psst… boomer buyer? Good news – you’re the key to recovery!

Quite possibly fueled by The Great Recession, or possibly the inevitability of a generation long known for doing things differently, there’s a new entrepreneurial boom on the way — but it’s not what you think.

The stereotype is the college drop-out who goes on to form wee companies like, say, Dell or Microsoft. The reality is that over the last 10 years, the majority of startups are being done by the Baby Boom generation.  (generously defined as people born in the 10 or 15 years post WWII   1945-60)

Entrepreneur, the new mid life crisis – is a Newsweek  article from Emily Schmitt. http://bluekey.9mp.com/rRAEL

OK Boomers, get out there and help fuel that recovery!

A friendly avatar tells you to stand out from the crowd

Here at BlueKey Business Brokerage Mergers & Acquisitions help you find creative ways to market the company you’re selling.

Don’t make *my* word for it, check out this avatar’s little spiel:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5581

Ever been blindsided by a Yelp “review?”

Here’s something buyers, sellers, and brokers should be considering. In addition to the flow of all the financial statements and all the necessary due diligence that takes place in business sales, something else is happening. While grizzled old timers (many of whom are younger than me) may pound on the table and claim “facts are facts,” increasingly, one’s reputation is a factor in selling and buying.

If you’re a seller, are there Yelp comments on what you offer as a service or a product? Are there angry blog entries by people who’ve had an unfortunate experience with your company? And- what are the online bread-crumbs your senior management are leaving behind? What are *their* skeletons? While you may not be able to scour the web and eliminate all the goop, you can, and should, be aware of what’s out there. If for no other reason than to prepare for the inevitable question of why you’re a regular attendee at a boondoggle conference every year, in Hawai’i, in February, or why your spouse belongs to a country club that’s repeatedly faced charges of discrimination … All this information is out there.

And there’s more. As a potential seller, what odd things will a Google search find about the person who’s possibly going to make an offer to buy your company?

The point is, what was due diligence 10 years ago isn’t the best you can – or should – get nowadays.

In a recent SmallBizTrends.com article, “Avoid that online reputation management nightmare” (by Lisa Barone) -there’s more meat to this idea:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/07/reputation-nightmare.html

Small Business Administration uses… gasp! YouTube

Not an organization best known for being on the leading edge of Enterprise 2.0 offerings, the SBA has started to offer business tips on its own YouTube channel.  To be fair, this service is only a few days old but as of a week ago, SBA’s channel boasted 141 subscribers, 17 informational videos and 4,396 page views.

For people buying and selling small businesses, SBA *IS* known as a great source of useful information, I’m wishing them luck with this new approach.

got equity?

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a brokerage/M&A firm that got a certain kind of phone call, almost every day… “Please, we have money, millions of shimoleans (the unit of money, of course) and we’re looking to invest in companies. Can’t you help us please…?”

Unless you’re fortunate enough to have spent the last twenty months living in a electricity-free and off-the-net yurt in a remote valley, you know this is a world that belies the grim reality of companies getting money these days.

Well, not exactly.

Here at BlueKey Brokerage Mergers & Acquisition – we DO get calls – lots of calls, from people asking us to find them companies to invest in. Private Equity Groups have money, and from what we see — a lot of it.  There’s a current article in The Canadian Business Journal talking about how PEGs are funneling investors’ money. http://bluekey.9mp.com/A8M4R

a trillion… as in a Million Billions??? AND what to do about it

Last year, American’s cell phones transmitted a trillion text messages. A TRILLION. Take a million and muliply that by 1,000,000,000.  Like they say, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking Real Numbers…

It’s almost possible to dismiss this – truely – astronomical number as a LOT of  the argot that tends to run heavily to the layers of meaning in comments like: “supt?” “and “I was like OMFG.”

I say *almost* possible. For good or for bad, text messages (OK, technically’ SMS ‘messages) still grab people’s attention with an immediacy that’s breathtaking.

So, the question you need to be asking is, “How is my business reaching out to customers and clients with text messages?”

Here’s a dirt simple case study. Neighborhood Chinese restaurant had the misfortune of opening next to a *booming* inexpensive, friendly, inviting more-than-pizza-and-Ragu Italian restaurant. The food at the Chinese place is – fine – for what it is: easy, convenient Cantonese fare. Business started slowly and went down hill from there. Entrepreneur owner got the bug of an idea that he could collect the cell-numbers from some of his clients and in exchange for that bit of information, he sends out daily messages on limited-time menu options and dining coupons. NOT ONLY did he notice a 15% increase in revenue, he’s starting to get local newspaper attention – with articles along the lines of  ”A New Wrinkle in Chinese Restaurants.”

Now, in fact, he did this one step smarter. He doesn’t send out 100 text messages each evening -he sends one Twitter message — because he took the time to ask his customers how they’d like to be notified.

This boils down to something that barely rises to the level of ‘hi tech.’ Each late afternoon, the restaurant owner types in one or two ultra-short Twitter messages (called “tweets”) , presses _send_ and off it goes – to everyone who’s asked to be contacted. Seconds later, a message as simple as “Won Tor rest’rnt special tonight: Shanghai Soup Dumplings – FREE for 1st 10 cust’mrs, 6$/plate-of-8 therafter. WON TOR – Your OakmoreGlenn place 510658321.”

A couple minutes of keypad typing and a significant revenue increase.

You’re doing this…. right?

So, a business broker, a priest and a stripper walk into a bar …

OK. At least there’s a business broker in the joke.   Read on …

Business brokers – for the small percentage of Americans who know what they are and what they do – have a mixed reputation in business communities. On the one hand, they’re the people business owners turn to in the hope of getting a great price for the sale of their companies. They’re also the people who not infrequently prod wary sellers – and buyers – to ‘move along’ with the deal.  Hmm…

And so – for the bad hats in our profession, we hear the jokes like this:

Business broker dies, goes to the front gates of heaven to present himself for his eternal reward. St. Peter holds up his hand and says, “You’re a difficult case. On the one hand, you did a lot for your community and its charities, but, on the other, there were some pretty shady owner-financing deals you peddled off. So, let me sell you on a sweet deal — we’re going to give you a tour of both your afterlife options to see where you’re most comfortable. “

The tour of heaven was delightful – the broker admired the broad streets lined with successful Main Street businesses and large homes (and thought who ARE the brokers around here?) but was a little turned off by people having fun by playing harps and singing heavenly music.

Second stop on the tour – Hell – wasn’t anything like the broker imagined. While not as much entrepreneurial activity — the people spent time playing golf or going to the club pools for smoking and drinking. And, amazingly, even the Devil seemed like a pretty nice guy.

“You know,” said the broker to St. Peter, “this is a tough call. Let me sleep on it and get back to you in the morning.”

And so it was agreed.

Next morning he told St. Pete his choice was Hell.  Long elevator ride …

The doors of Hell opened and what the business broker saw was just what we hear in Sunday school. Fire and brimstone, people burning and screaming out in anguish.

“Wait,” cried the broker to the Devil, “this isn’t at ALL what you showed me yesterday!”

“Oh, that” replied the Devil, “I guess the seller didn’t remind you of how fast deals can change. You should have locked in when you had a good offer.”

Ta-da-Boom…

So, what are some of the ways that you can identify brokers you might want to steer clear of? How do you find people you will be comfortable dealing with something as financially and emotionally central to so many lives?

Social computing tools can help a lot. Different areas have forums where people share stories of their experience with different professionals. In Berkeley California, there’s a great local online space called Berkeley Parents Network. Yahoo Groups for neighborhoods can be places where you’ll get leads. Same thing for Google Groups.

More proactively? Start searching Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to locate possible candidates. If you’re comfortable with Twitter, today’s search on ‘Business Broker’ pops up over 50 tweets.

And, if you’re willing to deal with information overload, a search on “Blog, How to find broker recommendations” yields – well – put it this way … you’ll be skimming text for a long long time.

Next time – some specific search tips on tapping into what friends, colleagues and neighbors can teach you about their experiences with business brokers.

Beware the quick tech fix for a struggling business

Take a few minutes, 11 to be specific, to watch this recent presentation.

ClayShirky http://gov2summit.blip.tv/file/2591940/

The story is a simple one. A better understanding of the ways in which people interact, the ways they work together, is the key to finding what SPECIFIC actions, or procedures, or initiatives you use to boost your business’s bottom line.

This is so obvious that you probably think I need a slap on the forehead for saying it ‘in print.’ BUT, sometimes we get carried away with our own cleverness and forget the basics, the real basics of what we knew when we started our small companies.

AND, it’s especially easy to forget these days, where we are awash with helpful hints and business gurus who pitch the latest theory for success or the sexiest new technology reported in The Economist.

SO? Before you shell out hard earned money on The Latest and Greatest, think back on this Shirky video.

Returning, if not to the pen, at least to the keyboard

A friend put it simply. “Tom, you would do well to keep up that Marketplace 360 blog.”

Well, yes.

In the last handful of months, I’ve (confession here) been doing a bit of moonlighting.  Some of what I’ve been doing is helping small companies weather these tough economic times – and in those situations, small business owners have asked me if social computing tools can give them that *little* edge over their competitors.

My answers have ranged from the wimpy “it depends” to the highly un-consultant-ish “we don’t know unless you try.”

Let me give you a story – it’ll be the focus of the next posting as well.

Not long ago a newspaper decided that it needed to be Enterprise 2.0 cool with a social media tool – a wiki.  OK, fine. What they did was this: They took an editorial and opened it up to the public, saying, in essence “you’re all smart people – how would this editorial look as a Wikipedia page. Let us know…” AND, because this was such a hot idea, the paper sent out notices far and wide to let the world know *how* cool this all was.

The response was immediate. And huge. First there were arguments. Then flame wars, And ultimately (as in 36 hours after the start), it became a place to post porn. As the story goes, within a few days, the paper pulled the plug on this massive, catastrophic, humiliating failure of an experiment.

My teaser of a point is this. There are no magic bullets, no one thing, one process, one guiding principle, one set of tools – that will solve a company’s problems.

My bias is, has always been, and always will be with the belief that computing tools that help people work together will make a difference. BUT, it’s never the tools or procedures that make or break an experiment. It’s the attitudes of the people using those moving pieces, it’s how people work with the tools.

If you hear differently, you’re listening to someone selling snake oil.

Even plugholes need love

There’s a story here.

 Struggling little manufacturing company NE of London. Makes one product – drain cleaner.  Until a year ago, the company had near zero profits and the owner gave himself a royal sounding $90,000 annual salary (which included perks- presumably all the bottles of, get ready for the British usage here “Plughole cleaner,” he could carry home). It was a tough business – competing against international corporate giants, the owner figured he needed to do something – anything – that might help him stand out in crowd.

 And, of course, we now know that a year ago was a time of relative economic prosperity.

 He did something risky. He hired someone who claimed to be a Design Thinker – in this case, someone who had in fact been trained as an industrial designer but who claimed that the perspective one gets in the training to design, say, bottles for plughole cleaner, is useful in helping companies see new opportunities.

 Designers don’t ‘do’ surveys or focus groups.  They go and see how people work and see if there are niggling little problems that can be solved by doing something, or having something, new.

 So, the Design Thinker brought in some college students to help him go to people’s homes and see how they used drain cleaners. And to ask questions along the way.

 With the wisdom of hindsight, the research reminded the factory owner of the baldly obvious. Bathroom drains are usually plugged with hair, kitchen drains, with grease. AND, in both cases, whenever the goop is poured down the sink to clean, it ends up stinking.

 So?

 Mr. Plughole Cleaner and the designer/consultant figure out (1) you can sell two different products (at least), and (2) you can offer them in different scents.

 Simple, simple, simple. Slap-on-the-forehead, roll-your-eyes simple.

So that’s what he does. Gets some new plastic bottles and makes the pitch to retailers.

 Sales go up 400%. Factory size doubles. And NOW, it’s the corporate giants who have to struggle to claim any originality on their part.

 The Point?

 If you’re SELLING your company, you can make yourself rise above the commonplace by letting potential buyers there are ALL sorts of new twists and turns that will make his or her investment a good one. Free advice?  – consider shelling out some consulting money to help you position your company and your products in novel ways.

 And if you’re BUYING a company, don’t forget the obvious :  that you are placing a bet on the future, on what the company CAN be, on what it CAN offer.  More free advice: maybe, just maybe, it’d be worth your while to invest in a kind of study like the drain cleaner company did – in this case, for a product or service from the company you don’t yet own.

 

oh, by the way, the company is “Buster.” http://www.busteronline.co.uk/index.html

 

 Some background on this kind of ‘design thinking’

 Article from the New York Times (several months ago) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05unbox.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&oref=slogin

 BBC Design Thinking podcast – from, oh, last few days. (steady yourself – great presentation but the interviewer drones on with a certain upper-class accent:  Thing Noel Coward )

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio/worldbiz/worldbiz_20090423-2030a.mp3