Your Questions About Business Online Services
Ruth asks…
I want to know how to draw a business plan for my company?
my company provides online service(an online market) in Ghana
i want to know how to draw the business plan and also how best i can run this company. am opened up to all your ideas and suggestions.
Jere answers:
Http://www.planware.org/bizplanchecklist.htm
Could you be looking for more?
Ken asks…
What do you think of online shopping and paying in us$?
It is really shocking to discover that in a Business hub like Dubai until a few months a go there was no option to have online payment service in the local currency. I would like to know if for you as an online shopper would it be easy to pay in us$ or not. What do you think of the web sites, in Dubai, where you can pay only in us$.
Jere answers:
That is not true and it is not even a correct analogy here. The reason is because you order your items from another country then you pay with the currency of the country where the vendor is based. If you had been ordering from UAE based e-stores or souq.com your order is billed in UAE Dirham . And we have been doing this for years . Sorry that you are not informed.
If you are talking about PayPal that is a different story , they are US based too so they don’t have to offer other currencies. But some online shopping sites still offer ordering in other currencies as a convenience to their customers. Also Some UAE shopping sites list price not only in AED, but also in dollar and Euro too so no big deal.
If I order from Amazon in US I pay in US money . If I order from Australia I pay Australian dollar. From Japan I pay in Yen , from UK you pay in Pound , Germnay Euro etc . To pay in AED you need to order locally of course. That’s no secret. If you have a UAE issued VISA or MC etc your billed amount is in UAE Dirhams not Dollars.
What you said that it became available only a few months ago is not true. Else explain what you mean.
Daniel asks…
How to sell my online business?
Hi, I developed an online business, which launched 18 months ago. The business earned raffly 50,000 bucks over that time. At first place I paid for online marketing like AdWords, but I stopped that. Still, the online service is getting new clients, who pay $20 for a 6 months period of service. The majority of the clients is happy to prolong their membership. The operation costs reduce to the server hosting only which is ca $150 monthly. Now my question: I would like to sell the entire business including all source code and client contracts to a new owner. But I have no idea, what the reasonable purchase price could be and how to find a responsible and serious new owner for the business. Can you help?
Regards, Uwe
The $50,000 income is the gross turn over from day one to date. All costs are excluded. I spent a lot of money and time in actually developing, launching and advertising this project. The growth of the business heavily depends on the ability to attract more paying customers by smart advertising. The business deals directly with ebay auctions. So, any ebay user is a potential client of this service. After all investments that I made, the new owner will find a clean system, which he needs to grow as a marketing / sales person. Despite that, the buyer receives a stock of ca 1,000 customers who will make future payments all 6 months. My reason for the sale is the fact that I need to change my personal and business life. Hence I need a larger amount of money today, even if I can’t earn the fruits of my work in the future, which is only natural. It has nothing to do with my expectations in this particular business. I’d rather predict a nice future for it.
I was already thinking about selling to competitors, however I’m stuck with the purchase price I could suggest. I think, there are two components with the estimate – one is the stock of existing clients where some paid already $80 (4 periods a $20 in advance). This client base should have a specific value within the purchase price, I believe. The second component should be a revenue estimate that some skilled personcould achieve, when managing a working system. If I sold to a competitor, the system itself would have less value to him, since he already owns a system that looks exactly like this. So, I’m not sure, if the best value can be achieved with a person who can make money based on a flying project – by actually going out and getting more clients.
Jere answers:
For now, there are more questions than answers. You say, “the business earned roughly $50,000”. Is it revenue, operating income, or net income? Also, you say the operating costs only include hosting, which means that the new owner will either have to work in the business himself or hire someone and see their earnings reduced. Finally, what sort of growth for this business do you see in the future?
You need to prepare a comprehensive information package about your business, including detailed descriptive information and financial statements. You also need to clearly state your reasons for sale, otherwise people may think that you are selling the business because you expect it to fail soon.
The most likely buyers for your business are your competitors; they understand the industry and will probably give you the best price. There is a possibility that a large company is seeking to enter your industry, so they would jump on the opportunity to have an established operation, however small. In both cases, the buyer will probably value the acquisition based primarily on its growth potential.
William asks…
What kind of business is right for me?
Here’s the thing – my sister and i are sick of the corporate world. She is in business and knows about insurance and numbers. I am more artistic and creative. Is there some kind of business that we could start and go into for ourselves? [no comments about working with family please:)] I think a restaurant / soda shop would be great, but that means working 24/7. Something that could travel easily would be nice, like an online or service business of some kind. We both like our weekends and vacations (tho that probably wouldnt work well for a small biz just starting out. Anyone have any kind of suggestions? Oh yeah, we don’t have all that much money to start either. Good luck!
Jere answers:
The best business will depend on what you want, how you define to be interesting. A person may consider a pet sitting business to be the most exciting work in the world, while another person would rather watch TV than take care of dogs.
The key is to determine what your interests are, what you want to do, what is suitable for your lifestyle and your overall goals, and what can fit with your resources.
Dan Ramsey in his book “101 Best Home Businesses” has a chapter on how to find YOUR best home business. He suggests these 10 steps:
1. List 5 things you do best
2. List how others would benefit from what you do best
3. Find out how to give people what they want
4. Learn the value of your services to others
5. Find out who else offers similar services
6. Learn from the successes of others
7. Learn from the failures of others
8. Plan your own success
9. Make low cost mistakes
10. Enjoy what you do and how you do it
He then made suggestions on the best home businesses according to type. Here are a few of them:
Best Businesses Using Craft or Physical Skills
– antique restoration
– auto detail service
– carpet cleaning business
– errand/delivery service
– housecleaning business
Best Service Businesses
– bed and breakfast operator
– caregiver
– catering service
– senior day care center
– tutoring service
Best Professional Businesses
– desktop publisher
– magazine writer
– import/export service
– income tax preparation service
– event planner
Some other home business ideas:
Top 10 Home Businesses with Rapid Break-Even Time http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol33/breakeven.htm
10 Profitable “Go-Out” Home Businesses http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol31/goout.htm
Low Cost Startup Businesses http://www.entrepreneur.com/lowcostbusinesses/0,6617,,00.html
6 Hottest Businesses on the Web http://www.powerhomebiz.com/052006/web.htm
You can also check out the following books:
Turn Your Talents into Profits: 100+ Terrific Ideas for Starting Your Own Home-Based Microbusiness
The Best Home Businesses for the 21st Century
121 Internet Businesses You Can Start from Home
The Best Internet Businesses You Can Start
101 Ways to Make Money at Home
Susan asks…
Is there Point of Sale integration software that tracks multiple website sales?
Need software that accepts sales data from several independent online services, maintains database, and prints cards and receipts (for a florist). FTD offers a few soluntions for this, but we want to research others. Does anybody know of any good integration business POS software?
Jere answers:
Have you tried something like quick books or Imonggo there considered the best for pos sales
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