It’s inevitable, advertisements will always be on the majority of sites and we should be thankful that they are. Strictly form a publishing standpoint, they keep free sites just that, free. Great, right? Well, let’s go with great-ish. With many free sites relying solely on advertising revenue as their only income source, their goals sometimes stray. It can quickly become a cash grab and credibility can easily be lost.
Beauty and the Beast
Before Google Adsense came along, there wasn’t much hope for small to medium sized sites to get anyone to advertise. It’s a fantastic tool to generate a little bit of revenue however it’s ugly as sin. It takes away from the professional look, it’s plain and it has no personality. My dad may tell me that I was hatched and that I’m funny looking on a regular basis, but I like to call it character. Something Google Adsense lacks.
Information Overload
The site that triggered this article was Forbes.com. It almost seems that I’m calling out the giants, but these are the sites where it’s noticeable and something that I see frequently. I truly like a lot of the content that’s on this site, I just cannot be forced to respect the site itself. The layout is another can of worms that I won’t open, but the advertisements themselves are crammed amidst a mess of information. If you have an abundance of information on your site, don’t add to the congestion. Set aside a reasonable amount of real estate on your site for advertisements and stick with it all while keeping a nice flow. If you’re going to get creative with advertisements beware. This brings me to my next point…
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Ok, so you’re toying with the idea of buying a business. With everything that’s involved in making the transition run smoothly, it’s easily possible to overlook details. I sat down with Michael D. from the Exchange Group of Chartered Accounts and he offered up a little advice on the matter.
One way or another…
In Canada, you can purchase a business by buying the shares of the company or by buying its assets. When buying shares, the buyer takes on all liability, loans, etc. You are purchasing the business as is, so if someone sues you a week after you take over, just hope you have a lawyer better than Lionel Hutz defending you. As well, the seller is eligible for certain tax incentives when selling shares, so most likely they will be wanting to go that route, however this may be an opportunity to leverage the price down.
When buying assets you purchase the physical entities of the business such as the building, inventory, hard equipment and goodwill. While buying assets may allow you a little extra legal protection as well as tax benefits through write-offs, these benefits may be reflected in the purchase price.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
If your new business acquisition involves real estate, incorporate your building separately from you business. Your business would just pay rent to the incorporated building. That way, if your business goes bankrupt, the building (being a separate legal entity) stays put so you don’t lose everything.
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Every year, thousands upon thousands of active blogs dedicate one day to bring awareness to a particular cause by bringing to it attention through their postings. It’s called Blog Action Day (in case the title didn’t give it away) and this year the theme is Poverty.
To tell you the truth, I had a hard time with this one. I mean, we’ve all been strapped for cash at one point or another, but from my own experiences I’ve never been poverty stricken or without the luxuries that are available in a developed, industrialized nation. Needless to say, when it came to solutions, suggestions or ideas to combat this issue, the same regurgitated ideas came to mind like donating food and water to underdeveloped countries and communities. That would be too easy. We could donate food and water all day, but the old adage comes to mind: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. If we spend all this time, effort and money on handing things over to impoverished communities, they are happy for awhile, but at the end of the day everybody is back at square one. Just like a business you have to start somewhere and grow it into sustainability. If it would be possible to teach people in 3rd world countries about business, finances etc. it may be possible to turn things around. Sounds too easy? Well, maybe it is too good to be true, but with a proper plan you never know. It could all start with a proper education on basic skills which can be used to contribute to the community and build upon and pass down through generations. An organization called Kiva (located at Kiva.org – go figure) connects entrepreneurs to micro-lenders in underdeveloped countries providing them with the necessary funding to get their business off the ground creating jobs and adding to the stability of the local economy. Education funds are a way to create access to proper education and instruction. Once people know what to do and how to do it, this knowledge will pass through the community and the information becomes readily available.
With the proper tools to facilitate growth and stability and a solid plan of action it could be possible to slowly but surely reverse the impact of poverty in certain places of the world. It’s not requiring someone to walk on water, all it takes are a few people to think outside the box and set the stone in motion. In all honesty, it’s not like it is going to take some miracle to generate a little momentum.
Does anyone have any other ideas?
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If you didn’t get the chance to check out the first article on buying a business, get up to speed here.
The Drawbacks
Simply put, buying a business presents a completely different opportunity to owning a business than the traditional “start from scratch” strategy that a lot of us are familiar with. Before jumping in, you get the chance to see how well the business is running before you make a decision. If its something that has passed your screening process and it’s something you are considering, chances are the business is structured well already. Of course, this means that there’s less risk involved and maintaining the business shouldn’t be an insurmountable task, theoretically speaking. As well, with a stable business, most likely a steady positive cash flow will accompany it. When it comes to market share, starting a business creates more competition, whereas acquiring a business maintains the existing market share. As you can see, the benefits of buying a business are clear, but before you head to the bank or go running around frantically searching for businesses, there are a few other things to consider.
Park Place vs. Baltic Ave…
The first thing you have to understand that it’s going to cost you a lot more to buy and existing business than to start your own. Built in to the cost of a business is the sweat equity, the time and effort that the original owner put into the business to start it and get it off the ground. It was them that took the risk for you and spent countless hours developing a foundation and you can expect to be paying for every bit of it. Essentially you’re paying a premium price for someone else to create a business. They’ve already created a brand name for themselves and you’re not just buying the business, you’re buying the brand name too.
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A Look at the Benefits
We can all remember the days as a kid where we wanted to be a cowboy or an astronaut when we grew up (I still think being a cowboy would be kind of cool). Then the year after that, maybe you’d have the desire to be a pro hockey player or an movie star. Eventually, we’d all grow up and some of us would go to college while others entered the work force. With that, our childhood dreams evolved as well. For some of us, they evolved into running their own company, the desire to work for yourself as opposed to working for someone else. Now, a lot of you here are already in the driver’s seat cruising down that path, you own your own business and somewhere along the line the thought of buying an existing business has strolled through your mind. If you’ve ever found yourself in that position, you’ve probably asked yourself questions like “Is it right for me? If so, where do I start?” There are a lot of things to think about and the choices you make can greatly impact the outcome. In a series of upcoming articles, I’m going to touch up on some details of buying a business.
You Don’t Exactly Need a DeLorean…
Alright, so you may not be able to tell the future (…yet. Great business idea here, folks.), but there are ways around that, which can prove equally as beneficial. When you’re looking to purchase an existing business that is up and running smoothly, you get the chance to know what you’re getting into before you actually get into it. The opportunity to look at all of a company’s bookwork allows you learn a lot about the company besides just the numbers. The more organized the bookwork is, the better the chance that the company itself is well organized and properly structured. Just like buying vegetables at the supermarket, you get to look for what you want without having to spend the time growing it and not knowing how it will turn out.
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We can all understand how easy it is to get accustomed to the way things are and get into following a routine. Sometimes, it takes a change in that routine to begin seeing things through a different perspective. I recently took a position, similar to my previous position, but with a different company. This change was enough for me to step back and analyze exactly what customer loyalty means. I noticed many differences between the way the two companies were run and it got me to thinking how this effects the customer.
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