if you’re at a loss, you can always ask your clients what they want…

MileWide

Back to looking for is an “inch-wide, mile-deep” niche. That means it needs to be something very specific, that lots of people like your clients are looking for. Something they obsess about or would if they knew about them.

So, what do you know about your current clients that you can use to inspire you to come up with new products…

If you’re still at a loss, you can always ask them!
Why not survey them, make some calls, get a third party to interview a few to find out a thing or two.

Mind you that said, allegedly Steve Jobs was reported in saying, “the iPhone would never have been invented if we had listened to the focus groups”.

This is a great way to find out what your clients wants and what may also work in the greater market, even if you have no idea how to do anything about it what they’re telling you just yet. BUT – you can use it to come up with new ideas. And then do some strategising in how to convert what they’re telling you into something saleable for your clients.

Ideally adding beautifully to the profit. After all, that’s what buyers are looking for…

sell less stuff to more people…

MileWide

Really? I hear you cry…
Yes, really. Instead of selling more things to a few customers, concentrate on selling a few things to a lot of customers.

What you’re after is “an inch wide, mile deep” niche.
In other words, you’re after a very specific product/service that a defined group of people care deeply about, enough to put their hand in their pocket.

For example, the entrepreneurial mother specialises in getting Business Owners out, that’s all.

The problem is, it can be hard to find niches and/or new ways to keep the business growing.

You need to always be on the lookout for ideas and opportunities.
There are many ways of doing that, using Google Trends and Google Alerts for example.

Some other sources of inspiration include:
* hobbies, and those of family or friends
* work
* personal interests and problems
* magazines and newspapers
* TV shows, especially current affairs or niche channels

You can fall into the reverse i.e. “the inch deep, mile wide” trap innocently enough: you do great work and a customer wants more of you. But it’s a trap that will eventually choke off your growth. The way out is to focus on selling less stuff to more people.

how reliant is your business on any one person or group?

MileWide

So, one of the key questions I ask when talking about exiting your business is:
“how reliant is your business on any one customer, supplier, employee or even on you?”

More times than not,  the answer will usually suggest that there is on a reliance on at least one of these.

I’m sure there are many reasons and justifications why this is:

  1. maybe it’s because you’ve landed a very large client because they want all you produce, consuming all your business has available. You keep delivering and they keep broadening the list of products and services they want you to supply.
  2. may it’s because once you found the supplier that delivered what you wanted, you didn’t/haven’t ever bothered trying to find anyone else, leaving you to focus on other tasks.
  3. maybe it’s because you brought someone in to help you as your business grew, with them making some of the activities their own and knowing more than anyone else about them.
  4. maybe it’s because you’ve done an excellent job serving a small number of great customers and they ask you personally to handle more of their work.

From a saleability point of view, that’s not such a good thing for a number of reasons:

  1.  Are you locked into pricing and timeframes that means your business cannot make an impact on increasing margins (whether you like it or not).
  2. Are leaving your business at the mercy (to some extent) of not having a backup supply arrangement.
  3. Are you allowing one to have a lot of power with one without having locked them in?
  4. Are you making good money serving the expanding needs of this small list of “great customers” so you keep falling deeper and deeper into the trap.

Pretty soon, your business’s offering is an inch deep and a mile wide and the only person in your business with the depth of industry experience to deliver all of the services is YOU. But you’re trapped because your expenses have crept up as your revenue has exploded – leaving you dependent on the sales you get from a small group of demanding customers.

With no more hours in the day, your business stalls and you run on a hamster wheel just trying to keep what you’ve got.

Is this sounding familiar?

The next post will assist in providing some of the answers…

TEMpting; How Business Buyers and Sellers Have Been Tempted This Week…

How Saleable is Your Business in 2014?
How Saleable do you want Your Business 2014?
What are you waiting for? GET YOUR SCORE…

As always, school holidays prove an interesting time for entrepreneurial mothers trying to keep their “other” child going strong i.e. their business…

The rhythm of the day goes to pot.
The designated time available to do stuff just disappears.
Tension builds.
Activities need to go on hold.

It is what it is!

Give yourself a break. Conversations can wait for a week or two.
And if it can’t, there is another opportunity around the corner if you have to let one pass, this time.

And by next holidays, you’ll be so much better organised…won’t you?

GOT A WEBSITE FOR SALE?

If you want to do sell a website or you’re looking to buy a website (excellent bolt-on possibilities), please email me at dhall@businessbrokers.com.au

If any of the following tickle your fancy, please email me at dhall@businessbrokers.com.au, letting me know which one it is…

FOR SALE…

BS30 Online Venue Business

Completed Sellability Score
4 interested parties, with an update of the IM being done and a reenergised campaign. Will see a bit of movement on this one in April.

BS49 Home Help…

Thoughts on price are being bandied around and logic is prevailing. Next week might see this move rather quickly.

BS53 Balloons! and all that goes with them…

Going to touch base with competitors now and see what can be generated.
Such corporate appeal, so untapped.

BS59 Niche Service Provider in Building Trade

via Sellability Score. Authority being drawn up with signatures booked for Monday.

BS60 Advertising and Events agency
(via Sellability Score)

Authority signed. Draft IM finalising. New website good to go. Almost ready to pull the trigger!

BS72 Niche Bookseller and Training Provider

Authority drawn up with signatures due next week.

Training provider

Assisting colleague by introducing the perfect buyer for his selling client. This should be a no-brainer, as long as the vendor is sensible, which is not always something we can guarantee!

It’s all happening….

Others I’m talking too.. are you interested in?

  • a particular event
  • sales and services
  • magazine
  • specialty bed linen
  • facilities management
  • speciality giftware
  • technology reseller
  • mortgage broker
  • specialty children’s products x 2

If yes, let me know as these revealed themselves this week…

 

Exploring the Sale Option?

GET YOUR SCORE…

Onwards and Upwards!

when is the Right to Sell? step 8 – the all-emotional “what is my business worth”?

price

The most interest over the last weeks has been “When Is the Right Time to Sell?
The answer to that question moves amongst how-long-is-a-piece-of-string and who really knows. Nonetheless, there are a few prime clues that I have explored with you over the past number of posts…

In my experience, the price discussion causes more angst than any of the preceding steps.

What is being addressed here is:

  • not what you’ve invested
  • not what hours you’ve worked
  • not what you think it’s worth

It is instead about the realities, at this point in time, in regard to the calibre of the asset you are taking to market.

And this is where the disconnect invariably lies.

When appraising a business, we always come up with a most “Likely Price Range”, similar to real estate. This range is based on the quality of the previous steps and how well you can prove them.

Certainly part of our analysis is we ask what price you want.

We then ask how was this price arrived at.

And what is it based on.

This will usually give us clues as to how realistic your price is and how likely we are to be able to sell it at the price you want.

In most cases, advice has been received from parties not aware of current market forces and pricing, which therefore creates a more nonsensical starting point. It then takes time to get real. Resulting in the shop around in the hope of getting a better price.

A word of caution here… be very sure about not only whom you’re getting your advice from, but also marketers passing as brokers. When they say they will put your business on the market for what you want and you have to pay a LOT of money for the privilege upfront – STOP! Come and see me first. There are many a disenchanted business owner around, who has paid thousands and thousands of dollars only to never get a lead and to never hear from the marketer/broker again. Even when they call the office number provided!

Seriously, if you want to get the kind of price you envisage, start doing the things noted in the Steps through to this one.

Pin It on Pinterest