When It Comes to Retirement, Small Business Owners Need a Reality Check |  |
- When It Comes to Retirement, Small Business Owners Need a Reality Check
- 72 Percent of Freelancers And Consultants Say They’re Entrepreneurs
- SMBs Moving Toward Digital, Diversified Marketing
- Hurricane Sandy Hammers Small Businesses: How to Prepare for The Next Disaster
| When It Comes to Retirement, Small Business Owners Need a Reality Check Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT What are your retirement plans? Are you expecting to sell your business and retire on the proceeds? Do you dream of passing on your business to your kids? A new global survey of small business owners' succession plans by Sellability Score found that small business owners' expectations for retirement have changed. Since 2008, almost half of business owners over age 50 have delayed their retirement due to economic conditions.
Says the study’s lead author and Sellability Score founder, John Warrillow, who also wrote the book Built to Sell:
Despite the delays in retirement, all is not doom and gloom. Some three-quarters of business owners surveyed say they expect to exit their company in the next 10 years, and 40 percent expect to exit in the next five years. More than half of the business owners had already owned their companies for at least eight years. What do small business owners expect to happen to their businesses when they leave? Passing a business down from one generation to the next is becoming less popular; just 1 in 10 surveyed say they expect to pass their business on to their kids. By comparison, 61 percent expect to sell it to an outside buyer, while 10 percent expect to sell the business to a partner or key employee. Meanwhile, 14.5 percent plan to essentially work until they drop, and 8 percent plan to just shut the business down entirely when they retire. When they do leave their businesses, one-third of respondents expect the sale of their businesses to fund at least half of their retirement. However, those dreams might well turn out to be pipe dreams, given that a whopping 90 percent of business owners don't have a formal exit plan in place. The survey findings also suggest that small business owners may be underestimating the complexity of selling a business. Just one-third say they expect selling their business to be difficult. However, the majority of businesses in the study were in service industries—which often find it more difficult to sell since these businesses are more likely to be dependent on the owner's personal efforts to land and keep new business. If you ask me, it's time for a reality check. First, whether or not you're planning to retire in the next few years, a succession plan is important for every small business to have. Not only will it make selling your business easier when the time comes, it can also protect your business should anything happen to you unexpectedly. Second, if you're expecting the sale of your business to be easy, you're likely in for a rude awakening. If you haven't already done so, start now to work with your attorney and accountant and get advice on how to build value in your business. That way, you'll be better positioned for a successful—and profitable—sale that will see you into a happy retirement (or a whole new venture, if that's what you choose to do). Do you have a succession plan for your small business? Business For Sale Photo via Shutterstock The post When It Comes to Retirement, Small Business Owners Need a Reality Check appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 72 Percent of Freelancers And Consultants Say They’re Entrepreneurs Posted: 31 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT We train our children to be consultants. We don't call their careers by that name. We call it a reliable job, security and good pay (or at least we used to). According to Susan L. Reid in Freelancer, Consultant, Entrepreneur: Which Are You?:
I remember my father being particularly happy if I had chosen to be a doctor or a lawyer, either one was fine. But I ended up in business just like him — well sort of. Which brings me to an ongoing question about the difference between freelancers, consultants and entrepreneurs. In a nutshell, freelancers offer a specific service, consultants offer targeted advice, and entrepreneurs build a sellable and sustainable business. Susan says:
In findings from the 2012 Freelance Industry Report, Ed Gandia surveyed 1491 freelancers and 72% of those polled see themselves as entrepreneurs (note that majority of those surveyed fall into the writing, designing and technology skills that Susan mentioned above as well as some of the consulting skills in marketing, business planning to name a few). At The Root, The Word Entrepreneur Means Undertaking These are the people that dig into a risk and build out of it something that will last long after they're gone. When we think of entrepreneurs, traditionally our mind goes to all the physical, brick and mortar businesses that we walk in and out of daily. And that makes sense. But there are consultants and freelancers who are developing the entrepreneurs mindset. Of course, there is a difference between the ones who think they are entrepreneurs and the ones whose actions back it up. If your business dies when you die, then according to Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it wasn't really a business. Businesses Are Sustainable. Period. You don't have to be brick and mortar and you don't have to be huge to be sustainable. Dale Carniege's literature and training has become an empire. He was an author, a lecturer, and developed training programs. It was the type of business that could easily fall into the freelance or consultant categories. But if it's sustainable and sellable, then it's a business. In fact, Carnegie writes me every week and he's been gone since 1955 (long before I was born). His voice, his take on things, has become a training empire in it's own right. So my question is not new, but I keep asking it because we do have to decide at some point about what we're building. What Happens To The “Business” After You’re Gone? A wise entrepreneur makes that decision now. He doesn't leave it to his widow to figure out. And personally, I think the strategy work is tougher than the daily grind of running your business. Because you have to create something that others can help you deliver. You have to establish a system, but I won't get on that soap box again. At least not today. Child Businesswoman Photo via Shutterstock The post 72 Percent of Freelancers And Consultants Say They’re Entrepreneurs appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| SMBs Moving Toward Digital, Diversified Marketing Posted: 31 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT Internet marketing as a small business owner sure has gotten more complex over the past few years. It used to be that direct mailers and newsletters were the way to go. Then you needed a website and an online presence. Now? Well, turns out it takes a bit of everything to be effective and small businesses owners are ready to take it on, changing their marketing efforts to not only be more digital-based, but more diversified, as well.
eMarketer reported on a survey of 300 SMBs in the US conducted by BIA/Kelsey which found that small businesses are adopting a multichannel approach to marketing, and that 40 percent of SMBs plan to increase their digital spending budgets within the next year. Not surprisingly, less than 4 percent said they were would decrease digital marketing. Small business owners know where their customers are and, increasingly, it's online. They also recognize that channels are becoming more fragmented. The fact is, we're all using digital channels, but we're not using the same ones. That means small business owners now need to focus on building a presence on multiple sites to hit their customers. Marketing efforts must be spread out. This year the average small business owner is using 5.8 channels to reach their customers, almost double from five years ago. Where are SMBs moving toward?
As small business owners trying to stay afloat in a more fragmented market, it's interesting to take notice of where they're moving. Facebook is an obvious standout with its low barrier to entry (Matt McGee recently shared 12.8 million local businesses now have business pages), and the promise of an already-existing user base. Newspapers, sponsorships, and email marketing are all areas familiar to many SMBs. And now eyes are turning to Google Places, video (on website) and online banners to engage and entice a potentially new audience, as well. While it's arguably harder to be a small business owner right now, it's also incredibly exciting as the opportunities that exist are great. Personally, I love to see that SMBs are beginning to integrate a multi-channel marketing approach because it's through the integration of all these different services that you're really able to stand out and take advantage of the Web's benefits. It's also how many SMBs will be able to establish a level of credibility and brand awareness they haven't had before. What's interestingly not on the list above is mobile. According to the survey, for as much talk as the idea of SoLoMo (social, local, mobile) has received since 2010, most SMBs don't yet understand how to link mobile to their local marketing efforts and may not even be aware of the benefits of doing so. This is definitely an area where business owners will want to pay more attention. There are an incredible amount of tools out there to help SMBs take advantage of mobile and use it attract consumers on the go, that to not leverage mobile really is doing your business a disservice. How has your marketing adapted to a more digital, diversified audience? The post SMBs Moving Toward Digital, Diversified Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Hurricane Sandy Hammers Small Businesses: How to Prepare for The Next Disaster Posted: 31 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT Residents on the East Coast of the U.S. continue cleaning up following Hurricane Sandy, and small businesses have been especially hard hit. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are used to the unexpected, and it doesn’t take a hurricane to disrupt your business operations. Here’s an update of how small businesses have been affected by this particular disaster and more about how your business can stay prepared for the unexpected emergency. Eye of the HurricaneBusinesses weather the storm. As seen by this sampling of experiences from up and down the eastern sea board, small businesses can be affected in many ways by huge weather emergencies like a hurricane. Weathering a widespread, unexpected event depends upon flexibility and preparing for the worst. Those businesses most affected by Monday’s storm were those susceptible to storm damage or whose employees lived too far away to get to work. Businesses were also impacted by the degree weather forced customers to stay away. CBS Money Watch Data drowns in deluge. Your business doesn’t need to be exposed to the elements or even located anywhere near a natural disaster to feel its effects. If your small business depends on data centers, like these damaged by flooding as a result of Hurricane Sandy, it’s important to be sure that backups are available. Data Center Knowledge Resources offer road to recovery. Many small business were affected by Hurricane Sandy, as they can be by any natural disaster. Fortunately, there is help to get your business up and running again. Business mentor and angel investor Amy Rees Anderson shares this comprehensive list of resources that can help your company cope after disaster strikes. Forbes State of PreparednessEmergencies come in many forms. You don’t need a Hurricane with 90 mile an hour winds to threaten your small business. Sometimes a faulty network node at your Internet provider will do. In this scenario, O2, a UK broadband provider, suffered an outage affecting 2 million users, 10 percent of its customers, with many small businesses claiming they were unable to operate as a result. Make sure your service provider doesn’t leave you hanging. bOnline Blog Prepare for your next disaster. Just like homeowners, small business owners must prepare for the worst. For many business owners in the wake of Hurricane Sandy may have found out first hand how important emergency preparedness is. For other small business owners, it’s an important wake up call about steps everyone should take to protect their investments. SBA.gov Better safe than sorry. As blogger Arthur Piccio observes, disasters that threaten your business can come in all shapes and sizes, from a gigantic hurricane to a computer outage or data loss affecting only your hosting or data storage company. In many cases this can be really bad news for your business, so why don’t more businesses take it seriously? Here’s a long list of suggestions that will help you get prepared. UPrinting Another Day at the OfficeDon’t confuse urgency with emergency. If you don’t know the difference between these two ideas, you might face a danger more insidious than any mother nature can throw your way. Martin Zwilling teaches us about the dangers of managers or leaders who can make every day and every situation an emergency and how this behavior can slowly sap any business of its strength. When you declare a state of emergency for your business, make sure the threat is real. Startup Professionals Musings The post Hurricane Sandy Hammers Small Businesses: How to Prepare for The Next Disaster appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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