March 30, 2012
Simon Cooper
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SIMON COOPER: Don't always rely on their goodwill
If you buy a business for sale that is an inactive shell, then its value is its depreciated assets - less a deduction if its reputation is shot (perhaps we should call that ‘bad will’ to be consistent).
Key questions for you entrepreneurs
Karl Albrecht founded the discount supermarket chain, Aldi, after he cut his teeth in his mother’s grocery store.
Unseating the competition
The downside to doing well in business is that competition arrives and tries to grab your patch...
How to calculate your probability of success
When planning to visit an unfamiliar place on holiday or business, I always call on Google maps to find out how to get there first. Very much the same applies to beginning a start-up company or any other project. You need a vision of how you are going to get there, and what it is you’ll need along the way.
Achieving the profile for business success
When I’m asked how business people find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, I generally follow two lines of reasoning. These include wrongly thinking there was a market in a gap where there was none, and lacking the right personality to be in business in the first place.
Getting the fine details correct
Owning a business can be like navigating a small yacht through a tropical storm that threatens to snap the masts, or take out the sails. On other days when things are going better, managing a firm effectively can be more a matter of subtle changes of direction as the market shifts. Here are my thoughts on this.
SIMON COOPER: The honest business of closing your deal
When I last Googled “closing deals” I got 130 million results. I should think there are a few more by now (and a good deal of repetition, too). Some I glanced at were downright crazy, like threatening negative consequences and repeating yourself three times. The following are the ones I felt the most affinity for.
The more complex we are, the worse the fall
It’s rumoured that the first thing mankind did after they stumbled into caves was to invent wicker doors, and to apportion space for different uses. This culminated in the huge, polluting cities that threaten our sanity and health. Ironically, for many city dwellers the perfect holiday has become time spent outdoors (and, perhaps, sometimes with no clothes on).
Price is not the only product differential
While products are the things we sell in business - and hopefully make money from as we do – my friends at Wolfram Math World also define ‘product’ as “the result of one or more multiplications”, which directs one’s thoughts down an interesting side path.
$100 goes a long way to marketing
Spend less than $100 and advertise? Of course it is possible, and this week I’m going to demonstrate how.
Plan for asking the really hard questions
The Australian Aboriginal peoples have a tradition they call ‘walkabout’, where they enter dreamtime and seek advice from ancestral spirits.
Business advice is a free gift
While studying for my MBA at the University of Liverpool, I was introduced to a variety of celebrated business names.
Nothing's perfect this side of.....
I left the last part of the headline intentionally blank, because we are all different and I did not want to try to convert you to the wrong parade. The point James Altucher made in an amazing blog the other day is that being in business is never going to be perfect either, and we need to learn to turn the downside right-side up.
Not quite so routine
By Simon Cooper WATER can be a power for good, provided it doesn’t turn into a tsunami.
What every business needs
Quite often people ask me why I broker business sales, when they think it’s almost easier to start one up themselves.
HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS TO START WITH
THERE’S a story doing the rounds that bears repeating. The location is a small town somewhere.
Match the product to your consumer
Sometimes, speculative inventors do not realise that if potential demand does not exist, they may not even be able to give the results away.
How the tough can get going
A start-up is a new enterprise going through the early phases of development. We all hope ours will be characterised by rapid growth and venture capitalists kicking down the door.
Understanding what true worth really is
Don’t stress. This is not going to be a lecture on accounting practice.
Why it's important to keep the books in order
William of Wykeham, in Hampshire, England, was born of peasant stock in 1324. When he died 80 years later he was one of the richest men in England, despite some business ups and down.
Entrepreneurship not precise science
SOME business graduates believe that everything coming out of Harvard Business School should be bowed down to, and that the right method always gets you where you want to be. However, there was a disbeliever at the University where I studied in the UK. She told me: "If it sounds convincing, look for reasons not to believe it."
Sitting Next to Ned (or Nellie)
I'M constantly amazed at the few real benefits some businesses receive for the dollars they shell out on training, and the number of promises they receive in return for them instead. It's the support trainees receive from management as they try to implement their new ideas that should count, as opposed to the brickbats they more often receive from colleagues.
Start-up success still the exception, not the rule
STARTING out is tough in many different ways. I still remember my first days at high school, and my first week at work. I was nervous the day I decided to propose to my wife. Is natural conservatism the reason for this reticence, I wonder, or could there be more to it. Is nature trying to tell us something?
Acquire firms that match your taste
As the only business broker in Nassau, I come across many different models for small businesses. Some work, and some do not. Others nest themselves neatly in a particular niche and are succe
Don't discount service quality
CLASSIC economic theory suggests that prices gravitate to an optimum point where demand approaches supply. This is because, in theory, demand goes up as price goes down, and vice versa, as depicted in the graph shown here.
Success feeds on your customers
THESE days the world's obsessed with feedback, and often for good reasons. I am not sure whether it was the marketing industry that navigated us from the days of "Joe's a great guy" and "Mary does a fantastic job", but that's history. Governments publish department league tables as if they owned a baseball league. Virtual suppliers and customers on the Internet closed the loop with formal feedback systems.
How to crack the innovation code
IF YOU haven't heard of these two-dimensional Quick Response (QR) Codes yet, then you should be concerned - although much of the western business world still has to awaken to their potential, too. That tardiness is sometimes present when a seller offers me a business for sale to broker for them. In fact, when I come across a company lagging far behind in technology, I may even decline the offer. And that is 'case closed' - in my mind, at least - for the imperative to keep up with change.
Learn from, don't fret, over failures
THIS week's article is directed more towards Internet entrepreneurs, although the comparisons to land-based businesses are there, too. Besides, many Bahamians are already out there on the web, and their businesses are starting to attract good resale prices, too.
Making the transition from executive to entrepreneur
I CAME across the less-used term of Intrapreneur on TechCrunch the other day, and it certainly set me thinking. As might be expected when you think of it, Intrapreneurs work in larger organisations, where they spearhead projects such as new product lines and branches. This is, in fact, exactly what entrepreneurs do, too.
Better to 'start-up' via an existing business
I HAVE enquiries from people every day who are thinking of going into business. Some are interested in my businesses for sale, while others are just fishing. The latter usually depart with a remark like: "Why should I pay to have a business" or "It's cheaper to start your own", or something similar. Some go on to succeed. Many more do not, because they overlook reality.
Business broker 'turns down more than I can take on'
Business broker 'turns down more than I can take on' By NATARIO McKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net A Bahamas-based business broker said yesterday he had turned down more business than he was prepared to take on, telling Tribun
'Look after the pennies, and the dollars will come'
'Look after the pennies, and the dollars will come' By Simon Cooper Res Socius When businesses fail, the reason is usually cash flow or spending money they are not making. Some expenditure is unavoidable, such as replenishing stock and affording premise
Mixing business and home ownership
I HAVE always regarded my home as my castle, and the place to rekindle my energy. I also enjoy pottering in the garden, and doing odd jobs around the place. I was therefore surprised to find an article on TechCrunch the other day that suggested I am wayward. I am not totally convinced, but I decided to share the theory anyway.
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