Business Finance Articles For Entrepreneurs & Small Business Owners

Should I Use Seller Financing To Sell My Business?

Know The Buyer One of the top commandments for anyone looking to sell a small business is to recognize where your prospective buyers will come from, and what will motivate them to acquire your company.  Among all the things you can do to sweeten the deal and attract a wider selection of prospects, one of […]

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Franchise Financing: How to Find Financing to Buy a Franchise

Taking the Money Step There are many factors to consider when buying a franchise.  You have to decide what industry to enter, what form of operation your franchise will take, and which brand to represent.  No single decision is more important, however, than figuring out where the money comes from.  Very few people have enough […]

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How To Use 401(k) For Business Financing – 401k To Buy a Business

Creative Business Financing There are a number of interesting ways to finance a business purchase.  The most traditional method involves securing a loan from a bank or a credit union.  You could also pool funds from friends and relatives or ask the seller to carry a note for a portion of the purchase price, or […]

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How to Value a Business

Why Business Valuation Is Important The process of arriving at an accurate assessment when valuing a business is perhaps the most challenging aspect of any prospective small business purchase.  A seller has arrived at a specific price he or she wants for the company, and one must determine if that business value is accurate.  Pay […]

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Finding Businesses For Sale With Seller Financing

Financing a Business Purchase Few people who wish to buy a business have the kind of cash it takes to pay 100 percent of the purchase price up front.  Some sort of financing is almost always necessary.  The traditional path to financing the purchase of a business involves sitting down with a banker, filling out […]

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How Do I Get a SBA Loan?

What is the SBA? The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is a federal agency, created in 1953, responsible for assisting and protecting the interests of American small business.  The agency operates through a series of field offices around the country – as well as in partnership with public and private organizations – to offer such […]

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Buying a Business With No Money Down?

Cash-Poor Entrepreneur Many of us have dreams of owning our own business.  Franchise opportunities abound for people who have ready cash to spend, although it can take close to six figures ($100,000) to do a proper job of it – what with the initial franchise fee, start-up or build-out costs, inventory, supplies, and so on.  […]

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How To Get Franchise Financing

Franchise financing is essential in the marketplace today because it can make all the difference between potential entrepreneurs having the cash to invest in a proven business and ultimately missing out on what could have been the best opportunity of their lives. Until recently, franchise financing was limited but the surge in demand for franchises […]

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Business Planning for the Entreprenuer

Writing a business should be the first step before you start your business. Reducing your ideas to writing will greatly assist you along the way as you develop and mature your thoughts and decision making. It is often in the process of writing the plan itself that your vision is strengthened and galvanized into you […]

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Four Time Tested Tips to Business Economic Survival

These time tested techniques will do much to enlighten you to discover “hidden information” and relevant data as you prepare your 2008 Year-End Income Tax Returns. Whether you are a C Corporation, S Corporation, in Ministry, an LLC or LLP, Partnership or proprietorship looking beyond the numbers is the best way to discover critical and […]

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Business Plans and Financing

Helping to lift the veil of business is a key concern and goal for all those concerned in pursuing the furtherance of your business venture. Keeping these basic tenants in mind will do much to ensure your business success, and in so doing will enable the spiritual goals of it as well. These considerations will […]

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A Quick Guide To Buying A Bank

It is a known fact that money makes money and it certainly makes the world go round! However, clichés aside, banks actually provide a real investment opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to build a sizable business empire. There are plenty of banks for sale, believe it or not, as a result of the harsh global economic […]

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Which is More Valuable, Large Profit Margins or Large Revenue?

It is not a mistake to always be thinking of the day you implement your exit strategy and sell your business as you are in the process of growing it.  Many years before you go to sell your business, you are making decisions on new product lines, strategies, or new customers.  There are many factors […]

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A.P. Giannini: The Entrepreneur Behind The Bank Of America

In this modern day and age, we tend to forget those individuals that made breakthroughs in the 19th Century and early 20th Century. We take their creations and businesses for granted, even though they have stood the test of time, and yet many budding entrepreneurs could learn a lot from them today. A.P. Giannini is […]

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Raising Growth Capital In 2008 And Beyond

After more than two decades of being an entrepreneur, serving as a legal and strategic advisor to entrepreneurs and growing companies, and speaking and writing on entrepreneurial finance, I have found one recurrent theme running through all of these businesses: Capital is the lifeblood of a growing business In an environment where cash is king, […]

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How Will Barack Obama Help Small Businesses

In America, the small business owner has been used to sitting on the sidelines and watching whilst the large corporations dominate all areas of industry. Many small business owners have gone out of business whilst others often struggle to survive. One of the reasons behind this was that the Bush administration tended to offer very […]

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Our Financial Markets Crises – Who’s Fault Is It?

Who’s to blame for the current financial markets crisis? The simple answer is everybody! When Mortgage Brokers and Bankers are pushing home loans like too much candy at the county fair, what can we expect but an upset stomach the next day? Worse, we see the sickness but continue in order to feed the gods […]

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The Pricing Dynamics of Selling a Business

How much is my business worth? That depends. Of course it depends on profits, sales, EBITDA, and other traditional valuation metrics. A surprisingly important factor, however, is how you choose to sell it. If I could share with you how you could realize at least 20% more for your business would you read the rest […]

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Sell a Company – How is the Selling Price Determined?

Business valuations are a valuable tool to set a range of prices when you sell a business. The only true way to determine value, however, is to present the business to the universe of buyers in a true open market bidding process. How much are you expecting when you sell your business? I always ask […]

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Get Paid Promptly – 10 Practical Tips to Improve Your Cash Flow

“Cash is king!” And, running out of cash is the most common reason that businesses fail. This article is about practical tips to reduce your risk that slow or late-paying customers will cause a cash crunch in your business. Finding out that a customer for whom you’ve just done a large project has gone into […]

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