How to Recognize a Business Opportunity

Whether you are contemplating a new business or want to re-energize or expand your current one, you need to be able to recognize a business opportunity when you see one. You have probably had visions of one— customers buy things it cost a fraction to produce and you become fabulously wealthy. A businessperson’s dream come true! However, the reality is good business opportunities are hard to find.

Even if you think you have found one, it takes risk, skills and ability, and timing to take advantage of it. Risk attaches itself to any business opportunity. Therefore, objectively analyze the feasibility of your concept. Successful businesses have a product or service people want, at a price they are willing to pay, and it is easy to get. If you offer something you think people want without knowing it, you are risking more than necessary.

Let’s say you think an opportunity exists for a new restaurant. There are a number of things you can do to test your assumption. First, find out what is happening in the overall industry. Trade associations, magazines, and current books can give you an idea of current demand. Examples are the trend towards small, highly specialized food establishments (e.g., pretzel, cookie, ethnic, etc.) and mixed-use restaurants (e.g. play areas, movies, games, Internet, etc.). You can also gain a lot of information through observation. Stay current with local news and business periodicals and gain insights from the perspective of other businesses. You should also gather statistics on consumer behavior for your type of business. For a restaurant, you need to know how often people eat out, how much they spend, common personal or demographic characteristics, and preferences in dining atmosphere or services, etc. From there, you can evaluate your geographic area and see how well competitors are filling those needs.

Once you have gathered information, you can form a hypothesis about supply and demand. A business opportunity could be lurking somewhere between what people want and what they are getting. Find out how they are currently meeting their needs. For our restaurant example, you might find grocery stores have designated a special department or menus of established restaurants have been updated. Your challenge is to find out how well needs are being met and where people go to meet them. If people need something, they will find it. Locating establishments on a map will give you a geographic sense of how far people must travel. If convenience is a significant buying factor, you will be able to identify underserved areas. Once you complete this analysis, you will be in a better position to develop your own competitive strategy.

At the heart of your competitive strategy is your distinctive competence. Your distinctive competence is something (e.g. a skill, specialty, level of service, etc.) that sets you apart when compared with competitors. This differentiation and your pricing strategy define your business in the minds of consumers. A sound competitive strategy depends on your knowledge of the customers and their needs, the ways your competitors meet their needs, and the perceived value of the goods and services you offer. It’s what separates a business opportunity from a good idea.

It takes money to make money, so that means every business opportunity will have costs associated with it. Take the time and effort to know exactly what resources are required to optimally run the business. Capital expenses include hard assets like equipment and beginning inventory. It may be difficult to find a site designed for your purpose; therefore, you must anticipate costs associated with renovating a space. Be sure not to underestimate your working capital needs. Working capital is used to replenish inventory, pay employee wages, and finance other continuing operating expenses. You will always have a need for working capital because the timing of cash coming into the business does not always match the timing of cash going out. It takes most businesses a long time to achieve a predictable profit. Be sure you know if you have the financial reserves to cover the costs of startup (or expansion) and operation. If you must leverage your own money with a loan, be prepared to offer sufficient collateral to secure it. A true business opportunity will generate sufficient sales to support the cost and provide a profit.

There are many resources to help you analyze a business opportunity. You can find books on the above-mentioned topics, reference materials, and access to periodicals and the Internet. When you have completed your initial analysis, take advantage of no-cost, confidential business counseling from SCORE or the Washington Small Business Development Center. Advisors will help you evaluate your findings and assist you with the development of your business plan.

What SBA Seeks In A Loan Application:

First, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is a federal agency and does not make loans, SBA guarantees loans made by financial institutions. Under the guaranty concept, the business applies to their local business lender. The lender decides if they will make the loan internally or if the application has some weaknesses which, in their opinion, will require an SBA guaranty if the loan is to be made. The guaranty assures the lender that in the event the borrower does not repay their obligation and a payment default occurs, the Government will reimburse the lender for that portion of the loan guaranteed. However, the borrower remains obligated for the full amount due.  Additional informatioon on SBA loan programs and requirements can be found at

http://www.sba.gov/

SBA 7(a) Loan Guaranty Program:  Most SBA business loan guarantees will be one of the various 7(a) guaranteed loan programs depending on the amount to be borrowed. A 7(a) loans can be used for most business purposes, up to a maximum guarantee of $1.5 million, with a typical maturity of 7 to 10 years depending on how funds are used.

504 Loan Program:  The 504 Program provides growing businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing for major fixed assets, such as land and buildings. Loan made under the 504 program can be A 504 Loan is made by a Certified Development Company who work with the SBA and private-sector lenders to provide financing to small businesses. 

Typically, a 504 project includes a a private-sector lender covering up to 50 percent of the project cost, with the  504 loan from the CDC covering up to 40 percent of the cost, and a contribution of at least 10 percent equity from the small business being helped. The advantage of a 504 loan is a longer maturity and a lower interest rate on the 504 portion of the loan. The business/owners must contribute at least ten percent of the project total cost.

SBA Guarantee Eligibility

Repayment ability from cash flow of the business is a primary consideration in the SBA loan decision process but good character, management capability, collateral, and owner's equity contribution are also important considerations. All owners of 20 percent or more are required to personally guarantee SBA loans.

All businesses must: meet SBA size standards, be for-profit, not already have the internal resources (business or personal) to provide the financing, and be able to demonstrate repayment. Certain variations of SBA’s 7(a) loan program may also require additional eligibility criteria. Special purpose programs will identify those additional criteria.

Maturity  Maximum loan maturities have been established: twenty-five (25) years for real estate and equipment; and, generally seven (7) years for working capital.

The maximum maturity of loans used to finance fixed assets other than real estate will be limited to the economic life of those assets - but in no instance to exceed twenty-five (25) years. The 25-year maximum will generally apply to the acquisition of land and buildings

Equity Investment  Business loan applicants must have a reasonable amount invested in their business. This ensures that, when combined with borrowed funds, the business can operate on a sound basis.

Strong equity with a manageable debt level provide financial resiliency to help a firm weather periods of operational adversity.

Determining whether a company's level of debt is appropriate in relation to its equity requires analysis of the company's expected earnings and the viability and variability of these earnings. The stronger the support for projected profits, the greater the likelihood the loan will be approved. Applications with high debt, low equity, and unsupported projections will be denied.

Earnings Requirements  A company must be able to meet all its debt payments, not just its loan payments, as they come due. Applicants are generally required to provide a report on when their income will become cash and when their expenses must be paid. This report is usually in the form of a cash flow projection, broken down on a monthly basis, and covering the first annual period after the loan is received.

Applicants should write down all assumptions which went into the estimations of both revenues and expenses and provide these assumptions as part of the application. For new or expanding business with anticipated revenues and expenses exceeding past performance, the necessity for the lender to understand all the assumptions on how these revenues will be generated is paramount to loan approval.

Working Capital  Working capital is defined as the excess of current assets over current liabilities. Working capital is essential for a company to meet its continuous operational needs. Its adequacy influences the firm's ability to meet its trade and short-term debt obligations, as well as to remain financially viable.

Collateral  To the extent that worthwhile assets are available, adequate collateral is required as security on all SBA loans. However, SBA will generally not decline a loan where inadequacy of collateral is the only unfavorable factor.

For all SBA loans, personal guarantees are required of every owner with at least a 20 percent share of the business , plus others individuals who hold key management positions. Whether or not a guarantee will be secured by personal assets is based on the value of the assets already pledged and the value of the assets personally owned compared to the amount borrowed. In the event real estate is to be used as collateral, borrowers should be aware that banks and other regulated lenders are now required by law to obtain third-party valuation on real estate related transactions of $50,000 or more. SBA may require professional appraisals of business and personal assets, plus any necessary survey, and/or feasibility study.

Resource Management  Managerial capacity is an important factor involving education, experience and motivation. A proven positive ability to manage resources is also a large consideration.

Preparing A Loan Application. Obtaining loan approval is easier when the business loan application has been adequately prepared. This usually includes a current business plan, financial history with at least three years of federal income tax returns, personal financial history including credit reports and and credit scores, legal documents such as partnerships, leases, articles of incorporation, market research to support sales projections, sources of owners equity, lists of collateral and any other information the lender may require.

Seven Customer Retention Strategies

Do you direct all of your energies to getting new customers? If so, you may want to take a closer look at the source of your sales since it is very likely that 80% of your business is coming from repeat customers. If you  find that 80% of your business is coming from 20% of your customers, you may want to consider some strategies for staying in touch with those customers! Retaining customers and serving them over their lifetime can mean thousands of dollars for your business.

Some practical ways to develop action around customer retention strategies might include some of the following steps: 

1 Communicate with your existing customers on a regular basis.

2 Show your appreciation for their business and nurture customer loyalty.

3 Look for ways to build trust between your business and your customers.

4 Don’t make it easy for your customers to switch to the competition.

5 Expand product lines to provide more products or services for your customers.

6 Anticipate the changing needs of your customers.

7 Use cross-selling (selling other parts of your line to the same customer) and up-selling (selling more per order) to increase the average sale to each customer.

If you’ve lost customers, you may want to develop some strategies for getting them back. In order to implement a strategy, you need to have a database of previous customers. So, if you don’t keep a database, it stands to reason that that should be the first step in your strategy: Develop a database!

Next, you need to remind them about your business and tell them you want them back! However, you may first need to find out why they stopped coming to your place of business and, if you failed to meet their expectations, you need to make it right.

You’ve already invested a lot of money in the customers you retain and the customers you have lost. For that reason alone, putting some additional energy into retaining customers, and reactivating lost customers, makes sense for your business.

Taking Your Business to the Next Level

“How can I evaluate new business opportunities?” “How can I determine whether to sell one of my three businesses?” “How can I better plan for future contingencies?” “Will I be able to sell my business in ten years and afford to retire?” These questions and others like them are ones that small business owners should be  asking themselves. As often happens, we become complacent when all is going well. We can breathe--and even take a vacation! However, businesses often take on a life of their own and may be headed down a path that is different from what the owner envisions. The owner just hasn’t told the business of his or her vision. Taking your business to the next level is that type of planning. It asks: “Where is my business going? Where do I want it to go? How can I get there?”

The First Step—Your Current Reality

To begin this type of planning, you need to know where you are—what is your current reality? This involves some data gathering and analysis. While this will be different for each business, there are four main areas you’ll typically need to look at to assess your current situation: finances; marketing; employees; and facilities. Let’s briefly look at some of the issues in each of these areas.

• Finances: Do you prepare monthly financial statements? If not, then this is the place to start. If you do, do you analyze them? What do you see when you look at trends in revenues and major expense categories? Are they changing? Is the change positive or negative? By calculating a few standard financial ratios, you can better understand what’s going on. You will also gain an idea of how your business compares with others in your industry.

• Marketing: How much do you know about your customers? Who are they? Where do they live? What other demographic data do you know about them? What influences their buying decisions? Has your customer base changed over the years? Is one type of customer more profitable than other ones? Who are your competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is your competitive advantage—why should customers come to your business and not the competition? What about your prices—are they too high or too low?

• Employees: Do your employees know what you expect of them? How do you communicate this? Can they take over for one another when necessary? Do they know what values your business is run on? What is your employee turnover rate? And why do employees leave?

• Facilities: Is your space adequate? Can you expand? How would your customers and employees evaluate your location and facilities?

The Next Step—Creating a Vision and a Plan

Where do you want to go and what do you want your business to accomplish? Now that you know where you are—what the current reality is—you can begin creating a vision of what you’d like to see as a future reality. Your vision can be broad in scope, including personal goals and goals for your community. Now ask yourself what part you want your business to play in fulfilling that vision. Your answer to that question becomes your mission statement. Armed with a firm understanding of your current Taking Your Business to

the Next Level  reality and what you’d like to create as your future reality, you can prepare an action plan that will help you to realize your vision.

How the SBDC Can Help

At the SBDC, we work with small business owners to help them gain an understanding of their current situation, create a vision, and develop a plan to get there. For example, a few years ago we worked with an entrepreneur who owned three businesses. He had a good understanding of his current situation and he had some components of a vision: he wanted more personal flexibility to enjoy life as he got older, and he wanted to be able to take advantage of opportunities to sell one or more of his businesses. We worked with him to fine-tune that vision, and we helped him to develop not only an action plan, but also a series of analytical tools for decision-making.

Businesses are never standing still, they are either moving forward or backward. By using the approach outlined above, you can move your business forward to the next level of success. Let us know if we can help you with this.

Kathleen Purdy is the Center Director of the Olympic Peninsula Small Business Development Center (SBDC),  This article was first published in Olympic Business Journal

Can You Increase Sales by Exporting?

The Washington Small Business Development Center Export Program focuses on working with new-to-export and new-to-market companies with little or no expertise in international trade. The program has set an ambitious goal of establishing a “Culture of Exporting” across the state within the next two years.

The Washington SBDC recently opened two Export Centers to assist Washington businesses to prepare for or expand their export capabilities. Located in South Seattle and Spokane, each center is staffed with two seasoned trade specialists. These new centers join a statewide network of 24 small business development centers and 26 certified business advisors who provide no-cost small business advising services.

The four trade specialists bring to their work assisting new-to-market businesses several decades of experience in international markets, unique skill sets and many years of living and working abroad. In addition, a group of WSU interns are conducting targeted export market research that will assist SBDC clients as they develop business plans that ensure successful and long-term export activities.

The Export Centers:

• Provide no-cost confidential, in-depth, and long-term one-on-one export advice

• Assist in preparing market and trade research

• Help clients assess their export readiness and determine next steps

• Collaborate with clients to develop a plan that ensures short and long-term exporting success

• Provide or locate additional resources as needed

The Export Web Portal at export.wsbdc.org is also available, featuring the following:

• Extensive research resources that are categorized and link to specific web pages not just websites.

• Export process “mind map” that outlines the process of preparing and executing an export plan. The process includes links to information, outlines, resource documents and partner resources.

• Frequently asked questions “mind map” that leads to specific resources that have the needed information.  

The ABCs of Profitability

As a business owner or future entrepreneur, I believe it’s never too early to start thinking about how to make and keep your business profitable. In simple terms, profitability is the amount of sales revenue left over after business costs. Learning to measure profits helps to answer the question, “Are we making enough or going to make enough money for our efforts?”

You, as a business owner, have control over four major areas that affect profitability:

1 Price you charge for your products and/or services.

2 Quantity (or volume) of products and/or services you sell (marketing or operations issue).

3 Variable costs you directly acquire by producing or buying the products and services you sell (These are called variable costs because they increase or decrease as your sales increase or decrease).

4 Fixed costs you incur whether you make any sales or not.

The strategy you come up with involves taking action to increase or decrease any of the four factors in consideration of its impact on, or the impact from, each of the other factors.

Here is an example of learning to measure profitability and make changes. A few years ago I met with owners of a service business that had not been profitable since it started two years prior. I prepared a break-even summary for them, which is a simple equation that says how many sales dollars or units sold are necessary to cover fixed and variable costs.

The conclusion was they needed eight sales a day to break even. Their gasp of horror was the only thing I heard. “But we can only process three sales a day,” they said. “Ah ha,” I responded. “There are two things you need to do to improve profitability in your business.”

1 Streamline your system, (operations), so you can handle more quantity of sales.

2 Raise prices. In this case the paperwork around each sale is what was providing their value to the customers.

The reason it took them a few years to recognize they weren’t profitable was because they were not keeping on top of their bookkeeping. Bookkeeping errors is my fifth addition to the four factors of profitability. SBDC advisors around the state will agree that nearly all of the businesses they advise have errors in their books.

One of the best things a business owner can do is to learn what each report means, how to read it and how to set it up to accurately reflect the true activities of the business. Questions I often hear are: “What is the difference between a balance sheet and income statement? Why does the business show a profit on the income statement yet has no cash in the bank?”

As the leader of the business, learning the answers can be one of the most empowering things an entrepreneur can do. When set up correctly, the information in these financial reports can be used to make accurate decisions toward being and staying a profitable business. As the saying goes, “All roads lead to the numbers.”

This article was written by Jennifer Shelton with the Bellingham Small Business Development Center, which is part of the 24 statewide offices of the Washington Small Business Development Center (WSBDC).  Initially seen in The Bellingham Business Journal and at http://bbjtoday.com/

The WSBDC offers in-depth, confidential, and no-cost management advice to businesses within Washington State.