Value Websites works with several small to medium sized businesses. In fact we are one ourselves. We offer you some of our learnings and obersvations in this article. Do you know that there are various mistakes you can make as your business develops that can slowly kill it over time if you are not alert and watching out for them? These mistakes are not just reserved for new companies and their operators. Even seemingly “successful” businesses that have been around for several years can still be making these mistakes as they lose money and valuable time along the way. Although some of these common mistakes are more prevalent in service type companies, they can exist in almost any business endeavour. Perhaps you will notice a few challenges for your business as you consider these 8 BIG small business mistakes. 1. Underestimating Project/Service Time
This mistake is a big one and it applies to companies that sell a service as well as to those that sell a product. Time is often a company’s bread and butter. Estimating time to perform each and every service in your repertoire realistically is vital. The best way to estimate time is to do it once yourself or watch your best employee do the task and allow for extra time to cover the unexpected on top of it. For businesses selling products, logistics time needs to be determined accurately and carefully. 2. Not Knowing YOUR Company Numbers and/or Incorrectly Setting Prices Note the emphasis on the word “YOUR”. Don’t use a competitor’s pricing as your benchmark without actually knowing why they use the numbers they do. What if the competitor has a bad pricing structure and is barely making money or even losing money?! It’s not good enough to know a competitor’s price, cut it by 10%, and then start selling without robust research. Your costs may be more than theirs! You can use a competitor’s pricing as a starting point but you can’t base your whole strategy on it. Different industries have their own variables as far as costs go and you need to be aware of them for your service or product pricing. Cost price is not the only cost to have in your head when you are pricing products. How much your labour and materials cost for a service is only a piece of an hourly rate. Employees cost more than just salary and not every employee is part of your labour cost. There are plenty of overhead expenses that need to be built into your price like insurance, office expenses, rates, insurance, telco fees, etc. And don’t forget to factor in a value for the quality factor. Especially if a selling or service point in your business is your above-average product or service quality. For instance, if service and/or quality is part of your unique service proposition and/or unique selling point (USP) then expect people will be happy to pay for it, so charge for it.
0 Comments
Our June promotion is about adding value to your website or website assets like email list, email newsletter, copywriting, form assets, SEO, Adwords, imagery, audio visual resources, etc.
When we talk about adding value, we are essentially on about increasing:
Recently we have been thinking a lot about website valuations and the factors that contribute to an increasingly valuable website asset. As the web matures and as web owners consider selling their website/s and businesses with a website, our focus is moving more to ensuring that we work with web owners to establish and achieve both short and longer term goals. It is not just about getting a website up and running and optimised for immediate traffic, service delivery and sales. It is also about building in sustainability through testing, tweaking, editing, rewriting, improving SEO and generally taking a broad approach to improving the web/site asset value. Two resources we offer clients are: Building a Website You Can Sell in 2013
Todd Malicoat - 8 Jan 2013 This is a summary and brief review of a relatively recent (Jan. 2013) blog post about considerations that a web developer and a business owner should have in mind when building a new website. When planning a website these factors, if heeded, may make a significant difference to the sale price achieved at some future date. Value Websites recommends that if this summary whets your appetite for more, you read Malicoat's full article. The headings below are Malicoat's. General thoughts on website appraisal Malicoat begins with Rule #1 – "You can’t sell potential." Take the word out of your vocabulary, he asserts. Cringe when you hear it from others. Most sites currently sell for between 12-36 months of revenue, or a 1-3x annual revenue multiple - you’ll be lucky to get a 3x multiple! He offers a helpful Primer on valuation principles: 10 Rules for Valuation by Tim Berry Online Business and Revenue Models A list to consider.
A series of questions to ask of a website which are helpful when appraising a website's real value..... Website Appraisal Tools 9 are identified and explained, including Alexa, Google Analytics and Google Adwords' Tool .... (Potential) Website Valuation Equations A few ways of putting a price tag on a website:
Value Websites are sometimes approached to value a website. Websites are often a valuable part of the assets of a business. Sometimes a website may be offered for sale as part of a business sale, or independently of the wider business. How to value a website? The theoreticians suggest various approaches. One uses the typical business valuation method of isolating and assessing the net annual revenue generated by the website and multiplying this by a factor - usually between 0.8 and 1.6 or more, in the case of websites. The multiplier chosen will reflect the quality of the website against factors like age, usability, search engine optimisation, copy writing and other design factors. Another methodology considers the value over time of the key words and phrases that generate 90% of website hits. It may be that there are only 3-5 of these that produce most hits. These key words and phrases are then assessed for value using Google Adwords keyword tool. The valuation continues from there and makes adjustments if traffic is being generated via Adwords rather than organic SE listings. Other expenses need to be assessed before a multiplier as in the first method above is used to determine final valuation. Value Websites' Approach As website designers with SEO skills, Value Websites will generally use a third methodology when valuing a website.... Value Website's latest job has been to source 200 Card USB's for a promotion.
We did more than that. We organised printing on both sides -see image - and we arranged for 3 files to be pre-loaded. We sourced and imported the 512MB card USB's from China, where they were printed and pre-loaded. Our contact (Leah) in China bent over backwards to exceed our expectations. In addition to email, we used Skype chat to deal with the finer details. Price to our customer for this order was under NZ$7 per card. This included card purchase, finance, gst, shipping and import duties. From confirmation and payment for the order to delivery to our customer took 12 days. Why don't you join our satisfied customer by asking Value Websites to supply your promotional card (or other) USB? Louk NZ Clothing have been long term customers of Value Websites. Our last job for 2013 was to completely rebuild the Louk site using Weebly's new eCommerce platform. Featured below is the new shop/store landing page. This website lists 86 quality NZ made clothing products in six categories: women, men, accessories, Swazi apparel, socks and footwear. Each item is available in a range of sizes and colours. The built in international tax and shipping calculator ensures that customers get best value for their purchase.
The Weebly eCommerce platform is feature rich and offers an impressive range of options for anyone requiring eCommerce webs. Check Here for a run down of features. Talk to Value Websites to discuss your eCommerce requirements. The latest edition of our enews has been published and sent to all on our Value Websites eList. In This Issue
Terry Weebly announced today that they have launched their new eCommerce facility for Weebly website users. Two years in the making, this very competitive eCommerce platform offers all the features that modern web eCommerce facilities require. Check their promotional video here... For more information visit Weebly via the button below.
Earlier in the year Margaret gave me a trip up the Whanganui R. for my birthday.
1. You Approach Value WebsitesThe process beginning will usually look like this:
|
AuthorTerry Alve - Value Websites Limited Recent PostsPopular Posts
|