Have you ever felt stuck like you want to get ahead, but can’t?
Or frustrated when a business strategy didn’t work?
Or are you calling BS on my ability to deliver the title above?
Throughout my life I’ve been focused one the thing – being successful.
Yet, for awhile, I didn’t define that clearly enough. I thought if I made a $1,000,000.00 a year then I would be successful.
But as I progessed through the corporate ladder, I made great money, but assumed more responsibility and lost control of my time.
I was at the mercy of when my boss thought it was okay if I was off. It taught me something.
The problem with trading time for money is the more you become successful the more autonomy you lose.
But it doesn’t have to be this way!
With a new realization that Time is more valuable than money, we can be off to a new direction.
As somebody who has researched and experienced time freedom businesses, I will DELIVER on 3 ways to create forever cash for yourself – with little to no money and a commitment in your spare time.
But before I get into it… let me define the goal:
- Cash flow to support your life
- Less than 10 hours a week work
- At least 5K per month.
I’ll describe how this can be done with three separate vehicles…
- Brick and Mortar Business
- Real Estate
- Online Business
For today’s post, I’ll deliver on #1 Brick and Mortar Businesses.
In the United States alone, there is some 32 million businesses competing for similar market shares.
Most up and coming entrepreneurs, obsessed with the next best thing, miss a lucrative opportunity to buy existing businesses.
They either think it’s impossible, that they couldn’t do it, or it “takes money to make money” and since they don’t have any, they never start!
It really doesn’t have to be that way.
ANYONE can buy a business and either run it themselves, create a acquisition plan where the existing owner stays on, or hire a GM to maintain the business for them.
Today we’ll discuss:
- How to buy a business
- How to structure a deal with owner or GM
- How to build systems to create optimization and time freedom
- How to set KPIs to manage from afar.
Any business can be bought with commercial debt, seller financing, or pursuing a joint venture.
In fact, a combination of the three can help a buyer meet the needs of the seller. Better yet, some business owners are so in love with their business, but they need some liquidity today, and they’ll stay on board after acquisition for a period of time.
The best way to acquire a business may be SBA (Small Business Administration Loans) or using Seller Financing where the existing business owner loans the money.
SBA being more hoops to jump through and slower. Seller financing is fast, but a combination of commercial debt and seller financing may be just what the doctor ordered.
A great way to buy a business is to contact a business broker, tell him what industry you’re looking for, how large the business should be, that your looking for the owner to stay on or enough Cashflow that a GM could be hired.
Because remember, this post is about how to own an asset they gives you Cashflow for your life on less than 10 hours a week. If you choose to work in your business that is another story.
Let’s say you’ve contacted a broker, told him your looking for a business in X industry at X top revenue trading for X range of multiples.
*Must include the ability for owner to stay on or enough Cashflow to justify hiring a GM with existing owner to train you and the other for a period of time.*
Next, how to structure a deal. Interest rates are so low these days that commercial debt is cheap and could be used for as little as 10% down.
Seller financing is also very lucrative because a seller can loan 100% or more of the business. For example, I could buy a business from a seller for 70% seller financing at 5% interest only for 5 years and joint venture with him for the other 30%.
That way today the seller receives 70% of the business in payments with interest over time, yet still has the upside potential of growing as you grow the business.
I would then make 70% of the businesses Cashflow – debt service. Meaning, make a crap ton of money with zero dollars out of my pocket. Not bad, huh?
The seller will also be held “by the balls” because of this type of deal so he will have vested interest in seeing the business grow.
So, at this point either make sure the seller has to stay on forever or a period of time, until you hire a GM to do the rest.
When you hire a GM make sure to incentivize their compensation plan such that they will care about the overall performance of the business. Examples include cash bonuses for KPIs met and exceeded. Or a revenue/profit share plan.
Thirdly, after the acquisition and deal structure, build a set of systems. Most businesses today aren’t documented properly.
Meaning, if everyone quit in one day there wouldn’t be documented intangible assets (knowledge of how to run the business) and the whole thing would fail.
There are many ways to lead a company, so people don’t quit, but that’s besides the point. Just know that all the processes of the business MUST be documented.
This means sales scripts, sales process, lead generation, how the receptionist answers the phone, etc. I really mean everything.
Why is this important?
Your job is to buy a business that works, so you don’t have to! Most businesses aren’t already fully documented, so make that a BIG part of the post acquisition strategy.
Lastly, once everything is all documented the last step is to create KPIs (Key Performance Indicators.)
What would you like measured? These are likely things like sales calls made, leads created, percentage closed etc. other very important KPIs include employee satisfaction surveys through HR.
This will give the ability to manage a business from home by calling in Sunday morning and asking what the numbers are.
Alrighty, that’s the brain blast for today! Hope you enjoyed this tremendously brief description of how to solve the money problem and acquire a business that works, so you don’t have to.
I’ll drop the other two tomorrow! Sign up to my email list.
Also, contact me if you’d like more info. For more resources on this subject google Dan Pena, Walker Deibel, Michael Gerber (for systems), and look up KPIs to learn more.
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