One of the biggest mistake owners make in selling their company is being lured into a proprietary deal.

Acquirers land a proprietary deal (or “prop deal”) when they convince owners to sell their businesses without creating a competitive marketplace. Acquirers running a proprietary deal know they don’t have any competition and tend to make weaker offers with more punitive terms because they know nobody else is bidding.

Many founders become the target of a proprietary deal without even knowing they have been duped. First, someone senior from the acquiring company approaches the founder, complimenting them on their business. The acquirer suggests lunch, and then high-level financials are exchanged. Soon, the owner starts going down a path that is difficult to come back from.

As the parties in a proprietary deal get to know one another, founders often share information with the acquirer that puts them in a compromised negotiation position. The interactions are set up as friendly exchanges between two industry leaders, but many founders reveal key facts in these discussions that end up being used against them when negotiations turn serious. Business owners also become more emotionally committed to selling the more resources they invest in the process and the more time they spend thinking—perhaps dreaming—of what it would mean to sell their business.

Savvy sellers avoid the proprietary deal by creating a competitive process for their company. Take for example Dan Martell, the founder of Clarity.fm, among other companies. When Martell decided to sell Clarity, he knew the likely buyer was one of five New York-based companies. Instead of negotiating with one, he invited all five to an event he hosted in New York. The five CEOs—all of whom knew one another—saw a room full of their competitors and realized that if Clarity went on the market, they would have to out-bid the other buyers in that room.

Hosting the event was Martell’s way of communicating to all the potential buyers that a proprietary deal was off the table and that if they wanted to buy Clarity, they would have to compete for it.

It’s flattering to receive a call from an executive at a company you respect. Just know that if you accept their invitation of lunch, you run the risk of becoming the latest casualty of the proprietary deal.

Find out how you score on the eight factors that drive your company’s value by completing the Value Builder questionnaire:

If you display the bio of key staff members on your website, re-order the list so that it is alphabetical rather than hierarchical.

If your surname is in your company name, consider a re-brand. There’s nothing that makes a customer want to deal with the owner more than having the owner’s surname featured in the company name.

Giving someone the title of president conveys the message that they have real authority to solve customer problems.

Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4 Hour Work Week among other books, made the email auto-responder famous, and it can serve you well. Set up an automatic response to anyone sending you an email explaining that you are travelling or attending to a strategic project and unable to answer their questions immediately. Instead, train customers to direct questions to the person best suited to answer them quickly.

A word of caution using this strategy: if you continue to answer customer emails after setting up an auto-responder, it’s going to become transparent that you’re just trying to hide behind your autoresponder, which could diminish your credibility. If you set one up, you need to be ready to let others step in.

If you have the kind of business that customers visit in person, set up a home office so you can spend more time away from your location.

For a hard-charging A-type entrepreneur, the steps above can be complicated and feel counterintuitive. They may even have a short-term negative impact on your company’s sales, but once you get your customers trained to go to your team, you’ll be able to scale up further and ultimately maximize the value of your business.

Find out how you score on the eight factors that drive your company’s value by completing the Value Builder questionnaire:

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Volvo recently announced they will make their cars available on a subscription model where consumers will pay one fixed fee per month for access to a car which includes insurance and maintenance.

Everything from tooth brushes to flowers are now available with subscription billing.

Could you offer some sort of recurring plan to your customers? Here are six reasons to consider offering your customers a subscription:

1. Predictability: When you have subscribers, you can plan what your business needs in the future. For example, the average flower store in America throws out more than half of its inventory each month because it’s too rotten to sell.  At H.Bloom, a subscription-based flower company that sells flowers to hotels and spas, say they throw out less than 2% of their flowers because they can perfectly predict how many flowers are needed to fulfill their orders.

2. Eliminate Seasonality: Many businesses suffer through seasonal highs and lows. In fact, a whopping thirty percent of a typical flower store’s revenue comes on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day – ultimately leaving them to scramble and make a sale in November. By contrast, H.Bloom has a steady stream of subscribers that pay each month. At Mister Car Wash – where they offer a subscription for unlimited car washes – they receive revenue from customers in November and April even though very few people in the Northern east wash their cars in rainy months.

3. Improved Valuation: Recurring revenue boosts the value of your business. Whereas most small companies trade on a multiple of profit, subscription-based businesses often trade on a similar multiple of revenue.

4. The Trojan Horse Effect: Once you subscribe to a service, you become much more likely to buy other things from the same company. That’s one reason Amazon is so keen to get you to buy subscriptions to things like Prime or Subscribe & Save. Amazon knows that once you become a subscriber, you are much more likely to buy additional products.

5. The Sale That Keeps On Giving: Unlike the transaction business model where you have to stimulate demand through advertising to get customers to buy, with a subscription based model, you sell one subscription and it keeps giving month after month.

6. Data & Market Research: When you get a customer to subscribe, you can start to see their spending and consumption habits. This data is the ultimate in market research. It’s how Netflix knows which new shows to produce and which to kibosh.

With our business coaching systems we can help you develop a subsciption model that will do wonder for your business

Get in touch by completing a brief questionnaire  using the link below:

Flat lay of business concept

The value of your business comes down to a single equation: what multiple of your profit is an acquirer willing to pay for your company?

profit × multiple = value

Most owners believe the best way to improve the value of their company is to make more profit – so, they find ways to sell more and more. As experts in their industry, it’s natural that customers want to personally engage with them, which means spending more time on the phones, on the road and face-to-face to increase sales.

With this model, a company can slightly grow, but the owner’s life becomes much more difficult: customers demand more time and service, employees begin to burn out, and soon it feels like there are not enough hours in the day. Revenue flat lines, health can suffer and relationships get strained – all from working too much. Does this feel familiar?

If you’re spending too much time and effort on increasing your profit, you could find yourself diminishing the overall value of your business. The solution? Focus on driving your multiple (the other number in the equation above). Driving your multiple will ultimately help you grow your company value, improve your profit and redeem your freedom.

Lots of Runway

Most founders think market share is something to strive for, but in the eyes of an acquirer, it can decrease the value of your business because you’ve already sopped up most of the opportunity.

Recurring Revenue

An acquirer is going to want to know how your business will do once you leave – recurring revenue assures them that there will still be a business once the founder hits eject.

Financials

The size and profitability of your company will matter to investors and so will the quality of your bookkeeping.

The You Factor

The most valuable businesses can thrive without their owners. The inverse is also true because the most valuable businesses are masters of independence.

If you were to draw a picture that visually represents your role in your business, what would it look like? Are you at the top of an organizational chart, or stuck in the middle of your business like a hub in a bicycle wheel?

The Hub & Spoke model is a drive that shows how dependent your business is on you for survival. The Hub & Spoke model can only be as strong as the hub. The moment the hub is overwhelmed, the entire system fails. Acquirers generally avoid these types of managed businesses because they understand the dangers of buying a company too dependent on the owner.

The Hub & Spoke model is a drive that shows how dependent your business is on you for survival. The Hub & Spoke model can only be as strong as the hub. The moment the hub is overwhelmed, the entire system fails. Acquirers generally avoid these types of managed businesses because they understand the dangers of buying a company too dependent on the owner.

Here’s a list of the 5 top warning signs that show your business could be too dependent on you.

Most business owners give themselves final authority… all the time. But what happens if you’re away for a couple of days and an important supplier needs to be paid? Consider giving an employee signing authority for an amount you’re comfortable with, and then change the mailing address on your bank statements so they are mailed to your home (not the office). That way, you can review everything coming out of your account and make sure the privilege isn’t being abused.

Flat revenue from one year to the next can be a sign you are a hub in a hub-and-spoke model. Like forcing water through a hose, you have only so much capacity. No matter how efficient you are, every business dependent on its owner reaches capacity at some point. Consider narrowing your product and service line by eliminating technically complex offers that require your personal involvement, and instead focus on selling fewer things to more people.

If you spend your vacations dispatching orders from your mobile, it’s time to cut the tether. Start by taking one day off and seeing how your company does without you. Build systems for failure points. Work up to a point where you can take a few weeks off without affecting your business.

It’s good to have the pulse of your market, but knowing every single customer by first name can be a sign that you’re relying too heavily on your personal relationships being the glue that holds your business together. Consider replacing yourself as a rainmaker by hiring a sales team, and as inefficient as it seems, have a trusted employee shadow you when you meet customers so over time your customers get used to dealing with someone else.

Employees, customers and suppliers constantly cc’ing you on e-mails can be a sign that they are looking for your tacit approval or that you have not made clear when you want to be involved in their work. Start by asking your employees to stop using the cc line in an e-mail; ask them to add you to the “to” line if you really must be made aware of something – and only if they need a specific action from you.

Our value builder provides you with an assessment and the solutions to escape the problems of the hub and spoke; over dependency on you and all the dysfunctions that entail.

Get your assessment  and report now by clicking the link below :

Multiple Demands on your most precious asset and pressures on You

The stresses of juggling multiple demands on our time, resolving constant conflicts, and coping with competing priorities all make it extraordinarily difficult to feel in control of what is most important to us.

We spend our time doing things that others could be doing instead. We do things that are not essential to our organization’s strategic priorities. We do things that are not the most important things for us to be doing as leaders of our business or family.

As a result, we feel overwhelmed. We lose our focus and our most valuable asset. Ironically, our other assets suffer as well. We are stressed and lose energy and vitality. We do not relate as well with others, because we are distracted and cannot give our full attention. We make poor decisions that cost money.

If you also have this concern, you are not alone. Many leaders feel the same way, and there is a solution.

We Provide A Proven Methodology

At  London Coaching Services we have a proven methodology that assesses exactly how you spend your time now, and then sets specific goals for the most valuable uses of your time as a leader of your organization or business. From there, we work with you to design your day and week to redesign your time, set boundaries, and put key habits and behaviours in place so that you get back in control of your time as appropriate for your role.

Increase Performance and Results

When we work with you we bring back control, focus, and peace of mind to your work. As a result, you are more productive, you make better decisions, and you notice that your performance, as well as that of your team and your organization, improves – seemingly with less effort and hassle.

Time to spend more time with family and on what really matters to you

Download a short time assessment and get in touch

Time is indeed your most important asset. Be sure that you treat it as you would any other. Measure how you use it. Analyse your decisions. Plan better, make more strategic choices going forward. Do what it takes to set boundaries to execute those plans and choices.

Please take a moment to read more about our work on this website, and be sure to download a short time assessment that can help you by clicking here. At the same time, if you would like to discuss your situation, please call me on my personal cell phone at 07486614145 or email me at info@londoncoachingservices.com.

Before you can start your online marketing campaign you need to work through the six steps for success. This will help you flush out a plan to find success. This week you’ll take that plan and learn how to turn it into a solid foundation.

Starting with a firm foundation

Your road to successful online marketing begins with a solid foundation. One major component of that foundation is a company website. Your company website should represent the products and services your company has to offer. It should have all of the nine basic elements of a good website. These elements can take your customers from start to checkout with ease.

What should your website truly mean to you?

Your website design speaks volumes about your company. Each page on your site should reflect your company and be attractive to visitors. You can choose to spend very little on your website if you plan to do a more of the maintenance yourself. Website hosting on the World Wide Web will cost you a little out of pocket each month. You then have to decide if you will build your own website, which requires a little more knowledge. You could also choose to use a template or even hire someone to do it all. We’ll talk about the options and costs associated with this.

Once your website is up and running, you need to convert visitors into paying customers. There are a series of conversion strategies to choose. One of those strategies is to have a well-defined landing page in which customers immediately recognise why they’re on your site and what they need to do.

Why keeping an eye on your customers helps

It’s essential to keep track of your customers. Set up forms with customer information so that you can contact every customer again in the future. It is also important to measure the effectiveness of your website. You’ll learn how to measure site visits, page views, referring websites, and much more vital information. Once you have this information, you can determine where your online marketing dollars are best spent.

Next week we’re going to take a look at online presence and what it really means. You’ll learn exactly what an online presence is and how that presence can draw customers in and increase your sales. An online presence is also about building brand recognition, another major component to success in an online world.

In the last post we talked about negotiating with your big fish and how to nurture and build on the relationships you are creating. Today we’ll talk about the power your fish has and how to utilise that for your benefit.

One of the most important aspects of this is to keep your cheerleader cheering. This refers to the ally you created in the company and who needs to stay loyal to you for you to continue a profitable partnership with your fish. You can keep your champion going by offering or doing a number of things to show appreciation.

Some of these things are:

• Share the limelight.Help them;
• Thank their company with new products and services.
• Emotionally connect them to your company.
• Know when to leave them alone.
• Keep your “family” happy.
• Stay on the front lines.

Now that you have some ideas of how to build solid relationships, you need to seek out people to build these relationships with. These alliances will help you get bigger clients that stay with you forever. You can often get in the door by offering them something in exchange
for something they need:

1. Power
2. Information
3. Better work experience

These are all great ways to feed your alliance. You need to go into a relationship considering the things a big fish can offer you besides money.

These can include:

• The opportunity for your business to expand
• The opportunity to learn from the experience and find ways to grow
• The opportunity to improve your processes, systems and other means of doing business

These are some of the best ways to keep your alliances going strong and your partnerships fresh and content.

If you need help with any of these tactics, try our FREE test drive on this site or by clicking this link to make an appointment with me for great tools and resources that can help you every step of the way.

Until the next time.

There are a few things you need to do and consider to prepare for your first face to face meeting with your Big Fish or top client:

Make a list of what you want to accomplish during the meeting.

• Anticipate potential concerns from the client.
• Check to make sure you are completely prepared.
• Listen more than you talk.
• Bring support staff with you.
• Use and respect the clients’ format.
• Always follow through.
• Ask for what you need and seal the deal.
• Simplify your prospects life.
• Find ways to boost your credibility.
• Build and nurture relationships.
• Learn from “no”. Find out what didn’t work so you know how to change it for the next time.

These are all important things to do both before and during your presentation.

With confidence behind your company and product you will catch that big fish. The next step of the process is negotiation. This can seem a little intimidating but with a few tips and tricks can become natural to you.

Here are some tips to help you negotiate successfully:

1. Build a pricing strategy and stick with it.
2. Prioritise what you plan to offer. This should include what really matters to you and what you are willing to give in on.
3. Don’t give in too quickly.
4. Negotiated with a person, not a “company”. Don’t let their answer be that they  would like to, but can’t.
5. Don’t sell yourself short.
6. Mitigate your pricing. If you go to low you won’t be able to raise it back up and you need to make a profit.
7. Don’t sacrifice quality for the deal.
8. Your services should always count as costs.
9. Boost margins with add-ons.
10. Handle request for proposals with the utmost care.

These are the ways you make sure that both parties are getting the best possible situation from the partnership. Once you start meeting or working together, it’s important to continue to build your relationship so that that representative becomes a big of an ally for you. They are more likely to vouch for you and build on the partnership you have with their company.

We like to call this person a champion. They are champion for your company and can bring a stronger, brighter future to your company.

Here are the characteristics of a great champion:

• They are respected by supervisors.
• They are socially networked.
• They think in the best interest of their company’s long run.
• They are able to quickly navigate through the company to get things done.
• They are willing to give credit to another person.
• They share the same business philosophy, values and vision as you.

Now, that you know how to negotiate for what is best for both parties and build on relationships, we’re going to talk about how to use your fish’ power to the best of your benefit.

If you need help with any of the negotiation or courting process, try our FREE test drive on this site or make an appointment with me by clicking this link: to get access to a wealth of great tools and resources to help you be successful.

Until the next time.

Many employers today are experiencing rapid, high employee turnover, which not only creates the issues of filling vacant positions, overworked staff, and low morale in the workplace, but also costs organisations billions of pounds each year.

The financial impact of excessive employee turnover alone can force an organisation to close its doors, and has many employers wondering how they can improve retention through effective hiring processes. Here are five ways to hire loyal employees and reduce turnover: 1. Assess the cultural fit of the job candidate. Maintaining cultural consistency within your company is a crucial factor in the productivity and satisfaction of your employees. A recent study showed that 46% of small-business new hires failed within 18 months, and a whopping 89% of those failures were directly related to poor cultural fit within the company.

How can employers assess candidates’ abilities to blend with their company culture?

1. Pre-hire employee assessments

Such as our ProfileXT® service, are great tools for gaining the information needed to measure an individual’s company culture compatibility. The Profile XT assessment reveals information on employee background, employment history, integrity, personal reliability, and work ethic.

2. Consider a trial period

Trial periods allow the new hire and company to mutually assess their compatibility without an obligation. A trial or probationary period can greatly increase the loyalty of your new hires and reduce turnover, as demonstrated by the fundraising company Engage Direct Mail, who implements a trial period of 90 days in their hiring process.

On average, Engage experiences 77% retention during the trial, which turns into about 95% retention after the three-month probationary period. Trials can be compared to dating – both sides share their expectations, values, and dreams. If they are in agreement, what’s to stop them from succeeding in the long-term? The key to probation periods is that they reveal any unknown factors to both the candidate and the employer.

3. Offer flexibility

Flexibility within a company allows employees to feel valued, and shows them their needs are recognised and respected. How important is flexibility to job seekers? According to a recent study carried out by the TimeWise Foundation, the demand for jobs that offer flexibility in the UK is almost half the population, however only 6.2% advertise this.

Work-life balance within an organisation is always a major consideration for job prospects, so offering flexitime and other accommodations for workers’ personal lives is an important factor in competitively attracting, hiring, and retaining top talent.

4. Use employee referrals

According to research from Jobvite, HR executives rated referrals the number one source of quality candidates; referrals also generated 39.9% of all hires. Employees hired on referral are also proven to be more loyal, as 46% of referred employees stay three years or more, compared to only 14% of hires from job boards. Referrals not only reduce turnover and recruiting efforts, but also empower employees by allowing them to have input in the hiring processes of their company.

5. Implement an onboarding program

Introducing an onboarding program into your hiring process can mean the difference between retaining a top employee for a lifetime, and watching them walk out the door after two months. Companies who implement an effective onboarding program during the first three months of new-hire employment experience 31% less turnover than those who don’t, according to the Aberdeen Group.

Onboarding is important because it introduces the employee to the company’s culture and expectations, and gives the employee vital training and information needed to succeed in their new position. A new hire’s company compatibility will likely be determined during the onboarding process, which can save the employer from prolonged investment in the wrong employee.

If your organisation is experiencing high turnover rates, you may be telling yourself, “the employees of today are not loyal like they were in the past,” or thinking, “there’s nothing I can do about it.” However, a more likely answer is you’ve simply been hiring the wrong people, and through the implementation of these five strategies, you can identify and hire talented, loyal employees.

As a partner of Summit Assessment Solutions, we can provide the Profile XT assessment tool; which can be used to measure how well an individual fits a specific job within your organisation. The “job matching” feature of the PXT is unique, enabling you to evaluate an individual relative to the qualities required to successfully perform in a specific job. It’s used throughout the employee life cycle; for selection, on-boarding, managing, and strategic workforce planning.

Strategic workforce planning is a process that ensures that your business has the right people in the right jobs at the right time to achieve your expected results. This discipline helps organisations understand their current state, forecast talent gaps, and take the necessary steps to close those gaps. It is a core business process that is often handled by HR, but it is so important to the success of an organisation that its leaders should approach strategic workforce planning proactively and take ownership of it.

We’ve all heard the saying that “failing to plan is planning to fail.” The traditional strategic planning process often focuses heavily on large capital expenditures, technology, and marketing investments. But that traditional process focuses too little on the organisation and the human resources necessary for sound execution.

It is almost as if the business takes for granted that it already has people with the necessary capabilities. The truth is that it can take several months, if not years, to get the right people into the right jobs, which can seriously hinder the execution of even the most well-thought out strategy.

We polled our experts and asked them to define a simple, straightforward strategic workforce management process. They outlined the following six steps:

• Establish where your business is going
• Understand where the labour market is going
• Understand your future talent demands
• Assess your current talent inventory
• Identify your talent gaps and strategies to close them
• Implement your strategies