Ben Means Business

Sales and Marketing — What’s the Difference?

Chris Brown — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:59:28 +0000

The functions of Sales and Marketing often get blurred in a business with the same individual responsible for both. If you picture the business cycle as passing the hot potato throughout the business, you’ll see that marketing hands the potato to sales who sends it onward to manufacturing.

While they work very closely together, each function requires very different roles, tasks and measurables. The talented sales person who is great at closing may be terrible at planning a year long budget and pulling together a branding campaign that the company will use for the next 5 years.

Marketing efforts transfer the hot potato to Sales. The Sales department transfers it to the manufacturing, shipping or client services department,. Each function answers different questions in the business cycle.

Marketing functions provide direction
Which industries, which markets in which geography and ultimately which customers to approach? What problems do these customers have that our products could solve? What is the product offering at entry level pricing, for high volume/capacity or top of the line, custom goods? Based on what the company can produce, how should the company present its image: quality, service or price? What’s the best placement of the advertising and PR - online or print?

Sales functions involve action and interaction.

Chris Brown is a marketing expert who publishes Branding & Marketing at www.brandandmarket.com and has run a successful marketing agency for the past 10 years. Her company provides the marketing resources you need to get the sales results you want.

Thinking About Selling? Better Check this Out

Ben Jones — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:34:00 +0000

This is a guest post by Peter Siegel of BizBen. I found his site extremely useful for anybody wishing to sell a business. Be sure to check it out.

One of the first questions most potential business buyers ask is: what is the adjusted net income or seller’s discretionary cash flow on the business they are seeking to purchase? Buyers want to know this number since that is the amount of money they will most likely be “putting in their pocket at the end of the year”. So this figure is of utmost importance to business brokers and sellers because it will ultimately determine the value of a particular business.

A simple definition of Adjusted Net Income:
“The amount of money the new owner will make from the business – the true bottom line; or what the buyer of the business can expect to “clear” from the business once they own and operate it in their own way.”

Adjusted net income usually contains these line items below from the business financials and tax returns – these numbers are “added back” to the net income at the end of the year to obtain the adjusted net income of the business.

1. Owner’s Salary
2. Depreciation
3. Interest
4. Amortization
5. One Time Expenses (Items like equipment, trucks, etc)
6. Owners Personal Expenses (Auto expenses, entertainment, travel)
7. Owners Pension/Retirement
8. Rent (If the real estate is being sold with the business)

There are other possible “add-backs” such as family salaries - family members that don’t actually work at the business yet magically earn a salary (and will be gone when the new owner takes over), and managers that may be replaced when the new owner completes the deal.

Remember many owners of small businesses “write-off” as many business expenses as possible to limit their tax liability at the end of the year. Many of these “write-offs” can be added back to the net income to obtain the “adjusted net income”.
So remember, when selling a business, to be sure to pay special attention when computing your Adjusted Net Income. Don’t nonchalantly turn in a number with the rest of your financials. Take your time, do your research, and you’ll get the offer that you desire.

……………………………………………………

Peter Siegel, MBA is the founder of BizBen.com – Businesses For Sale an advertising & resource center for small businesses wishing to sell. Mr. Siegel is a national consultant and author who has written three books on the topic.`Be sure to check out his small business blog to learn more about buying and selling small businesses.

Guest Posts Needed A.S.A.P.

Ben Jones — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:06:00 +0000

I didn’t want to do this but it looks like I’ll have to.

Over the next week or two I will be spending my “blogging time” attempting to move this blog onto a Wordpress platform. I have grown weary of the limitations of Blogger and can no longer avoid the switch I have been dreading for a while now. However, as I quickly discovered yesterday, this is not going to be an easy task.

So, I decided to offer other business bloggers the opportunity to submit guest posts so that I can focus my energies on getting this move completed while still providing something to my readers. I will not place any limitations on word count, subject matter, links, etc….I will, however, ask that you submit only fresh content that is relevant to small business and entrepreneurship. Only the best articles will be posted and appropriate links and credit will go to those respective authors.

What’s in it for you?

Traffic

Link from a young Page Rank 4

Link on New Site

Want to submit a guest post?

Shoot me an email(with article included) at benjamin.jones12@gmail.com. Thanks in advance for you assistance and patience as I attempt to make Ben Means Business the e-reading experience that it should be.

Guide to Getting Government Contracts: Part 1

Ben Jones — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:27:00 +0000

The U.S. Government is the absolute wealthiest customer any small business could ever obtain. The government always has demands for products and services and is not shy about entering into contracts for large sums of money with companies who can satisfy their needs. Despite the obvious monetary benefits, there are usually only a limited number of small businesses competing for these lucrative contracts. The reason that these small businesses don’t go after these big contracts is simple……….. it’s “fear”.

Which is why i decided to write this series. I aim to liberate you of those fears by empowering you with the knowledge necessary to identify, bid on, and obtain a government contract for your small business. To that end, I will dedicate 1 or 2 posts a week to the topic for the next couple of weeks. Today’s post should serve as an introduction to government contracts. As such, the first thing that we have to do is dispel those common misconceptions that strike fear in the hearts of small business owners.

Government Contracts: The Common Misconception

Most small business owners think of government contracts as these humungous deals designed for Fortune 500 companies. Deals that will never be obtainable for small operations like yours. Well, you are so very wrong, and even worse, you may be missing out on tons of profit for your business. The fact is that the U.S. government understands the impact that small businesses have on the economy and have set aside certain contracts for small businesses.

They niche these classifications in such a way that would prohibit the large Fortune 500 vultures from getting them. This leaves only you and me to compete over larger contracts than either of us probably ever imagined. Don’t believe me? Well, take out a pen and paper and answer the next few questions.

Are you a:

Small Business?

Woman-Owned Business?

Veteran-Owned or Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business?

Small Disadvantaged Business?

HubZone Business?

Times up! Put your pen down.

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, I suggest that you subscribe to rss(don’t worry.. it’s free) or check back often over the next few weeks to make sure that you don’t miss a thing.

Are you currently in contract with the government? Currently writing a proposal? Leave a comment. We want to hear about your experiences.

Sales Volume vs. Profit Margin: Striking it Rich in Today’s Economy

Ben Jones — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:32:00 +0000

High Price, low sales volume? Or Low price, high sales volume? This can be a very tough decision for small business owners to make because neither choice will be right for every situation. There are a number of factors to consider when attempting to make this important decision. These factors include competition’s prices/quality, market maturity rate, your cost, and even location. Despite these usual concerns, the state of our current economy has made it a lot simpler to decide between sales volume and profit margin.

The answer, nowadays, will be the same for most businesses. It’s “sales volume” by a landslide. I’ve always believed that “volume is king” and I believe it even more today as frugality has become more of a concern for most people. Whether our economy is really in bad shape or not is not the issue. The issue is that inflation mixed with all the talk about recession, has caused most people to become more frugal.

People are more likely to choose less expensive alternatives to their usual purchases. When their is the perception that money is getting tight, people won’t necessarily stop spending(because they can’t); but they will start spending less. So they buy $20 shoes because they can feel better about that than they can about buying $60 shoes. This theory is proven by the recent climb in scooter sales. Motor scooters are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination(ranging from ($800-$8,000) but yet the sale of motor scooters has been on a steady increase since the beginning of gas price inflation(see CNN’s article on the topic).

Why? you ask….. The answer is simple. The people who buy motor scooters don’t buy them simply because they want to save money on gas (the theory of spending this much money to “save money” is irrational in, and of, itself). They buy them because two-wheeled motorbikes are fun and the rise in gas prices now “justifies” the purchase.

So, what does this mean for Small Business Owners?

It means that wherever possible, small business owners need to be aware of these types of trends and begin to adjust to the mood of the consumer. If you want to earn more profit, it would be wise to try to lower overall cost in an attempt to cut prices. It’s better(and easier in today’s climate) to sale 500 units for $10 than it is to sell 250 units for $20. Besides the fact that volume gets you better prices from suppliers, sells has a way of producing more sells all by itself.

So if you want to become the king of the jungle in your industry, find a way to drop those prices and people will find a reason to buy it. They may even buy it for no reason at all.

Attention All Small Business Bloggers: The Revolution has Begun!

Ben Jones — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:08:00 +0000

It is becoming ridiculously apparent to me that we (small business bloggers) are the black sheep of the blogosphere. We have some of the most knowledgeable, respectable professionals of any blogging niche and yet you hear but chirps around some of the most informative blogs in our category. We boast gifted minds like Anita Campbell, John Jantsch, Jeff Cornwell(& myself but yet we pale miserably (in terms of traffic) to less sought after niches. I mean, come on….we carry the keys to the thing that most everybody in today’s society is searching for. Our product is in high demand but we, the suppliers, are not delivering.

And It’s not because we’re not providing great content(so wipe that look off your face:)); It’s because we’re not promoting that content. We have no sense of community, low/no participation, low/no camaraderie, and the list goes on and on. There is no way that more people are interested in “digital photography” than are interested in entrepreneurship……… Something has to be done.

This was one of the reasons why I produced the best entrepreneurship and small business blogs list. It was to help to inform everybody of other quality blogs in our niche and it appears to have helped a little. However, we must do more.

What Must We Do?

The first thing we must do is to support and participate with other small business bloggers. Use those $50,000 degrees (or more costly informal education) to provide value to our forums. Forums like Young Entrepreneur’s, or Young Go Getter’s , StartupNation, or Business Leader. Leave comments or Trackbacks on blogs. Promote, Stumble, Digg, and most importantly Fetch great content. Take back sites like Small Business Brief that were designed for great content from small business blogs(I guarantee that right now the front page of Small Business Brief includes nothing but posts about SEO, affiliate marketing, and the like). Make ‘em take it to Sphinn! Great content and great ideas should be rewarded…..we seem to be the only blogging “community” that doesn’t think so. But I guess this is what happens when a community has no leader because it consists of leaders.

Coming Down

All I’m saying is that soooo many people are searching for the knowledge needed to start a successful business. Even though I’m tired of listening to people talk about the economy, it is making the information we provide that much more sought after. What we have to do is make sure that the people searching for it actually find it and not some watered down version produced by a poser or a scammer. They need first hand knowledge from you; the people actually sitting at home or in their office everyday writing small educational memoirs about their experiences. This will be good for everyone. It’ll mean more traffic, more consulting jobs, more book deals, more opportunities, and just a lot more fun. So let’s get busy. Let’s do what we do best……Create, Network, and Market!

The Revolution has Begun!

Now back to your regularly scheduled content.

Great Business Blogs that were Overlooked

Ben Jones — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:26:00 +0000

On Monday, I posted the 41 Absolute Best Blogs about Entrepreneurship and Small Business. In this post I said that I would update the list when I found other quality business blogs that I may have overlooked. Well folks, it’s time for our first update. I have found nine more blogs that definitely deserved to be on the list. A link to these blogs has been added to the “Update” section of the original post. I have also listed them below. Enjoy……..

Small Business CEO -Steve Rucinski
Seriously Business
Bootstrapme- Shawn Hessinger
Business Opportunities and Ideas- John Crickett
Small Business Answers- Appears to have Several authors
Black in Business- James D. Walton
Up and Running- Tim Berry
Escape from Cubicle Nation-Pamela Slim
Global Small Business Blog-Laurel Delaney

Ladies and Gentleman, our list is now up to 50. Any more exceptional blogs that we may have missed?

8 Steps to Effective Decision Making

Ben Jones — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:49:00 +0000

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” -William James

Entrepreneurs are faced with tough decisions everyday. Our very value, as leaders, is placed in our ability to identify problems, analyze information, and make decisions. Therefore, having a standard process is key to becoming an effective decision maker. Without it, we are just running in circles; plagued by scrambled thoughts and paralyzed by indecisiveness: . So, what is the best method for making tough decisions? Well, let’s take a look.

The Decision Making Blueprint

1) Identify the problem
This one is pretty self explanatory but it must be done. One of the things that hinders our ability to think clearly is our proclivity to magnify the consequences and obscure the problem.

2) Determine the Importance
How important is this decision? Usually there are 3 basic options. You can make something better, worse, or just a lateral change. If the decision cannot make things worse, it is not a tough decision. We must save our “stress” for truly tough decisions and situations. Remember, your indifference (or lack of knowledge) about a decision does not make it tough. Therefore, learning to identify importance can help to bring clarity to your decision making process.

3) Identify the Facts
What things do you already know to be absolute truths about the situation. Forget all of the hypotheticals that we drum up. Right now, you just need the facts.

4) Identify the Options
Develop a list of options or possible solutions to your problem. In this step, you don’t want to consider consequences. You just want to write down ever possible solution you can think of…even the dumb one’s. Sometimes, what you initially see as “dumb” will look like pure genius once all the smoke has cleared.

5) Consider the Outcome
Identify the worst and best case scenarios. Attempt to associate those scenarios with the options you have already identified. Analyze the likelihood of each outcome being a result of each option.

6) Pray About It
“If any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally” - James 1:5

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” - James 3:17

Sometimes, prayer will make us more comfortable with a decision and this can be our confirmation from God. Look for guidance from him and you cannot go wrong.

7) Make a Decision
Using the knowledge you’ve gained from steps 4, 5, & 6, make an educated decision.

Create a Backup Plan
Attempt to identify ways that you can absorb some of the shock in case your decision causes things to take a turn for the worse. The reality is that in most cases we are forced to make decisions with limited information. We utilize the limited information available to us at the time, and as such, must make those courageous decisions fully prepared to make adjustments in case of an emergency.

For more on decision making, see: Emotions: The Leading Cause of Death

Can you think of any more steps? Please leave your suggestion in the comments section

The 41 Absolute Best Blogs about Entrepreneurship and Small Business

Ben Jones — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:33:00 +0000

There are thousands of small business and entrepreneurship blogs in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, many of them are not at all useful to the experienced or aspiring entrepreneur. We’ve all seen them. The great majority of which are e-commerce “pros” masquerading as entrepreneurship experts. This makes finding solid, useful information for the traditional small business owner very difficult. Therefore in my frustration, I have decided to create what I like to think of as “The A-List” of entrepreneurship and small business blogs.

The blogs listed in “The List” are solely there on the basis of their knowledge and content. I have given no regard to name recognition, popularity, or any of that stuff. In other words, there is no kissing up and no playing favorites. Now I recognize that there will be some omissions with a list this size but for the most part the “must-reads” are all there. Some of your favorites, or even your own blog, may have been left off the list. It’s probably because they haven’t posted in a forever, their blog isn’t really about entrepreneurship, or it’s just not good enough. So no whining! If you think we missed one just drop me a line in the comments section and we’ll check it out. I’ll update the list when we find some worth adding.

Other than that, enjoy the reading. I’m sure you’ll find some new blogs for the old reader.
(These are listed in no particular order)

Small Business Trends- Written by Anita Campbell.
Simple design, great content, daily posts.

Just for Small Business- Denise O’berry
One of several blogs on allbusiness.com

Small Business Survival- Becky McCray, Jeanne Cole, & Genna Mae
Says for small town small business resource but the information is universal.

Small Business Arena- Kirtok
Hasn’t posted in a while but good resource.

The Entrepreneurial Mind- Jeff Cornwall
Entrepreneurship Professor at Belmont provides very useful information.

Work Happy- Carson McComas
Links and resources to help entrepreneurs work smarter, not harder

Business Opportunities Weblog- Dane Carlson
Interviews, Success Stories, & Advice

Home Based Business Blog- Frank Ross
Business and Marketing Info. Also hosted on allbusiness.com.

Startup Spark- Shannon Cherry
More about running your business after startup but great information nonetheless.

How to Change the World- Guy Kawasaki
Very popular blog by one of the best in the blogosphere. Interviews, Advice, and everything in between.

Entrepreneur Success Blog- Jared Reitzin
2-3 posts per week. Also posts episodes from his pretty funny Internet show.

Entrepreneurs Journey- Yaro Starak
Very popular. Posts a lot about his experiences as an Internet entrepreneur but interesting and inspiring for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

Babe of Business- Crystal Williams
Pretty young blog, erratic posting schedule, but good content, and great design. Definitely one to watch.

Business Know-How- Tim Knox, Janet Attard
Lots of Adsense Ads in the middle of posts but content is worth looking past the visual distractions.

Young Go-Getter- Justin Nowak
Interviews & advice. Also hosts an entrepreneurship forum on this site. Be sure to check it out.

Duct Tape Marketing- John Jantsch
Design is a little busy but author seems to be very knowledgeable. Worth adding to your reader.

Be Excellent- Skip Reardon
Simple design but consistently good content.

Branding and Marketing- Chris Brown
Clean design, daily posts, passionate author

Young Entrepreneur- Matthew and AdamToen
Great blog, great forums

JD’s Blog- Jason Drohn
Incredibly attractive design, invaluable information

Marketing Hackz- Jason Drohn
All-inclusive marketing information. Another nice design by JD.

Small Biz Labs- Steve King, Carolyn Ochels, Anthony Townsend
Business Research, tactics, and trends

Genius Types - Brian lee
Business Opportunities & ideas to build passive income

The Savvy Entrepreneur- Christina Favreau
A little bit difficult to navigate because of some design issues but the entrepreneurship category has some interesting articles.

Small Business Mentor- Yvonne Russell
Clever topics, tons of information

Seth Godin’s Blog- Seth Godin
Insanely popular. Not strictly entrepreneurship but entertaining and informative.

Weakest Link Consulting- Erik Johnels
Young Blog but knowledgeable author. A good for the reader.

Instigator Blog- Ben Yoskovitz
Co-founder of “Standout Jobs” writes on everything from VC’s to BP’s

OkDork- Noah Kagan
Fun blog, very popular, lots of marketing info.

Feld Thoughts- Brad Feld
Just read it

Entrepreneurship and Positive Living- Timothy Winston
Lot’s of tips on how to remain productive when your you’re own boss

Entrepreneurship: A Different Mindset- Ryan Mapes
One of the founders of the Go Bog Network covers a lot of ground in his blog

Personal Branding- Dan Schawbel
A great marketing blog. Deals largely with personal branding

Branding Strategy Insider- Tom Asacher, Brad Van Auken, Derrick Daye
Wildy popular and for good reason. Definitely one for the reader

Marketing Caddy- Walt Goshert
Nice design, daily posts, great content

Marketing Deviant- David Kam
More psychology than strategy….but isn’t our psychology what sets entrepreneurs apart anyway?

Small Business Branding- Several notable Authors
Very useful content by experienced authors. One of the best

Chris Brogan- Unknown. lol
marketing, social media, personal branding

Business Pundit- Seems to be by several authors

Verve Coaching- Erek Ostrowski
Entrepreneurship, Leadership, & Small Business-ship

Ben Means Business- Ben Jones
Last but definitely not least. The grandaddy of entrepreneurship/small business blogs. A must-have for your reader

**Update**
Great blogs that were originally overlooked

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What Is the Best Age to Start a Business?

Ben Jones — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:24:00 +0000

This is a guest post by Cristian Dorobantescu, author of both the Energybyte and Entrepreneur Interviews blogs.

Quote: Youth is the best time to be rich and the best time to be poor. ~ Euripides

Most people I meet that want to start a business have a set of barriers that they need to get over before they can take action. Those barriers include the fear of being unsuccessful, waiting for a great and unique idea, lack of funding, or simply the unwillingness to take a risk. Although these reasons are always the same, one’s perspective towards them change with age.

So what’s the best age to start a business?

I would say Mid-20’s. I remember some 4-5 years ago I was working in an IT start-up, where everybody from the least employee to the owners were below age 30. The owners of that IT company are now millionaires (they did it before turning 30). Looking back, I realize that starting a business in the mid twenties comes with a set of advantages which where not so obvious at that time. I can now recognizing some of the advantages of starting so early. Let’s discuss a couple of them:

Reasons to Start a Business while Your Young

1) The lack of experience is conducive to open-mindedness and creativity. I mean if you ask me now to start a project, I will probably follow the same patterns that I picked up from years of work experience. This might get things done but it definitely doesn’t allow for experimentation which is usually good for entrepreneurs because it causes you to stumble upon better ways of doing things.

2) Your lack of experience will also cause you to be a more ready learner, to stay up to date, and to make the most of what you know. This is one of the interesting things about the human mind. When we are forced to learn to do things on our own, we are usually more inclined to keep learning. Some of my professors at the University did not learn this way and they would often teach methods that were outdated.

3) Your youth allows for more failures. Yes, this is a good thing. As strange as it sounds, if you are to fail (and most of us do) it’s better to do it while young – it gets you some experience for the latter and the failures are easier to overcome.

4)Young entrepreneurs don’t have many responsibilities yet so they are at liberty to take some high risk, high reward opportunities. The lack of family to support allows younger entrepreneurs to work late hours and to focus more on their business.

5) Young entrepreneurs usually have less egos and more desire to make things happen. They are usually striving for acceptance and accomplishment. This is what motivates them in the first place.

6) Young entrepreneurs still have the support of mommy and daddy (and maybe even some older brothers or sisters). Therefore, you can throw your few pennies into your business and eat on mommy and daddy’s dime (lol). Plus they’re is probably secretly expecting you to fail anyway. This takes some pressure off of you – especially if you do fail.

So, should we prefer the wisdom we’ll have as an older entrepreneur over the creativity and freedom we get as a younger one? I would say emphatically “NO” but I would like to see your thoughts on the subject in Ben’s comments section. Also, check out Ben’s post Is College Necessary for Entrepreneurs

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About the Author
Cristian Dorobantescu is a part time entrepreneur from Eastern Europe that started blogging back in 2005, with his Small Business Entrepreneur blog (Energybyte). He enjoys writing about real life Entrepreneurship experiences, small businesses and knowledge resources for any entrepreneur wanna be.

See Christian’s original post on this topic here.