Winter is Coming

Winter is coming, here.

Soon 2022 will be in the rear-view mirror.

The road ahead may, no, will be treacherous for many. 

Often, I hear business owners and other “real estate” based businesses gloat on how the good times will just keep coming! Ya-Hoo!

Why? Because, apparently SWFL, specifically, Naples is just THAT special of a place!

“We are insulated here!”

“No bubbles here!”

“Its paradise and the whole world wants to be here.”

Usually, that’s the kind of non-sense I hear from people who have been here, like, 15 minutes.

Ok, not 15 minutes but a few years. They certainly were not here before 2005.

A few months ago, I stood up at my usual weekly network group meeting and warned people to get ready and get their businesses ready because Winter was coming. Economic winter. Why not? There are seasons in life, in our economy, so why would we believe that Naples, Florida or the country is immune?  Well, my comment was met with disbelief, obliviousness and even reprimand by a “group” leader. I was told that we didn’t need any negativity.

Negativity?  I can’t wait! I love economic downturns because I’ve been through enough of them to know that there is so much opportunities in them.

Can anyone argue that the real estate market is completely overblown and unsustainable?

How about rents? Insurance? Taxes?

How about inflation? 8%? Who are they kidding?

I don’t have a single client who hasn’t seen at least a 20-30% increase in materials, services or even shipping for that matter. 8%? Hell, some of my clients are paying more than that in just cost of labor!

When inflation today is measured with the same criteria used in the 70s and 80s, our inflation today is actually 16%! Sound familiar to you Gen Xers or Baby Boomers?

What’s next; gas lines and empty food shelves?

Here’s my point:  Winter will come whether you accept it or not. If you are a business, now is the time to strategize and decide how to deal with more inflation, fewer customers and how to get them to buy.

Are you prepared to take advantage of a recession? Do you know how to take advantage of Stagflation, and Deflation after this Inflation?

If you are a Baby Boomer Business Owner, thinking you were going to sell and move n with life in the next 2-5 years, have YOU accounted for what’s about to happen? Maybe you’ve just committed to working that extra 5-10 years until the “time is right” again?

Fortunately, you know someone who can help.

I specialize in helping business owners not just survive but thrive even in economic downturns and facilitate the building or their business into an asset of “value” that can be sold for a significant amount of money when the time is right for you!

But you have to start NOW. Just drop me a note or call for a complimentary session to see where you stand and where you need to go.

Don’t wait….the storm is brewing right now.

Sergio DeCesare,

Certified Business Coach

Certified Business Exit Strategist

Certified Business Value Builder

Licensed Florida Business & Real Estate Broker

#1 Amazon Best Selling Author for Business Ethics & Leadership 2015

Build a More Valuable Company in 2024!

If your goal is to build a more valuable company in 2023, here are some 2023 resolutions to consider:

Stop chasing revenue. A bigger company is not necessarily a more valuable one if the extra sales come from products and services that are too reliant on you, the owner to deliver them.

Start surveying your customers using the Net Promoter Score methodology. It’s a fast and easy way for your customers to give you feedback, and it’s predictive of your company’s growth in the future. Remember, the goal at first, is not necessarily to get the best score, though that is a victory! The goal is to spot weaknesses and potential bottlenecks and improve your processes.

Sell less stuff to more people. The most valuable companies have a defendable niche selling a few differentiated products and services to many customers. The least valuable businesses sell lots of undifferentiated products and services to a concentrated group of buyers. They tend to waste a lot of resources on low profit stuff than can be diverted to higher profit products/services. Drop the products or services that depend on you. If you offer something that needs you to produce or sell it, consider dropping it from your offerings. Services and products that require you suck up your time and cash and don’t contribute significantly to your business’s value.

Turn your services into your company’s trademark product. You may execute a service similar to other companies, but how you take the customer through the buying journey, how you deliver it, and how you facilitate a great customer experience is yours and your alone.

Collect more money up front. Turn a negative cash flow cycle into a positive one and you boost your business’s value and lessen your stress load. Paying half up front instead of all at the end is becoming more and more common place in the market of goods and service when there are production times involved or material or labor costs to an owner to fulfil the delivery.

Create more recurring revenue. Predictable sales from subscriptions or recurring contracts mean less stress in the short term and a more valuable business over the long run. Our program has NINE, count them, NINE different subscription models.

Be different. Refine your marketing strategy to emphasize the point of differentiation that customers value. Be relentless in pursuing your brand’s differentiation in the market, otherwise you are relegated to being view through the one known factor to an uneducated customer: Price!

Create an Operations manual. Document your most important processes so your employees can do their work independently. Teach them to be independent. Answer every employee question of you with “What would you do if you owned the business?” Your goal should be to cultivate employees who think like owners so they can start answering their own questions without coming to you.

Here’s to building a more valuable company in 2023!

Do you want to increase the value of your business?

Get in touch to discuss our proven methodology for maximizing the value of your business.

—

Sergio DeCesare,

Certified Business Coach

Certified Business Exit Strategist

Certified Business Value Builder

Licensed Florida Business & Real Estate Broker

#1 Amazon Best Selling Author for Business Ethics & Leadership 2015

What is your Business Message?

Without first knowing WHO are your customers, your best customers, you are fishing in a big sea with quite possibly, the wrong bait.  It’s the difference between fishing with earthworms and catching bluegills and crappie, or strapping on a 3 lbs chunk of  fresh fish and catching a shark!

Not only will we help you determine who your “perfect” customer is for any of your products or services, but we will help you craft a message that will intrigue your customer and have them ultimately come come to the single most important conclusion:

Doing business with anyone else would be a mistake!

The development of your “elevator” pitches, Tag-line and mission statement help convince your prospects why you are the best choice yet 90% of all business owners I meet have not spent time perfecting these messages that convinces prospect that you are the BEST choice! Worse yet, many have inconsistent or even conflicting messages.

Lastly, we will show you how to find out exactly what your prospects are wanting to buy and how to sell it to them. No more guess work. No more scratching your head trying to figure out why they did’nt buy from you.

Just Contact Max Business Profits Today and get your Free Discovery Session!

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“3 Sure-fire Things That Add to the Value of Your Business”

Most business owners get into business with some kind of plan on how they are going to run their business. Products, Fulfillment, Growth, Location maybe marketing. But what is neglected, frequently to the detriment of the owner is how they are going to Exit the business.  Usually that entails Selling at some point.

But in order to sell a business, a business must be valuable to a buyer and unfortunately my experience has bore out that the majority (98%?) of proprietors have a very weak understanding if any, of what makes a business valuable.

I’m going to outline a few things that will help you get a better grasp on how to build value in your organization by understanding the “What” and “Whys”.

 

First, in most owners’ heads, is Revenue.

What they did in gross sales or transactions over a year’s time. But they would be wrong. Though gross revenue is important, it is by no means the most important thing. Most owners like to brag and discuss how much they did in sales but when valuing a business, it is the number found at what they call, the “bottom line” that matters and is used in business valuations. We can break this down even further into pre-tax profit or operating profits and Net Profits. The larger these numbers are, the more valuable your business becomes. A problem I see in many businesses, is, they talk with their CPA’s and decide that they need to pay the least amount of taxes possible by taking every deduction possible. Though its always nice to keep more of your money, you are doing yourself a great service, especially if you intend to sell in the next 2-3 years. The reason is, that bottom line Net profit, along with an industry multiple, is what’s used in calculating your company value.  It is VITAL to grow that number!

 

Beware of EBITDA profit calculations:

EBITDA stands for “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization”. In essence, it is the amount of money that would have been made if a company did not pay interest charges, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. So, you may be asking yourself, “How can you ignore those costs? I am paying them!”

Exactly.  It’s similar to pretending that the interest you pay on your credit cards, your income taxes, and the depreciation on your car isn’t a real expense to you. According to the EBITDA standards, they don’t exist. Although you will hear a lot of professionals talking about this number, it is one of the most worthless, deceitful and meaningless calculations available. You are best served by paying absolutely no attention to it.

 

Next, your Customer base.

Is the company selling a product that is used by everyone, or is the company selling something that is only used by a certain group of people? This question is important, because what you are selling determines your customer base. If your product is only used by a certain group of people, your customer base is limited to that certain group of people. My valuations also take into account, how many of your customers are repeat customers, or can be re-sold, upsold or cross sold on peripheral products or services you sell. Development of other profitable streams of revenue definitely enhances value – as long as they are truly profitable! Too many times I see un-profitable products or services taking up resources better spent on core offerings.

 

Processes

Does the company function and function profitably, without YOU there?  Is your daily or weekly presence required to consistently bank your profits, take orders, service or complete fulfillment for your customers?  If so, you can exponentially increase your salability and add value to your company by creating, perfecting and documenting all systems required to successfully get leads, close sales, fulfill those sales and deliver your products and services, WITHOUT you or your spouse being on-site. I know. It sounds easier than it may be to execute, given mediocre employees, variable skill-sets and the mindset of the owner and managers. But I assure it can and has been done with many businesses with worse “issues” than yours. But it does take a commitment (for the duration) and sometimes some guidance by those who know how to navigate those waters.

 

These are just three “must have” things that build value in your company and make it attractive to any potential buyers. I have documented seven such factors over the years of owning, operating and selling businesses. But even a couple of these factors perfected will make you “head and shoulders” above other companies competing in the marketplace for Buyer attention. Remember, you may have created a “J-O-B” for yourself and maybe you are happy with the hours you put in and the money you make but buyers want ROI. On their money and on their time.

Nobody wants to buy a JOB!

 

 


MESSAGING….What’s Yours?

Do you have an Effective “PITCH or are you your “Job” like everybody else? When asked, most business owners do not have a 10 second, 30 second elevator speech, effective tag-line or really any coherent way to communicate what they do to a prospect. Simply stating, ” I am a Mortgage Broker”  or  I am […]

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