After completing the Vision and Mission Statement portions of a Business Plan, the next step is to come up with strong strategies that will make the business successful.

Along with setting the direction of the creation and maintenance of your business, strategic planning establishes a guide for evaluating the important business decisions that must be made. With a clear set of strategies it is much easier to keep a business on track.

These strategies are sometimes thought of as “industry practices.” If you are new to an industry, you can learn more about these practices and the challenges and opportunities you will face by reviewing industry trade association journals. This information is critical for you to build and manage your business successfully.

Another helpful resource for identifying and selecting crucial strategies are those who support your business. These include your banker, accountant, attorney, various vendors, and even your employees. They can all contribute valuable insight into your business.

Why reinvent the wheel by running into problems blindly when you can benefit from the experience of others?

Usually there are four to six core strategies that businesses follow in any industry.
They are easy to understand and are fairly stable over time. Naturally if there are significant breakthroughs or shifts in your business, you will need to reconsider your strategies. An example of this in the financial services industry has been the shift from commission to fee-based income structure.

There are both internal and external influences that are either affecting your business now or may affect your business in the future. We’ll use Certified Financial Planners as an example as we look at external and internal concerns and possible strategies for handling those concerns.

External strategies capitalize on opportunities present that can help the company grow. They also look at possible outside threats.

Concerns:
Fee-based planners are living in the shadow of the commission-based brokers who often have conflicts of interest in the products they sell to their clients.
There is a lot of prejudice among the public that perhaps the client’s best interest is not the major concern of any financial services person.
Some large firms have developed a negative reputation that can work against individuals working for those firms.

Strategies:
Education for consumers both individually and in the mass media is important for them to understand the difference between commission-based and fee-based practices.
Planners write articles for the local newspapers and state journal.
They do speaking to organizations and on the radio.
Their websites inform the public as to how they do business.

Internal strategies are those that relate to the company itself. They look at the culture of the business, its strengths, efficiency, and profitability.

Here are some examples of concerns faced by Certified Financial Planners that require some internal strategies.

Concerns:
Advisors who fail to identify priorities for their best productivity may not have good work/life balance.
Understaffing can prevent accelerated business growth.

Strategies:
Analyze how time is being used and what tasks can be delegated.
Hire support staff either to work onsite or virtual assistants that can take over simple tasks.
Develop a system for various operations of the company so that others can take over tasks that you normally do.
Consider partnering with another business to offer more value to your clients.

Both external and internal strategies are critical for prudent planning.

Market leaders use strategies to achieve desired growth and profitability.
Even though the statements can be quite broad, they still create definite focus.

The bottom line of strategies is an answer to the question, “What will it take to sustain success in this business for the long haul?”

Get some strong strategies in place for better direction in YOUR business!

Exuberant Productivity Coach, Suzanne Holman, MAEd, works with financial service professionals, realtors, and self-employed professionals determined to create a healthy bottom line plus quality time for family and FUN. For a FREE Exuberance Assessment and tips for increasing your productivity and having a more satisfying life, visit
Exuberant Productivity.com

Have you ever stopped to think what the Internet means for your business?

Many have this wild imagination that once they can set-up a website, thousands of dollars will start pouring in… Only in rare cases this is true, and only for those who take the time to understand what the internet really means to their business.

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?

The internet is like a telephone, it’s like a fax machine, and it’s like a TV… In short, it is an advanced medium of communication, nothing more.

This may seem obvious, but after browsing through the web, studying everything I can (As I like to do very often), I have come across many business websites that made me really wonder… “Do these people understand why they are in business in the first place?”

I too fell into the same category years back, my first website was nothing to write home about, but at the time I felt it was the ultimate and that it will bring me closer to my millions… I was clearly wrong.

HERE’S WHAT I DISCOVERED…

Although running a business online may be different in many ways from running one offline one, a major constant still relates both: You are still dealing with real people.

IMAGINE THIS…

You go into the business of selling mobile phones. Your first step is to register the company name, give your shop a name people can remember, pay for a nice location, you put up the signboard that tells people what you do. You then stack up your products for sale, set up competitive prices, hire a sales person to handle clients inquires and you’re ready to go…

NOW WHAT NEXT?

Assuming you paid for a location where there is a lot of traffic, people visit your store daily and you make a few sales… You are excited about your first sale… then you receive a second order. As time goes by you receive some more orders and at the end of the month you find out that you made good sales, enough to pay your rent and still leave you with extra cash to spend…. The same thing happens the next month.

IS EVERYTHING OK?

Put yourself in the shoes of the shop owner and relate the above scenario to your website:

Hmm let’s see…

- You have a great product/service
- You have proper website for selling
- You offer great prices
- Your have substantial traffic
- You made enough sales to cover up this month’s cost and still came out with a profit.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

If you haven’t figured it out I’ll tell you.

But first I’d like you to try to answer as many questions as you can from the list below:

- How many clients came into your store this month?
- How many didn’t buy?
- Why is it that some people made a purchase?
- Why is it that others didn’t?
- Have you sold all you can? Is this the best possible sales figure you can come up with each month?
- What efforts have you taken to make sure each client made the best decision?
- Have you seen what your competition is doing?
- Will someone who visited your store and didn’t buy, come again?
- Why will they come back?
- Do you know who your clients are?
- Do you know why some months are better than others?
- What effort has your sales staff made to convert visitors into clients?

HOW MANY OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS WERE YOU ABLE TO ANSWER?

If you were not able to answer all the questions above, it means that you have left your business in the hands of faith, hoping that things will work out just fine … This is the worst thing that can happen any business!

In the scenario above I took an offline store as an example, you noticed things still worked out well initially without much effort, but on the internet things don’t work out exactly that way… There is no right location for your website. You need to market your business online so people can find it, and that too is a challenge for many.

However, unlike the traditional offline business activities, results online are easier to measure using different tracking tools. So you never have to leave your business to faith.

THE FREE TOOLS YOU NEED TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Tracking, measuring and analyzing your online activities may sound expensive, complicated and hard work for many. However there are tools ready to help you make the process simple and best of all they are free.

Here are two free useful tools to consider:

1: GoogleAnalytics is an excellent tracking tool that really gets specific when it comes to tracking and measuring results. Google has now released the power of Urchin for free. You will need to apply for an invitation code before you can signup to use the tool. But this tool is well worth the wait.

2: Your web host should provide you with free tracking tools for your entire website. The following are some tracking tools most host provide.

- Analog
Analog produces a simple summary of all the people who have visited your site. It is fast and provides great lightweight statistics.

- Awstats
Awstats produces very pretty stats.

- Webalizer
Webalizer is a more complex stats program that produces a nice variety of charts and graphs about who has visited your site. This is probably the most popular stats engine available today.

With a combination of the above mentioned tools you can give your business meaning.

Become organized and have a vision! Track everything you can so that you can understand your target market and what you clearly need to do to make things happen for your business.

Edward Hadome is a rare hybrid, manager, strategist, writer and web developer. His specialty is psychology of online buying behavior. Visit www.4weeksmarketing.net where you can build for free, a real personalized profitable action marketing plan.

Most business owners sell only one business in their lifetime. It is complex, emotional and pressure packed. Given this backdrop, the odds of a great outcome are, well, not that great.

One of the most important functions of an M& A Advisor is to prepare the client for the bumpy road ahead. The worst outcome is to go through the exhaustive process of marketing the business, corporate visits, and due diligence, only to have the deal crater in month eight because of some ruffled feathers or perceived bad faith dealings.

First an advisor should try to make the seller understand that as the process unfolds and as the buyer tries to memorialize the parties’ understanding in documents, new elements are added. For example, taking a discussion between buyer and seller on value may be followed with a “non-binding” letter of intent where for the first time, the structure is described. The seller may react very negatively if he was thinking of a $7 million wire transfer at closing and the written document combines $4 million cash at close with a $1 million seller note and an earn out that caps out at $2 million.

If we had not earlier forced the issue or warned our seller that this was a possibility, then maybe we deserved to have an unhappy client. Our goal is to turn this from a “he changed the transaction” deal breaker to a couple of deal points that we negotiate.

Another sticky point if the seller is not prepared is the concept of the net working capital adjustment. This is a customary deal approach from experienced buyers that is fair. Trying to explain it to the seller for the first time during the heat of battle can be problematic. In advance we tell our seller that the buyer is going to want a measuring point based on the latest financials he receives in order to make his offer. If, at that point, the current assets are $350 K and the current liabilities are $300 K then the company has net working capital of $50 K. If that level changes then at the post closing true-up, an adjustment will be made to account for the change.

If a seller is not prepared for the pages of reps and warranties that are a standard part of most Definitive Purchase Agreements, the initial reaction is often, “no way.” It is, however, a deal breaker for buyers, especially if they are public companies. With the new corporate governance scrutiny, these companies are very meticulous about protecting themselves.

The next potential stumbling block is when the buyer’s corporate attorney gets involved to make sure that the mother ship is protected. It happened at the 11th hour and the way it was handled by the buyer almost blew up the deal. We had settled on the terms and conditions of the transaction and had worked out a 12-month consulting contract with the founder of the selling company. The senior management of the buyer detailed the duties and responsibilities in a “consulting agreement.” When their corporate attorney received this document, he said that it is not a consulting agreement, but an employment agreement. Our client did not want to go from being a CEO to now being a VP.

It was a drop in prestige for her and did not fit the image she had created for herself post acquisition. We had to talk her off the ledge and had to convince her that this should not be a deal breaker. We had to remind her that this buyer was the best fit for her company and she had the best opportunity of maximizing her earn out portion of the transaction with this buyer.

We convinced her to sleep on it. We also enlisted the support of her CFO, husband and dear friend (all the same person). We were able to enlist his calm logical thought process and convince his wife that this was a relatively small impact, all things considered. She agreed.

Wait, you thought this was settled. Not so fast. Enter the Business Development/ Merger and Acquisition person from the buyer (BD). He attempts to push the deal through without adding employee benefits to the employment agreement because those benefits were not figured into his original financial analysis. He got very protective of his turf and made this counter proposal without consulting his President and EVP. Our client went ballistic. We literally had to walk her out of the conference room and cancelled the closing meeting until the next day.

We had already done two end runs around BD and we were worried that if we did a third we may cause doubt about the post acquisition behavior of our client in the eyes of the buyer president, or worse, cause BD to blow the deal up because we bruised his ego.

Well, we got lucky. The next day, before our meeting was due to begin, we ran into an individual doing a walk through at our client’s offices. We introduced ourselves and asked her who she was. She replied that she was the head of HR for the buying company. We asked her if they typically had two classes of employees, one with benefits and one without. She looked at us incredulously and asked us what we were talking about. We explained and she said she would have it cleared up by the end of the day. She also gave our client her card and scheduled a call with her so she could implement the full package of employee benefits. Fast forward – BD has been moved out of the M&A position.

We had spent a tremendous amount of our client’s time, the buying executives’ time and our time and everyone involved knew that this was a good and fair transaction. With all of the pressure, emotion, and egos involved, sometimes even good deals do not get completed. Being prepared for the bumpy ride ahead improves the odds.

href=”http://www.midmarkcap.com/SellerResources.cfm” target=”_blank”>Dave Kauppi is a Merger and Acquisition Advisor and President of MidMarket Capital, representing owners in the sale of privately held businesses. We provide Wall Street style investment banking services to lower mid market companies at a size appropriate fee structure.