How to Make a Lucrative Business Exit From 5 Entrepreneurs Who've Done It

Contributed By:

THOMAS SMALE

CONTRIBUTOR

Founder of FE International

Source: Entrepreneur

Imagine devising a winning business idea that you develop into a fully fledged enterprise.

Your business is profitable, and it's everything you ever wished or hoped it would be. But now it's time to move on. You're ready to make your exit because you want to explore new ideas and new ventures. Or maybe you just want to take a well-deserved vacation.

If you're looking to sell your website, however, and you don't have an exit plan in place, the process could prove more challenging than you are inclined to think. If you don't know how you're going to sell your business yet, don't fret. Here are five entrepreneurs that were willing to share their secrets to a successful online business exit.

1. CREATE EXPOSURE ENGINES.

Jeff Taylor, CEO of DEVISE, sold a seven-figure fitness website earlier this year, and he was kind enough to share how he was able to make it happen.

Taylor's advice is to "...first focus on quality and user experience. After that focus on creating exposure engines. Exposure engines can be organic or paid. Taking the time to develop a large social media page can pay dividends over the course of time. These exposure engines can put thousands of eyeballs on your content in minutes. They provide a strong launch pad for what you're offering. With these launch pads, if the offering is quality, it's hard to fail."

Taylor notes that the selling process was time-consuming but ultimately rewarding. It shouldn't come as any surprise that investors looking to buy a business -- especially a seven-figure business -- are going to do their due diligence before diving in.

If you aren't familiar with exposure engines, the idea is quite simple. It's about getting your listing seen on as many high-visibility websites as possible. It's worth digging a little deeper into the topic if you're starting to plan your exit.

Related: Do you desire to know how to buy an established business with very little capital and start making money right away? Then, see details here!

2. PREPARE LONG BEFORE YOU START.

Mike Angell of Evulse, a self-taught programmer says, "...the best thing you can do is prepare your site for sale well before you even consider selling it. This means doing all the little things such as making all the domain names, hosting accounts etc. under their own entity."

Angell found the selling process simple and straightforward, which is what every business owner hopes for. But his advice is definitely worth noting. If you one day hope to sell your business, start preparing now. Don't wait until the last minute. Do everything you can to make the transfer a painless process.

3. TALK WITH A BROKER.

Alan Kong, a New York based entrepreneur had this to share: "Make sure to speak to a broker a half year or year before you sell. You'll learn what can make your business much more attractive to prospective buyers, which makes for a much easier sale when you're ready."

If you want to get the most out your business, you need to heed Kong's counsel. When you know what buyers are looking for, and you can make the right adjustments in advance, you will find that the sales process goes very smoothly.

Related: Do you desire to know how to buy an established business with very little capital and start making money right away? Then, see details here!

4. Keep extensive records.

Tim Seidler was building websites on the side until his online efforts started out earning his employment income.

His suggestion is to: "Keep records. Document your earnings, annotate your analytics, save your receipts. Buyers want proof and they want you to back up that proof. You having these things ready will not only expedite the process, but it'll give the buyers confidence that you and your site are the real deal."

Seidler's comments underscore the importance of transparency. If you are honest and open in your communication with potential buyers, you will have a much easier time selling your online business. The same goes for your records. Prospective buyers will feel more equipped to make a decision when they have the numbers laid out in front of them.

5. CREATE SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES.

Brian Casel, a web designer by trade has experience building WordPress templates, education resources, a successful SaaS service and a popular podcast.

This is what he had to say about making a successful online business exit: "If you're new at this, like I was, it never hurts to ask a lot of questions. A good broker will answer all of them and then some. As for the business itself, do as much as you can to prepare it to be sellable. Focus on systems, processes, and do as much as you can to remove yourself from the day-to-day so that a new owner can easily take over."

As with Alan Kong, Casel suggests talking with a broker to figure out your next move. But he also advises getting your business as systematized as possible. If you can get your business to the point where it doesn't require your constant involvement, it will be far more attractive to buyers, whose involvement can also be minimal should they choose to acquire your business.

A successful online business exit is what many entrepreneurs dream of, and it is certainly within reach if you're willing to do the work. After the sale of a business, some business owners move onto new ventures. Others choose to take some time off to recoup. Still others seek to give back and start their own coaching and consulting businesses, or even charitable organizations.

If you have a bigger vision for your life, and you have the desire to make your dreams -- and the dreams of others -- a reality, then selling a business may very well be an important step onto reaching your big goals. But it all starts with where you are at right now. Are you willing to prepare in advance? Are you willing to seek out the advice of qualified and experienced brokers? Will you do the hard work of creating systems and procedures for your business so that it can run without you?

Learn how you can make your site more attractive to investors, and focus on how you can cater to their interests rather than yours. This is a surefire formula for a smooth sales process.

Related: Do you desire to know how to buy an established business with very little capital and start making money right away? Then, see details here!

10 Ways You Can Gain Trust Online

Contributed By:

ADAM TOREN

VIP CONTRIBUTOR

Serial entrepreneur, mentor, advisor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

Source: Entrepreneur

Trust is one of the most challenging things to earn and the easiest to break. When you’re first starting to build your brand, gaining the trust of your prospective new clients and keeping the trust of your current clients is life or death for your business.

When you add the extra dimension of building trust online, with a person you’ve never actually met or spoken with, establishing trust can be even more difficult. So what are some of the best ways to go about building trust? You might think it’s just a matter of having integrity, but there is a lot more to the complex relationship of trust than simply being honest. In fact, honesty is something your clients implicitly expect, so you’ll have to go beyond that basic building block.

Here are 10 ways you can gain more trust with your clients online. 

1. BE STRAIGHTFORWARD.

Nothing is more irritating than liking a product, going through the process of checkout and then finding some fine print that somehow significantly adds to the cost, puts you into a membership or subscription or in some other way isn’t transparent.

Be really clear with your prospective clients what you do, what you’re offering, how it works and what your cancelation or return policies are. All this information should be easy to find and navigate to and shouldn’t catch a first-time client by surprise. Those nasty surprises will the quickest way to lose credibility.

Related: 7 Ways to Build Credibility, Trust and Character That Will Grow Your Business

2. FIX PROBLEMS IMMEDIATELY.

If a client has a problem with your product or service -- fix it without delay. You don’t have to be perfect in business to be successful, but you do have to be honest and responsive.

Ordering or purchasing a product or service online can be scary the first time. If someone purchases from you and then has a problem, but can’t find a way to reach you or doesn’t get a response -- that is a trust breaker.

I recently read about a startup that offers a way to track social mentions and shares of your business. I won’t name any names here, but I was really excited about the prospect. I immediately went to the company's site and struggled to find any contact info. I was reviewing the pricing section, trying to answer my own question, when a chat box popped up and asked to help. Awesome! I submitted my question. And waited. And waited.

After about 10 minutes I left the site. I never did get a response on the chat feature, which asked for email and in which I left my contact info, so why bother to have it there? I followed up with a tweet and contact-form submission and after four days gave up. After six days I got an email response from the company … sorry. My trust was long gone at that point.

3. TRY VIDEO.

A great way to give your customers a reason to trust you and get to know you without actually being in front of them is to record video. Instead of just recording a welcome video, answer common questions or in some way frame up your expertise to help your potential website visitors and viewers. This gives you a chance to showcase your knowledge and personality while giving online visitors an opportunity to “meet” you.

4. HOST WEBINARS OR TELECONFERENCES.

This is an even better solution for building trust than static video alone. By hosting a free monthly webinar packed with great content, you’ll be able to speak to your visitors while presenting your topic and after for some live Q&A. Don’t worry about the cost. Webinar sites such as JoinMe are free and teleconference call lines such as FreeConferenceCall.com offer small party-free conference lines.

 

5. PERSONALIZE EMAILS.

A personalized-email drip campaign is a great way to nurture your relationships with potential and current clients. By offering services such as the free webinar, you will be able to access email-address lists of attendees. Don’t spam them, but if you build up a really resourceful guide to send or share that’s personalized to the topic of the webinar, there’s a great chance you can build trust by providing value.

Again, be cautious you don’t spam anyone on your list, but a well-directed, personalized offer can help build a relationship with clients.

Related: Create an SEO-compliant professional website for your business at an affordable cost. Check in now for details.

6. ADD TESTIMONIALS.

People want to know that other people have worked with you. Of course, everyone understands you aren’t going to post bad reviews on your own site, but if well known or respected people in your community and industry are vouching for you, that goes a long way to add credibility to you and your business.

7. POST CREDENTIALS.

Utilize any credentials you have to help boost trust. Are you a member of any local community organizations? Do you belong to any professional organizations? Does your business require or recommend you be licensed, bonded or insured? All those credentials help assure a potential client that you’re regulated, vetted and can be trusted.

8. PROVIDE CASE STUDIES.

Don’t just rely on testimonials, for successful campaigns you’ve created with clients in the past, ask to turn their stories into case studies. If you post even one great case study on your site, you’ll be able to walk potential clients through the process of how you helped someone else succeed. That’s great insight into your business approach, what it’s like to work with you, the kind of innovative solutions you provide and it will help color a full picture for your site visitors.

9. GET A RATING.

Business-rating systems help to establish your credibility by proving you’ve been measured and tested by high standards. Think of the whole premise for Yelp’s rating program, Michelin’s four stars or others such as the Better Business Bureau. Getting involved with the various rating groups relevant to your industry will help to boost trust with your organization.

10. GET PUBLISHED.

It’s said you can’t believe everything you read in print, but the truth is that the majority of people will trust someone they read in the paper, speaking on the news or in some other way demonstrating accolades. Getting yourself into the press doesn’t have to mean pitching yourself. You can always pitch the media on a great topic or story that can provide tremendous value to its audience and to your business.

Don’t just look for ways to be in the press, look for ways to contribute content to the press to be published or produced. It’s a great boost for building trust online.

Tailor Your Digital Marketing to the Customer Experience

Contributed By:

DIVYA GANESAN

GUEST WRITER

Product Marketer - Communications, Chargebee Inc.

Source: Entrepreneur

As much as two decades ago, the way consumers opted for buying brands depended on how much the brands were able to thrust their products into the consumers’ vicinity and at the same time, appeal to their taste. For instance, a commercial soap ad in between a TV series or a radio program, would be enough to sway consumers’ preferences of buying a soap product. In fact, that gave rise to the term ‘soap operas.’ Procter and Gamble (P&G) would produce radio and TV shows so that they could advertise their products during the breaks.

Fast forward to 2017, and you will see that brands have drastically changed the way they communicate with consumers. In the Internet era, brands push their products to their consumers in the form of recommendations. That is why Amazon and other ecommerce sites are able to execute targeted ads in the form of suggestions and recommendations.

Today’s technologically-savvy consumers are more informed and knowledgeable, and are moving out of the traditional route of researching and making purchasing decisions about products. They research well before buying a product or a service. This post that highlights ‘from search to store’ by Matt Lawson does great justice about how brands must ‘deliver on expectations in moments that matter’. Then the pertinent question to digital marketers is:

·         What is our customer's’ decision making journey?

·         Why and how should we align our digital marketing strategies that will fall in place with the customer’s decision?

Let’s give a quick look at what our customer’s decision making journey looks like: Recognition → Familiarization → Consideration → Purchase

The idea is to avoid premature optimization in marketing. We don’t solve a non-existent problem, when it comes to engineering. But we identify a problem and build a solution around it. Similarly we must focus on the right things at the right stage when it comes to digital marketing.

RECOGNITION.

If you think about building a business, your website would be a natural location to showcase everything about your business and product. And one way to build maximum awareness and recognition is by generating traffic to your website. So, your first objective would be to get, say, 100 visitors a day, and then, 1,000 visitors a week.

37Signals wrote an interesting post on how they built the buzz with their side projects. “It takes a lot to differentiate your brand in today’s “me too” world of electronic business solutions”, it says. And it is very important to engage in such projects that will ensure that traffic is headed your way -- consistently. How:

·         Hang out where your audience hangs out and sign out with your website details -- answer relevant questions on Reddit, HackerNews, Quora etc., so that the audience learns of your expertise in the space.

·         Use Call to Actions at different places on the site so that the visitors are engaged and are compelled to explore the website, rather than opt for an early exit.

·         Invest in SEO efforts to drive organic search traffic to your website.

·         Paid Search is one of the most effective ways of driving traffic to your website, but businesses must be able to justify the expenses while measuring the outcome. (Here’s a hack - you could experiment with a paid search channel like Google Adwords even before you build your product, if you have the budget. This works well as a research tool, to see if the product you are building has demand and will sell).

FAMILIARIZATION.

Right, now that you have a 1.000 potential leads visiting your site, how do you familiarize them with your product? How do you ensure that they know what they have signed up for? Customers rely on their common sense of familiarity of choosing a familiar and known brand. How do you feature there? Simple - meaningful and engaging content.

Content Marketing found its origins in 1891. More than a century ago, August Oetker, the German inventor of baking powder - Backin, sold packages to households. What made Backin a familiar brand was the little recipes printed on the back of these packages. In 1911, he published his cookbook and over 100 years, it reached a global audience with about 19 million copies. That was the first example of content marketing.

It’s 2017, and that’s still pretty much how we could do it too along with the added advantage of using social media. With the right message and relevant content, across mediums, marketers should focus their attention on their target market. How:

·         Tailored Messaging for signing up the right kind of users and in turn attracting the right traffic is very important. You would need to be specific about what your product is and who it caters to in as many places as possible. This could be on the website, in-app, email welcome messages etc. KiSSFLOW does a great job of getting to the point with their version of welcome email as below:

·         Effective content marketing is in an essential marketing tool in a way that provides useful, relevant and valuable information

·         Customer/User Engagement via social media

Related: Create an SEO-compliant professional website for your business at an affordable cost.Check in now for details.

CONSIDERATION.

The top of the mind problem for a brief time is signup conversion. So you move to the next stage, which is user engagement. Now, here’s the thing about brand consideration. In today’s digital world, consumers speak with brands as much as brands speak with consumers. In this two way communication, you would need to empower customers to explore your product, to play around the sandbox test site, to ask questions. How:

·         Two way engagement with customers

·         Test and prioritize objectives. Optimize CTAs. Here are some great posts on optimizing CTAs by HubSpot and CrazyEgg.

·         Treat pricing as a filter. Change pricing to attract the right audience that you need.

BUYING.

Now you are happy with user engagement, why aren't they converting into paying customers sooner? How:         

·         Continue making tweaks -- tweak application onboarding process.

·         Setup demo calls with prospects to understand their business requirements and make  suggestions on how your product can cater to them.

·         Fix application onboarding with drip emails, simplifying documentation, product and measure time it takes for customers to go-live.

While you are at it, rinse and repeat what is already working for your business to bring in more traffic. With hundreds of such iterations you now have a pipe instead of a straw to convert visitors into customers. A positive user experience through all these bottlenecks will ensure that your customers who have now bought your product will spread positive word about not just your business, but your attention to detail to improve customer experience.

10 Ways to Bolster Your Brand's Online Influence

The trick to becoming influential online is persevering when it seems nobody will ever pay attention.

Contributed By:

JOHN RAMPTON

VIP CONTRIBUTOR

Entrepreneur and Connector

Source: Entrepreneur

The focus for brands is to convince, or influence, as many purchase decisions to go in their favor. In the online environment, there is an extraordinary opportunity to reach out to the largest audience possible and influence what they buy whether it is a product or service.

However, there are thousands of brands out there doing the exact same thing, so the challenge is to become more influential than them. But the rules of the game have changed. No longer can you just use the old methods to attract your customer base. There are many new ways that I've been using to build my company to grow it from nothing to working with thousands of businesses in the last 14 months.

Here are 10 ways that you should be building your company online;

1. LEVERAGE OTHER INFLUENCERS AND BRAND ADVOCATES.

One of the most effective ways to grow your influence is to have influencers talk about you and share what you have to offer. This is the best, and most compelling, advertisement you will get because your audience admires and believes these influencers. As brand advocates, they promote what they like about your brand, focusing on the benefits they have personally realized.

You can opt to research and engage with influencers you believe will provide this assistance or you can partner with companies that specialize in connecting you with some of the top influencers online.

2. BE AUTHENTIC.

While your target audience likes the convenience of online experiences, they want to be reassured that the brands they choose to interact with are being honest, caring, and meaningful with them.

This can be one of the most difficult tactics to achieve because of the physical distance and lack of face time. However, you can use videos and even customer testimonials to illustrate the emotion and enthusiasm you feel for what you are doing as a brand.

Related:Do you desire to know how to buy an established business with very littlecapital and start making money right away? Then, see details here! 

3. DELIVER EXPERTISE.

The more you know and can share with your audience helps you rise to the top of the influencer ranking. This is why I blog on sites like Entrepreneur. It helps readers and with each post makes me more of an influencer.

More than ever, people are turning to online sources to find information that is accurate and can help them solve common issues as well as complex problems.

If you can get that advice, those tips, and specific information out through multiple channels and platforms to your target audience, you will influence their decisions.

4. ACTIVELY LISTEN AND RESPOND.

While it seems like common sense, many companies still do not actively listen but still assume what they think their audience wants.

However, those brands that pay attention to even the smallest of details and respond to those seemingly little things are the real winners in the influence game.

Whether you acknowledge that you heard your audience by commenting on feedback they left on a social media page or you contacted them directly with a solution or promotion, you can easily capitalize this tactic.

5. BE CONSISTENT.

In returning to the need to establish trust as the basis to influence, your audience will immediately notice if you change your message or do not use the same brand look across every platform.

Any discrepancy will create instant suspicion that you don’t want to spend time overcoming just to get back to the same place you were previously.

Keep your themes, content, visuals and tone consistent everywhere and you will be able to continually build upon this trust foundation for greater influence.

Related:Do you desire to know how to buy an established business with very little capitaland start making money right away? Then, see details here! 

6. LEAVE A MEMORABLE IMPRESSION (IN A GOOD WAY!).

You don’t have to resort to “shock value” to make an impression. Though I really like doing that as well.

Instead, you can use humor or other emotions to connect with your audience and create that memorable impression that has them liking and sharing what you created with their circle.

The most often shared content currently includes those emotions that your audience knows will resonate with their circles, so this can often be one of the fastest ways to up your influence.

7. BE PASSIONATE AND POSITIVE.

Your excitement and enthusiasm can pump-up your audience (and you) and inspire them to action.

With the ongoing continued stream of negative content on many platforms, you can stand out with positive messages that show your commitment to focusing on socially responsible solutions and a bright outlook in the face of stressful and tense events around the world.

8. MAINTAIN TRANSPARENCY.

Be clear in everything you say and back that up with your actions and behaviors. Encourage all members of your team to maintain transparency about what the company does and how it enacts specific values.

Related: Google's New Mobile-First Index and the Death of Desktop SEO

9. BE HUMBLE AND SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Humility does not make a company appear weak; you can influence even in the role of servant. If anything, it makes them more powerful in the eyes of customers who see a brand willing to do anything that puts their customer before their own drive for profits.

10. DON’T GIVE UP.

Increasing your influence will never happen if you decide to take a break and rest on your laurels after upping your rank a few notches. You’ll actually soon be forgotten and quickly replaced by another brand that is willing to never stop at trying to win over their audience. Influencers don't dissapear.

The idea with influence is that it’s all about building momentum so once you start to gain even the smallest ground, keep at it.

In a world that demands instantaneous results, remember that you still have to use some patience in gaining influence online and can’t expect the same response time. It still requires significant effort and time to build the power you want to wield.

However, once you become influential online, I've found that it gets to that tipping point and starts virally delivering incremental upticks in my influence status.