Last activity: Apr 29, 2008
Great article; I got 51% of an existing business for nothing ... sold it 18 months later for a number well into the multi-millions. In fact, I started ALL of my businesses with NOTHING - every one of them sold, or is worth, more than $2Mill. It's all about perceived expertise, vision, and negotiation.
Such an important concept; thanks for sharing it, Kaya.
The MOST POWERFUL vision that you can have is one that says "what does my life need to look/feel like when I'm done" ... why?
THAT will tell you how much money your business needs to generate as income for you (or sell for, to generate passively) each year.
If you are like me, that number will scare you ... into massive action ... and, you will grow and change your business to support your 'life dream'.
It's the key 'AHA!' that took me from a business losing $5k a month to 5 businesses across 3 countries in less than 7 years!
In 1998, when I was $30k in debt; business losing an additional $5k - $10k A MONTH, I created my vision following Michael Gerber's approach in his fantastic book, The E-Myth Revisited.
It showed me that, in order for my business to support my life (now, that's a turnaround for most business-owners whose life is controlled by their businesses!) my business just HAD to be worth $5M by 1995.
That lead to a lot of soul-searching to find the HOW to move from $0 to $5M in 7 years ... it lead to a journey across three continents ... it lead to a new-found passion to learn about (then share) the lessons that I had to self-teach about money.
Ultimateley, I overachieved on that seemingly impossible goal, by a wide margin ... I highly recommend your approach to others.
Really helpful ... thanks!
What do you see as the 'rules' for leaving comments (like I'm doing here) on other people's (related) blogs?
Obviously, one of the things that I'm trying to achieve is driving traffic back to my new/first blog [ which-I-will-not-name-here-in-case-it-is-against-protocol-:) ]
Nice post ... keep it up!
To me, business valuations mean a 'hill of beans' unless you are happy to accept 'average returns' from your business ... I think I'll post a Biznik 'tip' on this ...
Great advice. I found a simple tool to help me 'generate' USP's (Unique Selling Propositions): http://www.avnmembers.co.uk/knowledgebase/Business/uspgenerator.htm
Can't rely on fill-in-the-blanks marketing, but it sure helps get the 'brain juices' flowing! AJC.
Thanks, RJ ... let me know if it works for you like it did for me! Let me explain ...
Before The E-Myth book taught me how to work out my 'number' I was struggling to take $50k a year out of my business to live on.
A short 7 years after (really!) ... I made that Number (actually, a lot more); but, it took me 4 concurrent businesses and a heap of property investing (unfortunately, I realized I had a BIG number to achieve).
Now, I write about my experieces here and on my blog ( http://7million7years.com/ ) to help others to get to their Numbers, too.
AJC
The "oh, yeah" car I mention above ;)
BTW: another tip for you ... never buy new, this is more true the higher the price of the car.
For example, the sticker price on the Maserati, was $120k. I bought my 2007 model @ 6 months old with only 1,700 miles on the clock for less than $90k ... $30k buys a lot of enciladas in anybody's book!
Why? The higher in price you go, the more fickle the customer ... they buy cars on a whim and churn them quickly when they find out they would have rather had a boring ol' Merc!
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