Bad Hires

Counting the ways a terrible new employee can ruin a business could take an hour. The damage a bad hire can inflict might be more than any envisioned worst-case scenario. Losing money from low productivity or poor performance is an obvious problem with underperformers. Customers leaving due to terrible service is another issue. Probably the most damaging result of bad hires is when civil litigation occurs. Everything from personal injury or sexual harassment can lead a company into court. Improving your screening process and hiring practices can decrease the chances of selecting a bad candidate. If you’ve already chosen someone who isn’t working out, you should take action right away before things get worse..

Inefficient Marketing Materials

The reasons for investing in marketing materials include boosting sales, raising brand awareness and drawing in customers. The materials must be put into action to deliver such results. Unfortunately, 80% of marketing material goes unused by sales teams, and sales teams waste as much as 43 hours a month in research. All that time and money can drain a business’ financial and other coffers. 

Avoid rushing into putting together marketing materials. Producing too many seasonal items can be a major mistake, so make sure some items are “evergreen” and won’t become outdated. Work with a professional ScaleUPCheckUP Ambassador marketing firm to come up with the most effective and salient materials. This way, you’ll see a return on investment instead of waste.

Don’t Rent Unnecessary Office Space

Renting plush office space to create a positive impression may eventually work against you, particularly in today’s virtual world of teleconferencing and co-working. Extra square footage and a high-brow ZIP code come with significant rent costs. Spending money unnecessarily on rent means diverting money from more critical areas. Renting a smaller space and doing some work on a telecommuting basis might be a better strategy. Audit and carefully consider your space requirements before making any commitments so that you don’t mistakenly rent beyond your needs and means. 

Why deal with any disasters during the scale-up phase? Concentrate on amassing wealth and avoid becoming insolvent by following these steps. It will save you a headache in the long run.

ScaleUPCheckUP is here and it is a game-changer. The game is changing – are you ready? Try our quiz https://showmethemoneyquiz.com to find out!

While the above is not and should not be considered legal advice, since circumstances vary, ScaleUPCheckUP monitors these rapidly developing issues, as enforcement of the law switches into high gear. Instead, the foregoing is intended as an overview and not legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. However, contacting an attorney to steer through the maze of bureaucracy to register and defend a mark may very well be necessary to consult an attorney.

ScaleUPCheckUP’s blog, website, newsletter and other forms of communication contain general information about legal and related matters. The information is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to legal advice from your attorney or other professional legal services provider. If you have any specific questions about any legal matter you should consult your attorney or other professional legal services provider.

The post Watch Out for These 3 Money Wasters During ScaleUP appeared first on E-Council Global.

Similar to a house, the foundation of your business is everything. The success of your business depends on building a strong base for your business. But, as a business owner you already have so much ground to cover that sometimes a small crack in your business foundation can be dismissed or overlooked for the lack of knowledge of its value – or potential cost – to your company. A mistake that can prove to be fatal in the long run. Ensuring a strong foundation is imperative in understanding the value of your company assets.   

But, how can you know the value of your company assets? The best way to determine the true value of your business is through a business valuation. The goal of valuing your business is to attain a clear estimate of the fair market value of your business, which is defined as:

“…the price at which the property will change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell and both having a reasonable knowledge or relevant facts.” (26 CFR 25.2512-1 – Valuation of Property; in General.” LII / Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/25.2512-1) And, while, the mere knowledge of this information affords you power as a business owner to better understand your business, there are so many other benefits to conducting a formal business valuation.

A business valuation helps you understand your company’s resale – or EXIT – value, giving you access to more investors while helping to measure your company’s growth. Additionally, you might not have thought about it yet, but your retirement also depends on your business and its value. And how can you calculate your retirement income when you don’t know the value of your primary asset? A business valuation can help to answer this question.

It’s important to understand the factors that may drive the value of your business higher for different reasons. While every business owner’s goal is to have a profitable business, your long-term goals might be to eventually be able to sell your business through a smooth transition. A business valuation can help you prepare for this, whether your goal is to merge your business with another business, passing it down to a family member, or preparing a successful exit strategy plan.

It is the successful exit that is most important to consider. So few business owners properly prepare for exit. Most simply operate their businesses as going concerns, not paying much if any attention to the long-term goal of ultimate sale/exit. As the famous saying coined by Benjamin Franklin says, “Failure to Plan = Planning to Fail”. Business owners that don’t put the right protections in place, secure the right foundation, hire the right people, cover the right bases, or take the right actions and measures are sure to lose precious dollars when it is time to exit as their businesses will sell for pennies on the dollar. The due diligence process that is undertaken by the purchaser may even fail, and the whole exit may fall apart. All because the business owner chose to stick his/her head in the sand and pretend everything was A-OK – but it was NOT!

Working with the right professional team at your side and preparing the company properly for an ultimately successful exit will admittedly require time and effort and painstaking attention. However, by working with the right team, and building up the business’s value so that the ultimate valuation results are that much stronger, the end result will be a significantly more lucrative exit that would otherwise be realized. The business valuation results will not only help your business be more profitable but will also help you understand all your options and what makes the most sense for you and the success of your business.

While the above is not and should not be considered legal advice, since circumstances vary, ScaleUPCheckUP monitors these rapidly developing issues, as enforcement of the law switches into high gear. Instead, the foregoing is intended as an overview and not legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. However, contacting an attorney to steer through the maze of bureaucracy to register and defend a mark may very well be necessary to consult an attorney.

ScaleupCheckup’s blog, website, newsletter and other forms of communication contain general information about legal and related matters. The information is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to legal advice from your attorney or other professional legal services provider. If you have any specific questions about any legal matter you should consult your attorney or other professional legal services provider.

The post WHY IS A BUSINESS VALUATION SO IMPORTANT AND HOW CAN IT SHOW YOU THE $$? appeared first on E-Council Global.

1. Apply for a Loan

Traditional financing methods remain one of the easiest ways for businesses to get funding. In fact, roughly 75% of financing for newer companies comes from business loans, lines of credit, and credit cards. Small business loans with favorable terms will help businesses to build their credit as long as they have (i) been in operation for at least two years, (ii) at least $100,000 in annual revenue, and (iii) principal(s) with a credit score of 640 or higher. These requirements obviously leave startups out of the loan mix, although it is possible that SBA financing or hard money loans may be available as an option for newer companies. Additionally, for companies with outstanding invoices, invoice financing or factoring could also help in this regard.

You can also use personal funds to raise money for your business. If you own your home, you can borrow against the equity you have in your home by way of a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) or a home equity loan. A HELOC gives you a pool of cash that you can draw from when you need it. A home equity loan is a term loan that is issued as a one-time lump sum. The total amount of cash that you can access depends on the amount of equity you have in your home and the total value of your home.

2. Find an Angel Investor

Angel investors are affluent investors that are interested in investing in businesses in exchange for equity or convertible debt interest in the business, but don’t want to play a role in the day-to-day operations, which is often ideal for startups and ScaleUPs looking for funding to develop, scaleUP or exit. If you have a solid business plan and hopefully a pitch deck, two of ScaleUPCheckUP’s specialties, and you are ready to make your pitch, you can seek an angel investor and capture their interest by clearly demonstrating to them the amazing opportunity that you offer and the future potential of your company. There are also angel investor groups and websites that help companies find angel investors.

3. Secure Investments from Venture Capitalists

Venture capitalists are different from angel investors to the extent that they generally want to be directly and often quite intimately involved in your company’s day-to-day operations – an investment with strings. They typically seek to make sure they are likely to realize certain returns on their investment, so they want to work with companies that have scalable products/operations. You can find many venture capitalists and VC matchmakers that can help link your business to the money you need as long as you can justify what has changed in the industry as a means of showing that your company’s offering fills a direct need, what you offer and why they should capitalize on it, and your current financials.

If you are interested in accessing more cash for your business so you can build, scaleUP or exit, but you are not sure about how, when, or where to start, the ScaleUPCheckUP assessment tool and ScaleUPCheckUP’s network of business advisors can help you determine the best path to take. Making a poor decision about how to fund your business can be an expensive and potentially disastrous mistake. Seek foundational expertise and funding guidance from our experts to access and ultimately raise the money you need to grow your business.

ScaleUPCheckUP’s blog, website, newsletter and other forms of communication contain general information about legal and related matters. The information is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to legal advice from your attorney or other professional legal services provider. If you have any specific questions about any legal matter you should consult your attorney or other professional services provider.

The post A Few Ways ScaleUPCheckUP™ Can Show You the $$ (Money) appeared first on E-Council Global.