It really does not matter what stage you are currently facing. You MUST have one GOAL in mind when you begin a business.

BUILD YOUR BUSINESS TO SELL!!!

This is the ONLY good reason to start or run your own business. An ideal plan is to set yourself up to sell out and start over every 5 years until you reach the ultimate goal to RETIRE. Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do, but it certainly is a great goal to set into your business plan. Hopefully, you won’t have to face a recession every 5 to 6 years as we did in our 40 plus years business life.

What is EBITDA?? This is a formula that plays into how much you can expect someone to pay for your business in the future. Code: E = earnings; B = before; I = interest; T = taxes; D = depreciation; and the A = amortization. It says, what are your EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST / TAXES / DEPRECIATION / and AMORTIZATION.

What is your Cash Flow? Your Receivables? Sales Dollars? Expenses? Any buyer will want to know answers to these questions. Plus many more in deciding if they want to buy your business. Another major concern is…who are your customers/clients? How many? Volume of annual business with each? Loyalty to your firm? Will you stay and run the business for the new buyer? Will you carry the note or do you require all cash? Part cash/part stock in a public firm?

You need to know that a publicly traded firm (stock on one of the exchanges) can and will (most likely) pay more for your business than a private suitor. It never hurts to let both private and public firms make you an offer to buy, as you have no way of knowing WHY anybody wants your firm. Everyone will have a different reason based on their future goals and plans in the marketplace.

Just understand NOBODY will love the company like you do today. It’s your BABY. You have raised it from infancy and your life BLOOD / SWEAT and TEARS are all tied up in YOUR value but NOT in the way a buyer will see it. Don’t get your feelings hurt in the process if you really want to sell your business

BUSINESS TIP: A smart business person BUILDS his / her business with ONE GOAL in mind – to turn their effort into VALUE $$$ for a BUYER. NEVER sell to the 1st buyer! Create an AUCTION. People buy a business for reasons YOU may never understand. NOT important! HIRE YOURSELF A DEAL MAKER!!