Small businesses are usually sole proprietorships, partnerships or privately owned corporations. They employ a small number of employees and often do not have financial turnovers as large as those of large multinational companies. Small businesses are present in every industry. Ranging from interior designing to jewelry sales and even pet services, it is hard to avoid any of these businesses in our daily lives.However, with so many small businesses selling products and services in society, we often forget that they can potentially be a very lucrative pool of customers as well. Any company that provides products or services to small businesses can benefit greatly from having a small business list.Fortunately, the advancement of technology has enabled almost anyone to get access to a small business list with ease. There are online portals available for organizations and individuals to communicate with these small businesses, allowing them to get up-to-date information about company details and any other updates. One can also do a quick search online to look for such publicly available small company details. However, this is a potentially long and tedious process.A good alternative is to look for small business mailing lists offered by list brokers and compliers on the web. The small business lists provided by brokers enable immediate access to a large pool of up-to-date information about other small businesses. The best part is that these lists are continuously being updated, so you won’t have to worry too much about getting outdated information. A quick rental of such a list would save one the time of having to personally search and update records.Next, after having a small business list, individuals and other businesses can use it to their advantage. Entrepreneurs, start-up firms and home-based workers can use the list to conduct market analysis and research for example. This way, they easily identify market needs and are able to offer their products and services to these potential clients.Another way a small business list can be used is to send out promotional material to highly targeted business prospects. For example, if you own an air-conditioning repair service, you could send out promotional brochures advertising your services to small businesses that could very well be your clients in the future. After all, which business office doesn’t own an air-conditioner or two?The benefits of having access to a small business list is worth it’s weight in gold. But should one compile the list themselves, or rent one instead? If one wishes to manually compile the small business list himself, he will have to ensure that they are constantly being kept up-to-date.This is because companies often make changes in their management, causing contact persons to change, or even a change in company address. The time and monetary costs required to maintain an accurate list of small business contact information is not small.To avoid this, it would be best to rent a small business list and spend their time on making actual sales.Having immediate access to a complied updated business list helps individuals and organizations to save time and money. When they require small businesses for their marketing needs or require help in their businesses, they can tap on this large resource base easily and efficiently.
Hiring An Auction Company
Estimating your assets value:
Typically, one of the first questions a business owner will ask me is, “how much will the assets bring at an auction”. After taking the time to review the assets, the auctioneer should give the client a conservative estimate of the sale based upon his experience and the current market trends. It is important that the company give realistic expectations so the seller can make informed decisions based on their best interest.
Compensation and Expenses:
Is the company you are considering working for you or against you? The agreement you decide may determine this.
A business owner should carefully consider how the auction company is compensated. The most common commission structures include: straight commission, outright purchase of assets, guaranteed base with a split above to both auctioneer and seller, guaranteed base with anything above going to auctioneer or a flat fee structure.
In a straight commission structure, the company is paid an agreed upon percentage of the total sale.
In an outright purchase agreement, the auctioneer simply becomes your end buyer. The company purchases your assets and relocates them. While this can be an option in some unique situations, keep in mind that they will want to purchase your assets at a very reduced price to make a profit at a later date.
In a minimum base guarantee, the auction company guarantees the seller that the auction will generate a minimum amount of sales. Anything above that amount either goes to the auction company or split with the seller. While a seller might feel more comfortable doing an auction knowing that he is guaranteed a minimum amount for his sale, keep in mind that it is the best interest of the auction company to secure a minimum base price as low as possible in order reduce their financial liability to the seller and secure higher compensation for the sale.
In a flat fee structure, the auctioneer agrees to show up for the sale and call the auction. There is no incentive for the auctioneer to get the best prices for your assets. The auction company is compensated regardless of the outcome of your sale.
What is the best option for business owners? In my experience, an agreed upon straight commission structure. This puts the responsibility on the auction company to offer the best outcome for everyone involved. There is an incentive for the auction company to work hard for both parties, set up and run a professional sale, get the highest bid and sell every item on the inventory. Successful auctions translate to a higher bottom line for both the seller and the auction company.
Auction Expenses:
In most auction agreements the expenses to conduct an auction are passed to the seller. If the auction company pays for the expenses, it is simply absorbed in higher commission rates.
All expenses should be agreed upon in advance in a written contract. Typical expenses will include the costs of advertising, labor, legal fees, travel, equipment rentals, security, postage and printing. A reputable auction company will be able to estimate all expenses based upon their experience in previous auctions. An agreement should be actual costs charged as expenses, not an estimated amount.
Advertising is typically the highest cost in conducting an auction. The auction company needs to set up an advertising campaign that will promote the sale to its best advantage and not overspend to simply advertise the auction company.
Once the auction is complete, the auction company should provide a complete breakdown of all expenses to the seller, including copies of receipts within the auction summary report.
Buyer’s Premium:
What is a buyer’s premium? If you attend auctions regularly, you are very familiar with this term. The auction company charges a fee to the buyer when they buy an item at auction.
The buyer’s premium has been around since the 1980′s and is standard auction practice. It was first used by auction houses to help offset costs of running brick and mortar permanent auction facilities. Since then, it has spread to all aspects of the auction industry. It is prominent in online auctions and allows auction companies to cover added expenses incurred from online sales.
It is the responsibility of the auction company to provide clear disclosure of the buyer’s premium to both the buyers and the sellers. Those not familiar with auctions are often taken back by the buyer’s premium. They looked upon it as an under handed way for the auction company to make more money. Reputable auction companies will provide full disclosure within the auction contract, advertisement and bidder registration.
Typically, an auction company will charge online buyers a higher buyer’s premium percentage than those attending an auction in person. Extra fees are incurred with online bidding and are charged accordingly to online buyers. This provides the seller a level playing field for both online buyers and those attending the auction in person. Without the buyer’s premium, there is no way to do this.
Pre-Sales:
We’ve all been there. We’re looking forward to attending an auction only to find that some items were sold prior to the auction date.
As an auctioneer with over thirty-six years of experience, I can honestly state that pre-sales will hurt an auction. When a company decides to liquidate their assets, it is easy to sell off high-end pieces of equipment through online sources, equipment vendors or to other businesses. The seller receives instant cash and avoids paying a commission to an auction company.
Auctioneer’s find themselves appearing to acting in a self-serving capacity when potential clients say they are planning to sell off parts of their inventory prior to an auction. It’s hard not to consider the auctioneer’s commission when they warn you not to pre-sell anything. Yes, the auctioneer wants to earn a commission on those sales but it is more important that the auctioneer protect the sale from potential negative backlash that comes from pre-selling. The buying public knows when an auction has been “cherry picked” prior to the sale and it reflects in their bidding. It becomes a sale of “leftovers” and that impacts prices.
A buyer who purchases prior to the auction usually does not attend the sale. They already bought equipment at a good price with no competition. If they do attend the auction, they tend to let others know of their great pre-sale purchases which again, impacts prices and the overall excitement of the sale.
It is important to understand that auctions work best with a complete inventory. You want competition on your higher end equipment. The easy to sell items make it possible to gain respectable prices for hard to sell items.
When a business owner decides to liquidate their equipment assets, there is only one opportunity to do it right. Hiring a reputable auction company will assist you with a professional, orderly and timely liquidation.
Internet Advertising
We are all familiar with newspapers, magazines, coupons, and billboards. Let us examine how the trend of direct mail and print advertising is taking an ever-increasing back seat to online advertising.
In order to reach a specific customer, you would select a particular type of print mail advertising. For example, if you wanted to target someone driving home everyday, you would pay for an expensive billboard campaign. This is a costly type of advertising, but how many customers does it reach? Do you survey customers when they walk into your business and see if they got off the exit based on the billboard ad? If you did not ask the customer how they found you, then how do you know if you should continue to pay for that pricey billboard investment?
Everyone knows the coupon clipper. So where would you advertise to get their attention? Of course, the Sunday paper, and perhaps you might even consider the back of grocery store receipts. Coupon clippers are everywhere, and there are many direct print advertising companies who can provide you with various services. Have you ever purchased something from a Val Pak coupon, or a coupon from a post card you received in the mail? Most likely, yes.
Then we have magazines. If you are looking to reach customers who might be interested in workout machines, the possibilities for your print and direct mail advertising is endless. Do you have a local, national, or global customer audience for which you would like to sell your products?
Your choices would be the local newspaper in the health and fitness section, or large ads in the proper placement in certain sections of the newspaper. You could also advertise in national magazines to reach customers in the United States, or even a global magazine, to reach customers all over the world. You could place classified, banner, or article ads in Muscle and Fitness, or even Maxim.
What does offline advertising have to do with online advertising? Everything.
The mentality for the majority of business owners is still stuck in the print mail era. More and more business owners are losing customers locally, nationally, and globally, because they believe their potential customers find them through direct mail, offline advertising methods. They spend more and more on these efforts, and eventually go out of business. They will forever be puzzled as to why all of their efforts did not prove to be financially fruitful.
In the year 2007, over 70% of the United States alone uses the Internet to find local, national, and global products or services. If you try explaining this to local business owners, they look at you like you are actually lying and only trying to make a buck from them!
This is no joke. I have a local web site and spent $75,000 building and marketing it just for our community. Business owners are losing customers, so I walked door-to-door in over 105 degree heat to let them know their customers are actually looking for them online and almost every business owner completely blew me off!
I offered the most inexpensive web site advertising with an amazing, highly targeted customer audience, and practically no one wanted to advertise online. Honestly, I was disgusted with these business owners, because my efforts and financial investment were enormous. I cannot get that time back, but my education was invaluable. I am very happy this venture took place.
One thing I have learned over the years in working with clients and potential business clients is that as soon as I hear they are waffling about paying for Internet web sites, SEO, AdWords, and hundreds of hours of my valuable time and expert marketing efforts, I let them go–quite easily.
There is no hard selling anything. After I explain the facts to business owners, they either get it, or they do not. And you move on to an owner who gets it, and is willing to pay you for your expensive education, time, hard work, and honest, ethical marketing skill sets put into their online advertising.
So what are your online advertising options? I am glad you asked.
Let us look at some of the many ways you can advertise online, and then let us look at whether or not these ways are actually paying off for business owners.
Without looking at the YES, NO, or POSSIBLY categories toward the bottom, see how well you would fair in using online advertising to get more customers.
Which would you choose?
- Web Site (basic, no SEO)
- web site (flash with moving images, pictures, and AdSense, no SEO)
- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, but no online, content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)
- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)
- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density, and AdSense advertising)
- video advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- banner advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- image advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- text ads throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- link exchange directories
- FFA (free for all) directory submissions
- article writing content submitted to relevant categories on reputable directories
- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories
- coupon web sites
- putting your web site link on a friends’ site, or anyone else you ask who will put a link to your web site on theirs
As you can see, the list above is not all-inclusive, but it gives you the major online advertising venues in which you may or may not be able to get traffic for your business.
I will break this list down with a summary of which you should use, should not use, or might use (if you use them correctly)
Yes – Definitely!
- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)
- web site (with proper title; header tags; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, includes content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density, and AdSense advertising)
- article writing content submitted to relevant categories on reputable directories (but be very careful here!)
No – Absolutely Not!
- Web Site (basic, no SEO whatsoever)
- web site (flash with moving images, pictures, and AdSense, no SEO whatsoever)
- FFA (free for all) directory submissions
- putting your web site link on a friends’ site, or anyone else you ask who will put a link to your web site on theirs (no, no, no!)
- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories (new technology and algorithm changes, know what you are doing before you submit anywhere!) This is in the NO and POSSIBLY category because you can hurt your efforts if you do this wrong.
Possibly – Using these correctly could be rewarding, but using them incorrectly could cost you every penny you have and still not get you any customers
- web site (with proper title; header tages; related meta name description; limited, relevant key words; includes proper on page SEO build, but no online, content related and keyword rich articles with the proper density)
- video advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- banner advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- image advertising throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- text ads throughout the Internet on the major search engines (pay per click services, or membership site)
- search engine submission of your web site to thousands of directories (new technology and algorithm changes, know what you are doing before you submit anywhere!) This is in the NO and POSSIBLY category because you can hurt your efforts if you do this wrong.
- coupon web sites
How did you do? Which type of online advertising would you have chosen?
As you can see, the choices are mind boggling, and all of your options have not been listed. These are your meat and potato, primary online advertising choices.
Building a web site takes knowledge, education, and experience. SEO (search engine optimization) is critical to your business, just as print advertising once was 10 years ago.