Archive for the ‘Business Strategy’ Category
Franchises – What’s The Exit Strategy?
Franchises – What’s The Exit Strategy?
Article by Dennis Schooley BBA, CA
At an International Franchising Symposium in London, Peter Holt made the bold statement to his audience of Franchisors that they needed to understand that their business would fail, and in fact all businesses are bound for failure. Needless to say, there were a few shocked faces in the crowd. He was making the point that it really is just a matter of the number of calendar flips before time strangles any business. It’s a hard point to argue when you think that the Neanderthal Fortune 100 included Barney’s Dinosaur Obedience School. Not a lot of money in that these days.
Evolutionary change would seem to indicate that we should all prepare for failure. Of course, if we do an extremely good job, perhaps our grandchildren’s grandchildren have the problem, and we can rest easy in the hammock for now. In a much more practical view of the calendars we get to flip ourselves, we should think about creating a successful Franchise business, maximizing the value, and realizing the optimum return with an appropriate exit strategy.
The folly often lies in not considering this part of the equation at the very time that you are considering entry into the Franchise in the first place. That’s exactly the time when you need to give significant consideration to the value of the asset that can be created. Ongoing profitability, cashflow, and emotional fulfillment, are all important criteria in the process of making an informed business decision about becoming a Franchisee. But then so is the growth of the asset value you create, along with the ease of realizing that value at the time you intend to exit.
Snagglepuss always knew it was ‘exit, stage left’, but that is not always so clear in the operation of a Franchised business. What is clear is that some dedicated thought needs to be applied at the time of entry so that appropriate strategic planning is put in play. Let’s consider a simple example to illustrate the importance of this consideration where you can increase the value of the business by 0,000 in five years, and there is a ready and willing market for the business at the end of that time. A straight-line application of the value increase, without considering the time value of money, would indicate that the real average annual earnings would be ,000 over and above the net income of the business.
That should tell you that a business that earns ,000 per year in profit might actually be a better investment than a business that makes 0,000 per year, if the latter has significantly less realizable value at the time of exit. If the plan is succession to family members, then again, the value of the asset to be transferred is of paramount importance, and not just the annual income.
Of course the timing of exit or liquidation will carry significant weight, and it’s not always in our control. Gilligan’s partnership share of Skipper’s Cruise Lines would have been much more valuable before he met Thurston and Lovey. That would indicate that we shouldn’t put the hen’s product all in one wicker carry case. The consideration should include both ongoing profitability, as well as ultimate asset value at the planned time of exit.
The value of planning can’t be overstated. The Allies didn’t just decide to go for a boat ride across the English Channel to Normandy one sunny afternoon. The Miami Dolphins didn’t win three Super Bowls in a row in the 1970′s because they won the coin toss. They even withstood the infamous Garo Ypremian foibles, because their plan was tight and well executed.
It certainly makes sense that a tight, and well executed, business plan would include both the profitability of the venture, and also the ultimate cash value at the end of the rainbow. The Franchisor should be able to provide you with pertinent information about asset growth, and the factors that will affect transition. If they are unwilling to discuss the matter, the solution is simple – run!
All good Franchisors should be looking for Franchisees that wish to maximize the value of their business with a well laid out plan. That will only enhance the value of the Franchise system as a whole, which increases value for each individual stakeholder. For the Franchisee, it really should be a significant attraction to become involved in the business in the first place.
The 21st century businessperson is the spawn of corporate hijinks and technological advancements in today’s global marketplace. What mattered in the past is not important now, including individual employees, whole departments, and entire processes. The new entrepreneur needs to control their own destiny, and will not place their fate in the hands of others. They will not risk Mr. Dithers handing them a pink slip. They believe that assessable risk is required to earn financial freedom. They also understand that the proper equation to assess risk includes both current profitability plus long-term asset creation.
Of course, there must also be emotional attachment to the business at hand in order to optimize value. If the plan is to grow the business to maximize value, and there is emotional commitment to that plan, the results can be dramatic. How important is emotional attachment? I’ve stayed in hundreds and hundreds of hotels, and yet I’ve never seen anyone clean the toilet in their room. There’s simply no emotional attachment to the asset. I’ve never seen anyone wash their rental car either. Nurturing, prodding, improving, adjusting, and building, all take commitment in order to be the creator of the ultimate value.
Like a baboon picking fleas, each business opportunity has to be examined carefully. The asset value of some service-based businesses will often hold value, and in fact increase in redeemable value as each new client is added to the business. The exit strategy of a retail location should include an assessment of the initial investment required, real estate values, competition, and demographic factors. The history of increases in Franchise Fees should also be considered to predict future minimum transfer value.
I experienced a good case in point about Franchise Fees. In 1972, a good friend and I decided that March break was best spent at Daytona Beach, as all good first-year college students conclude. We found this new restaurant there that had line-ups around the block – literally. It was called McDonalds. When we returned to campus, we went to the library to do some research because we were told that McDonalds might entertain building one more restaurant for the right person. The cost at the time was ,000. If we could have figured out how to raise the money, we would have become partners in a McDonalds Franchise, and my bet is we would have at least doubled our money.
Portability of transfer, able & willing marketplace, skills & training required for entry into the business, and predicted brand value at the time of anticipated transfer are all part of the equation. Flexibility of the Franchisor to address new market opportunities will create new markets for the Franchise. In addition, expansion plans of the Franchisor need consideration. Static doesn’t cut it. A plan to continue to bring in new and vibrant Franchisees well into the future will increase brand value, and nurture the market for the product or service of the Franchise system.
O.K., I didn’t say it would be easy to assess. There’s a lot to think about. What I am saying is that it would be foolish to avoid the issue. The timing of exit may be 10 years down the road, or 15, or even 25, but at the very least, it should be considered as a part of a long-term strategic plan. Daniel Hudson Burnham said “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” So plan. Plan to profit. Plan to nurture and build. And plan to exit.
The factors listed above must be assessed and ranked in order of importance before understanding the true value of the anticipated business venture. The maintenance and growth of asset value, as well as portability on transfer will ultimately determine the real return on investment.
Even though Barney was on the bleeding edge when he invented the dinosaur biscuit to reinforce good behavior, his target market ultimately went with the cats and dogs option. Of course, there wasn’t a big market for VoIP and Blogs in that digitally deprived age, when zeros and ones referred to the near death experiences of that particular day. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t that long ago, when McDonald was an old farmer.
The real message is that Barney should have had a plan to find a buyer before Rin Tin Tin and Sylvester showed up on his neighbor’s doorstep.
About the Author
Dennis Schooley is the Founder of Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, a Professional Services Franchise Company. He writes for publication, as well as for schooleymitchell.blogging.com and franchises.blogging.com, in the subject areas of Franchising, and Technology for the Layman. http://www.schooleymitchell.com, 888-311-6477, dschooley@schooleymitchell.com.
Bigger IT Role Needed in Shaping Business Strategy and Driving Innovation
Bigger IT Role Needed in Shaping Business Strategy and Driving Innovation
Article by Gigenet
150+ websites making $6-$100 per day. You Can Do This Too. My Online Business Strategy
150+ websites making -0 per day. You Can Do This Too. My Online Business Strategy
Article by Gary Gregory
I have been marketing online for over 3 years now quite successfully. I am also a much sought after IM consultant.
The #1 question I get from prospective clients is, “What methods would you teach me in order to make money online?”, or something of that nature.
Although I teach several methods to generate different income streams, my favorite method involves simple website creation using WordPress in conjunction with affiliate marketing to monetize.
My methods aren’t anything new per se, but over the last several years I have perfected it in such a way as to maximize the benefits regarding organic search engine traffic and high conversions.
It’s not uncommon for my sites to get 5000+ hits per month! And it’s all free traffic!
I currently have 150+ websites that are making anywhere from to 0 per day, I have about 4 that do 0 a day, the rest are all over the board.
Anyway… I wanted to share my basic business model here…
First and most importantly, the general idea is to produce a mini-authority website of 20+ pages that is optimized for 20+ keywords (including your main page and domain name keyword.)
The websites will have the pages listed on the left hand side of the site and all will link to internal pages. Each of the pages are, in and of themselves, researched keywords that will rank on the first page of the search engines and each garnish it’s own share of organic traffic.
First you find a niche.
Then you start doing the keyword research.
The main keyword (for the main page as well as your domain name) needs to be relatively general.
Example:
Niche – Tattoos
Main Page (and domain name) Keyword – Masculine Tattoos
Internal Pages “Alternate Keywords” (listed on the left hand side of the website) – Tribal Arm Tattoos, Back Tattoos, Rib Tattoos, etc.
Using your favorite keyword research tool, the keywords MUST have at least 800 searches per month (exact match) and have manageable competition within the search engines. Let’s just say 30,000 results or less (in Google) when searched for in quotes.
I build websites using WordPress (WordPress.org.) I do this because quite simply, it’s easier than building a static web page and it’s much simpler to teach as well as implement.
When I build a site, I use a theme that has a left column sidebar and set it up to look like a regular website as opposed to a blog. For example, I take out page tabs, any unnecessary widgets, etc.
I then create a page to use as my main page (utilizing an already researched keyword that I will also use as my domain name.)
I go into the dashboard of the blog and under “Settings”, I choose “Reading.” Then I pick the page I just created to be a “static page” and my front page.
This allows a single post or page to be displayed as opposed to many posts like a blog has.
As you find your keywords, you will then create pages that will be clickable links using anchor text HTML within text widgets to be placed in the left sidebar of the site.
Once you create your site, you should have a very clean and basic website that has 20+ pages of content, that is linked to with keyword links on the left hand side of the page that are visible to your visitor no matter what page they happen to be visiting on your site.
All my websites are ranked #1 through #5 for all their target keywords (pages included.) 85%+ of my traffic comes directly from Google. The rest comes from people and or online entities who have linked to my sites.
My Website Qualities:
* They all target 5-10 different products per site.
* I recommend both informational products (ex: ClickBank products), and physical products (ex: Amazon, E-bay.) There are pros and cons for each. Informational products require more of a pre-sell, so in order to be more persuasive, your content needs to be at least 500 to 750 words per page. Physical products (tangible items) are great because you don’t have to say as much and the competition is usually more manageable.
In building these sites, my goal is to be #1 in Google. In fact the power of this system is that all of the pages within your site have the ability to be #1 in Google, so you can only imagine what type of traffic and conversions that brings with it.
*Note – When done properly, 10% or more of your pages will rank on the first page of Google without you doing anything extra at all. I have found however, to get to #1 for everything, backlinking is key.
In the beginning, I wrote all of the content for my sites, and my backlinking (if needed.) At this point, I outsource almost all of my work in order to spend more time driving my businesses forward.
My Online Business Strategy (M.O.B.S.) is an awesome business model that really works (To the tune of six figures annually for me.)
One great thing about this model, is that for the cost of one domain name (usually about per year), and the cost of hosting (roughly per month), you can set this business up.
*Note – Get a hosting company that allows unlimited add-on domains so that you can build more sites by just buying more domain names only.
Unless you pay for outsourcing, those are your only costs besides your time investment.
The sky is the limit with My Online Business Strategy!
About the Author
Find out more about M.O.B.S., and get FREE training by visiting this website: My Online Business Strategy
Mobile Business Strategy
Mobile Business Strategy
Article by Rapee Duangprasert
I am working on Mobile Business company which is provide SMS service, WAP service, MMS service and everything about mobile we can do.
Today I would like to talk about mobile business strategy that’s you suppose to know.
Road map if you want to success on this business.
Strong Technically
This part explains to the core of business. That’s the same to another business. If you do some business, you must UNDERSTAND on it deeply.
You can not sell car if you don’t know the speed, color, air bag, wheel, GOA body, etc…
You can’t sell house if you don’t know the architecture, infrastructure, where the place close to, etc…
Yes this is the answer why you need to know the deeply core on mobile business.
Strong Idea
Mobile business can be success if you have new idea to adapt the technical side to marketing side. How can you make money over business? Yes, you need to think I have some idea to sharing.
If you have sms interactive which is you can send sms to voting, chatting,etc.. You can adapt it to use over website. I believe most of website wants to get money more.
I have to success with partner about sharing file they use my sms and get more of money a month. They just notice user if you want to download this file, please send sms to get password, verify and then you can download.
Strong Connection
Connection is important for marketing team. You can get many projects in a week.
Strong Partner
Partners are important to generate money. You can get many partners because they have different connection. For example, if you get CRM Company, you can brief them to use sms over their client. That’s easy for CRM company to explain with client and you get traffic = money
A Business can help another business together.
Strong Maintenance
This part most of people don’t care but I very care on it. After you get partner, get traffic and get money. You must be take care on your partners, clients by email to talk, email to ask some feedback and email to explain the new strategy or anything you can contact them. That’s helpful them to trust you when they have some issue, they can ask you frankly.
About the Author
Get the product price lowest and seo affiliate today.
“Go Green” Business Strategy: EBilling
“Go Green” Business Strategy: EBilling
Article by Shelley Veazie
These days, more and more smart business owners are implementing more environmentally conscious strategies into the way they do business. Naturally, there are many reasons to go green (pun intended) and many consumers are more likely to choose a vendor based on the choice to go green.
(Can include a statistic with reference as a resource if you like…)The easiest way for a business of any size to go green is to stop wasting tons of paper and start using eBilling services. After all, it is the 21st century anyways!
Not only will this green business strategy look good for your company and build customer loyalty, but you will also save money by reducing the cost of paper, postal expenses, and other wasteful business expenses.Yes, eBilling Saves Your Business Money!
Someday, children will learn in history class about the days when businesses would need to spend money on costly invoicing systems… like sending an invoice via fax or “snail mail.” Then, business owners needed to contact clients and confirm receipt of an invoice, and that could be rather costly as well.
Luckily, gas was under back then. The method of requesting, and receiving, payment for services/products was improved with the technology brought on in the late 20th century. Smart business owners began to utilize eBilling… a fix-it-all solution to the time and money wasted with outdated invoicing services. The world was a much happier place…In all seriousness, eBilling does save your business money and if you’re not using it yet-what are you doing to beat both the recession and consumer mistrust?
Simplify Business Processes with eBilling
Truly a wonderful, magical service-eBilling makes it easier than ever to monitor specific information as well as general information about your income and expenses. Who pays what on time, and who is always a little behind on their payments?
More importantly-eBilling is a hassle free solution for organizing. All information is already stored for you, so if there is a billing dispute you can quickly access any relevant files without digging through stacks (upon stacks) of paperwork.
E-Billing Speeds Along Important Financial Transactions
While nobody waits anxiously for a bill to arrive in the mail… it’s another story when waiting for payment to arrive. E-billing speeds along the payment process by allowing your customers to pay quickly online. It’s less hassle for you, and less stress for your clients.
In the long run, eBilling also improves overall customer satisfaction with your business!
Should You Enforce eBilling as he Only Invoicing Method You Use?
Depending on the nature of your business, it might be appropriate to take a bold new step into a new direction and “do away” with the old. E-Billing allows you to simplify, speed up, and improve invoicing and payment methods… so why not make the switch all the way?
However, certain companies should introduce eBillng and offer incentive for clients to sign up for this service. In some cases, you might have a client who is unable to pay their bill online or receive an invoice. At the same time, you’ll be surprised at the percentage of your customers who will gladly accept the organized and effective solution once you offer eBilling.
Learn more about what eBilling can do for your business, and start benefiting today!
About the Author
Know more About eBilling and Telemanagment.
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