Business Articles

Article / Updated 08-03-2022

Can you make decisions swiftly and confidently when vast amounts of data cross your desk and inbox every day? How do you prioritize and rapidly respond in the midst of changing conditions? Well, you use the skills you already possess but may not be tapping into. Here’s an interesting correlation: The way you process information as you drive a vehicle also works for making an informed decision. If you drive well enough to be 98 percent accident-free, chances are you’re already a master of processing tons of data at high speed: You select pertinent information almost automatically and then use the information quickly and accurately. If you apply that innate skill to your decision-making, you can make informed business decisions without second guessing yourself. To sort from a sea of information, do these things: Focus on the outcome. Being clear about the end point does two things: Provides guidance for your intuition, enabling you to sift through all the available information to select what’s important for the decision you need to make Gives you a solid anchor for your decisions that can accommodate opposing facts and perspectives If, for example, the end point is to stay under budget, your decision and the data you use to inform your decision will be filtered based on that. If the end point is to produce a product that meets customers’ unstated needs, all the available information will be filtered using that criterion. The outcome anchors your decision making. Stop mentally concentrating on the issues and let your subconscious do the work for you. Your subconscious is faster than your conscious mind, and it works automatically when your focus is clear. When you turn the issue over to your subconscious, you gain speed and accuracy. Question and expose the beliefs you use to interpret how the world works. Beliefs, otherwise known as mental models — things you believe to be true but that may not actually reflect a widened view of reality — filter reality to confirm your previous experiences. Questioning your beliefs permits you to improve the accuracy of your analysis, jettison past connotations, and open up new possibilities. Observe your emotions. Step back to gain perspective and quiet the mental chatter so that you can accurately hear your inner voice. You’ll gain a wider view of the situation and be able to see alternatives. It’s easy to fall prey to doubt or to rationalize your decision. If you’re feeling fearful, you may think you have only one option or no options. In climates of high fear, when the rational dominates, making an informed decision requires that you achieve a calmer state of mind so that you can access your higher mental and intuitive functioning. After you analyze and review your options, select your decision, but before you commit, check in on how you feel about the option you’ve selected. Call it a heart check. Even when the solution is a totally new approach, you need to feel at peace with it. Making an informed decision requires that you work with both facts (actual data) and emotional information, and that you take steps to mitigate the effect of ingrained bias. Doing so requires that you commit to mastering all your senses and intelligences so that, in chaotic decision-making environments, you’ll be able to balance data with open-minded experimentation and stay sensitive to cues that other decision-makers will miss.

Article / Updated 08-03-2022

Nothing undermines a good white paper faster than poor design. No matter how compelling and persuasive the text may be, if people can’t read it because of a poor design, they’ll quickly move on. Then all your effort and expense are for nothing. Here are ten down-to-earth tips for anyone designing a white paper. If you’re not sure how to design a white paper or you’ve never done one before, read on. If you’re a marketing manager who needs to direct a designer to format your white paper, this is for you. If you’re a white paper writer stuck trying to use Word to turn out respectable-looking pages, you’ve just hit pay dirt. Design to enhance the content A white paper isn’t a brochure, so it shouldn’t be as slick and colorful as one. But it needs to be more appealing than your father’s business report. Think of a page from a magazine, like Scientific American or Vanity Fair, or the front part of an annual report, before all the numbers. That kind of crisp, elegant editorial design is what to shoot for with your white paper. Effective design enhances the content of the white paper instead of drawing attention to itself. Your design must add value and clarity to that content instead of adding distractions or hurdles to legibility. Let the white paper’s message shine out from your pages. Consider your readers' eyesight Most people’s eyes begin to change in their 40s, and they start to need larger type to read comfortably. By coincidence, most B2B white papers are aimed at business decision makers, most of whom are in their 40s and older. And many people this age prefer to read on paper, so they likely print out a white paper rather than read it on-screen. Younger designers, take note: You’re not designing white papers for yourself and your peers; you’re designing for older people. That means forget gray text and color backgrounds. Black text on a white background has been the standard for legibility for hundreds of years; why change it? Bump up the body size type to 10 or 11 points; it’s free. Realize that text isn't a graphic The text is the content of a white paper. Look at your pages as text-driven content, where your challenge is to make the text as inviting and easy to read or scan as in any magazine you pick up — any magazine, mind you, aimed at people in their 40s and older. Make every page count Sure, every white paper needs a little front and back matter, but when the front and back matter add up to nearly two-thirds of a white paper, something is terribly wrong. Some misguided software templates lay out a white paper like a two-sided book, with a blank page on the back of the front cover and a back cover to tie it all together. Forget it! Most B2B buyers either look at your white paper on-screen or print it out single sided. Those other pages are just a waste of time and money. Be sure to compress the front and back matter, cut the worthless blank pages, and make every page count. Control page breaks Avoid starting a major section at the very bottom of a page, with only a line or two of text after it or cramming a new section beginning near a footnote or footer. There’s nothing wrong with leaving a little white space at the end of a major section. Just start the new section on a new page. White space gives readers a momentary visual and mental break and helps them understand the structure of the document. Avoid a wall of gray Some designers have the idea that a white paper is supposed to be serious, and by that, they think “a wall of gray.” They think all they have to do is just pour the text into the pages and be done with it. Any white paper with text formatted as a wall of gray may look serious, but it won’t invite anyone to read it. Leave lots of white space Another symptom of the wall-of-gray approach is teensy-tiny, itsy-bitsy, little margins around the text. Long horizontal lines of type are hard for readers’ eyes to scan and tough for their brains to process. If you format a white paper with minimal white space, you’ll lose most of your readers. Again, white space is free. So what if your final document is eight or ten pages long? If the content is compelling and the design is inviting, your readers won’t mind. Avoid smug shots So you’re looking for a stock shot for a white paper. That’s a fine way to break up the wall of gray. But by all means, skip the shots of the beautiful people wearing impeccable suits hunched over a pristine PC or shaking hands in some foyer drenched in sunlight. Everyone knows those are fake, posed shots. Pick photos that show average-looking people wearing typical clothes, doing something a little more interesting than shaking hands or peering at computer screens. Control hyphenation Most software does a terrible job of hyphenating English. Traditional typography called for at least four letters before any hyphen and at least three letters carried to the second line. Most typographers wouldn’t hyphenate a word with fewer than six letters. So don’t rely on automated hyphenation, and leave your text ragged right. Then scan your right margins, and if you see a major white space that you absolutely must eliminate, take two seconds to insert a manual hyphen. Refine a corporate template Some companies have a corporate template that they expect all designers to follow. These layouts may be perfect for a press release, an internal business report, or a data sheet, but they’re not always ideal for a white paper. If you feel strongly that the corporate template detracts from the readability and undermines the white paper content, make your views known. If you have the scope, make up two versions of the white paper: one following the existing template and another with your recommended changes. Circulate both versions to your team, your customer advisory board, and your manager. Get a second opinion from an experienced designer or a white paper expert.

Article / Updated 08-02-2022

Everything that makes up a corporation and everything a corporation owns, including the building, equipment, office supplies, brand value, research, land, trademarks, and everything else, are considered assets. Believe it or not, when you start a corporation, that company’s assets aren’t just included in a Welcome Letter; you have to go out and acquire them. Generally speaking, you start off with cash, which you then use to purchase other assets. For most new companies, this cash consists of a combination of the following: The owner’s own money: This money is considered equity because the owner can still claim full possession over it. Small loans, such as business and personal loans from banks, business and personal lines of credit, and government loans: The money obtained through loans is considered a liability because the corporation has to pay it back at some point. In other words, these loans are a form of debt. The combination of these two funding sources leads to the explanation of the most fundamental equation in corporate finance: Assets = Liabilities + Equity The total value of assets held by a company is equal to the total liabilities and total equity held by the company. Because the total amount of debt a company incurs goes into purchasing equipment and supplies, increasing debt through loans increases a company’s liabilities and total assets. As an owner contributes his own funding to the company’s usage, the total amount of company equity increases along with the assets. Note: Capital, assets, money, and cash are basically all the same thing at this point; after a company raises the original capital, or cash, it exchanges that cash for more useful forms of capital, such as erasable markers. Unlike liabilities, equity represents ownership in the company. So if a company owns $100,000 in assets and $50,000 was funded by loans, then the owner still holds claim over $50,000 in assets, even if the company goes out of business, requiring the owner to give the other $50,000 in assets back to the bank. For corporations, the equity funding varies a bit, however, because the owners of a corporation are the stockholders. The equity funding of corporations comes from the initial sale of stock, which exchanges shares of ownership for cash to be used in the company.

Article / Updated 08-01-2022

In cost accounting, two types of capacity focus on production: theoretical capacity and practical capacity. Consider how much you could produce if customer demand was unlimited. Select a capacity method that makes sense to you, and use that as a tool to plan production and spending. Theoretical capacity assumes that nothing in your production ever goes wrong. Accountants describe this capacity as working at full efficiency all the time. Consider what your pie-in-the-sky or perfect-world capacity would be. It’s a world in which everything runs perfectly and no machines or equipment ever break down. It’s utopia where no worker ever makes a mistake. That would be great, wouldn’t it? That’s theoretical capacity, and you can’t reach it. It seems silly, but you need to see this level of capacity to understand the others. Say you own a business that makes athletic running shorts and other clothing. At maximum capacity, you can make 200 pairs of shorts per shift. You run three 8-hour shifts per day, 365 days a year. Based on those numbers, here is your theoretical capacity: Theoretical capacity = shorts x shifts x 365 days Theoretical capacity = 200 x 3 x 365 days Theoretical capacity = 219,000 Unfortunately, this level of capacity isn’t attainable. You need to take into account the unavoidable. That gets you to practical capacity. Practical capacity is the level of capacity that includes unavoidable operating interruptions. Another description is unavoidable losses of operating time. Consider maintenance on equipment, employee vacations, and holidays. You’re willing to accept a good, rather than perfect, capacity level. The people in your company can help you determine your practical capacity. Your production and engineering staff can answer questions about machine capacity and repair time. Your human resources staff can forecast employee availability, based on vacations and holidays. You determine that 250 days is a more realistic number of production days, given unavoidable operating interruptions. Also, you decide that two shifts per day are realistic. Here’s the practical capacity calculation: Practical capacity = shorts x shifts x days Practical capacity = 200 x 2 x 250 Practical capacity = 100,000 The practical capacity is 100,000 units (pairs of shorts) per year.

Article / Updated 07-29-2022

The first thing to do for your nonprofit after you complete your incorporation is to apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number, or EIN. Even if you don't plan to hire employees anytime soon, you need this number for your application for tax exemption and for all your state and federal reports. The EIN will be attached to your nonprofit forever. Getting an EIN is easy and free. All you have to do is submit IRS Form SS-4. You can either download and print the form from the IRS website or complete the online application. You can even apply by telephone. As IRS forms go, this one is simple and straightforward and only one page long. If you apply by phone or complete the online application, download Form SS-4 beforehand to get an idea of the questions you'll have to answer. Choose only one method to apply for your EIN. Don't send in IRS Form SS-4 and apply by telephone. You may end up with two EINs, a confusing situation for everyone. The name of the applicant isn't your name; it's the name of your new organization. As with the incorporation papers, you need to identify an individual as the principal officer and include that person's Social Security number on the form. Here are some of the other items you need to fill out, line by line: Line 9: If your organization is a church or church-controlled organization, check that box in section 9a. If it's not, check the "Other Nonprofit Organization" box. Specify what sort of nonprofit organization you are. In most cases, "charitable" is sufficient. In section 9b, fill in the state where your organization is incorporated. Line 10: Most likely, your reason for applying for an EIN in line 10 is "started a new business." Line 11: In line 11, the date on your incorporation papers is the date the business was started. Line 12: This line asks for the closing month of your organization's accounting (fiscal) year. Lines 13 and 14: These lines relate to the number of employees you intend to hire and your expected payroll tax liabilities over the coming 12 months. You can enter "0" and "No" if your organization doesn't plan to hire staff in the year ahead. If you do intend to hire people for whom you'll have to pay payroll taxes, you need to check IRS withholding tables and estimate the amount of payroll taxes that will be due to the IRS. Line 16: This line asks you to check the box that describes your organization's principal activity. You can check "Other" here, but try to be a little more specific when describing your activities in the blank space. You may say "Charitable — Arts," for example. The IRS estimates that you'll receive your EIN in four to five weeks if you apply by mail. You'll receive your EIN immediately if you submit the online application. If you want to apply for an EIN by telephone, the person named as the principal officer on the SS-4 Form must call the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line at (800) 829-4933. Be sure that you've completed the SS-4 Form before you make the call. An IRS worker takes your information over the phone and assigns an EIN to your organization. You must fax or mail the form to the appropriate IRS office within 24 hours of making the call.

Article / Updated 07-25-2022

In this article, we look at some business types in more detail to see how traditional financial firms are being shaken up — and improved — by FinTech disruptions. What is FinTech? FinTech is an overarching term for the combination of finance and technology. However, within FinTech, many subcategories apply to specific sectors of the financial world. Here’s a quick summary of them: Capital Markets Tech, in which companies leverage newer technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain, is led by seasoned capital markets veterans and is both collaborating with and disrupting the financial services incumbents. WealthTech unites wealth and technology to provide digital tools for personal and professional wealth management and investing. This sector includes brokerage platforms, automated/semiautomated robo-advisors, and self-directed investment tools for individual investors and advisors to navigate the changing landscape in wealth management. For more information, check out The WealthTech Book, edited by Susanne Chishti and Thomas Puschmann (published by Wiley). InsurTech is a combination of insurance and technology. It refers to innovations that generate efficiency and cost savings from the existing insurance industry model. For more information, see The InsurTech Book, edited by Sabine L. B. VanderLinden, Shân M. Millie, Nicole Anderson, and Susanne Chishti (published by Wiley). RegTech is a community of technology companies that solve regulatory challenges through automation. The increase in major regulatory policy and the rise in digital products have made it imperative for companies to check for and implement compliance issues, and this can be difficult with old, manual processes. For more information, refer to The RegTech Book, edited by Janos Barberis, Douglas W. Arner, and Ross P. Buckley (published by Wiley). PayTech refers to the combination of payments and technology. Innovative payment services now form part of the PayTech ecosystem and have dominated the early days of the FinTech revolution through mobile, cross-border, peer-to-peer, and cryptocurrency payments. Financial institutions have had to digitize their current offerings to create new channels linked to a digital platform. For more information, see The PayTech Book, edited by Susanne Chishti, Tony Craddock, Robert Courtneidge, and Markos Zachariadis (published by Wiley). AI in Finance refers to how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning are applied across financial services companies today and how they could be used in the future. For more information, see The AI Book, edited by Ivana Bartoletti, Susanne Chishti, Anne Leslie, and Shân M. Millie (published by Wiley). LegalTech combines the nature of legal technologies and their relationship with data, the Internet of Things (IOT), cybersecurity, and distributed ledger technologies as well as ethical considerations of the technological advancement. For more information, refer to The LegalTech Book, edited by Sophia Adams Bhatti, Susanne Chishti, Akber Datoo, and Drago Indjic (published by Wiley). Banks Some larger financial institutions have adopted the phrase “We’re just a technology company that happens to have a banking license.” This is mostly a marketing gimmick, although it’s perhaps partially true for some of the new challenger banks that are attempting to disrupt the incumbent banks. However, with customer acquisition costs high and increasing regulatory hurdles to surmount, new challenger banks need to decide whether they will build their technology stack themselves or work with FinTech partners to develop the innovation required to topple the incumbents. The financial institutions that are effectively managing this move to become FinTech companies are those that understand how to move quickly to deliver what the consumer needs in an industry on the verge of further change. Most of those who succeed have taken a hybrid approach, focusing on partnerships, acquisitions, and internal initiatives. Several incumbent banks are known to be developing new digital-first products in a bid to keep the new wave of challenger banks and providers in the background; an example is Bo from the Royal Bank of Scotland. They are also gradually adopting much more ambitious cloud-based platforms (despite their paranoia about their data being hacked) on which they can offer or launch numerous products. These initiatives are being supported by the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, which provide cloud hosting services and enable banks to develop core banking Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms with the required encryption security. Asset management Traditionally, serious investors have valued personal investment advice from human experts, and they haven’t minded paying for it. However, the asset management industry has been attacked from two different angles: One of these is the march toward passive investments (such as exchange traded funds, or ETFs) over active asset management. ETFs are traded like stocks where the holdings track to some well-known index, such as the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500. The other is the rise in popularity of robo-advisors, which use ETFs as a strong part of their strategy. A robo-advisor is an investment selection tool that uses algorithms and machine learning to offer investment advice and management to users. The trend toward passive asset management has been apparent for some time in the retail/business-to-consumer (B2C) space, but we’re lately also seeing it with the larger business-to-business (B2B) investors as the stock market index returns continue to rise and they are looking to cut costs to further enhance returns for their clients. WealthTech firms are enabling investors to self-manage their portfolios by offering users technology-enabled tools to help make investing decisions. These tools can include full-service brokerage alternatives, automated and semiautomated robo-advisors, self-service investment platforms, asset class specific marketplaces, and portfolio management tools for both individual investors and advisors. They consider not only investment opportunities but also factors such as a user’s goals, income, marital status, and risk aversion to differentiate on their offering. They enable those who can’t afford a traditional financial advisor to have similar — if not more informed — advice at a lower cost. Insurance If the banking and asset management firms think they have it tough with the rise of FinTech firms, there are many that believe that the insurance industry is even more prone to disruption — and innovation. InsurTech firms initially started to explore offerings that large insurance firms had little incentive to pursue. For example, they offered customers the ability to customize their policies, and they used internet-enabled devices to collect information about behavior (such as driving habits) that could be used to dynamically price insurance premiums. Traditionally, the insurance market has worked with relatively basic levels of data to group respective policyholders together to generate a diversified portfolio of people. However, InsurTech firms are tackling their data and analysis issues by taking inputs from various devices, including GPS tracking of cars and activity trackers on wearables so that they can monitor more defined risk grouping and therefore allow certain products to be more competitively priced. In addition to better pricing models, InsurTech firms are using highly trained artificial intelligence (AI) to help brokers find the right mix of policies to complete an individual’s insurance coverage and credit score. In some cases, they can replace brokers entirely, further disintermediating the process (and saving costs). Apps are also being developed that can combine contrasting policies into one platform for management and monitoring. Some of the benefits of that might include enabling customers to purchase on-demand policies for micro-events and enabling groups of individual policyholders to become part of a customized group that is eligible for rebates or discounts. Insurance is also a highly regulated industry. Major brokers and underwriters have survived by being both prudent and risk averse. They are therefore suspicious of working with InsurTech start-ups, particularly those that want to disrupt their stable industry. Many InsurTech start-ups require the help of traditional insurers to handle underwriting issues, so the incumbent players here are likely to collaborate with and invest in their junior partners. Regulation and legal work RegTech is the management of and compliance with regulatory processes within the financial industry, using technology to address regulatory monitoring, reporting, and ongoing compliance. The predominantly cloud-based, SaaS offerings to help businesses comply with regulations efficiently and more cheaply act as the glue between the various sectors of the financial services industry described earlier. LegalTech describes technological innovation to enhance or replace traditional methods for delivering legal services across financial services and beyond. This innovation includes document automation, predictive artificial intelligence, advanced chat bots, knowledge management, research systems, and smart legal contracts to increase efficiency and productivity and reduce costs. With the use of big data and machine-learning technology, RegTech and LegalTech firms reduce the risk to a financial institution’s compliance and legal departments by identifying potential threats earlier to minimize the risks and costs associated with regulatory breaches and any legal work. RegTech firms can combine information from a financial institution with precedent data extracted from prior regulatory events to forecast probable risk areas that the institution should focus on. LegalTech firms can help financial institutions draft documents, undertake legal research, disclose documents in litigation, perform due diligence, and provide legal guidance. These analytical tools can save institutions significant time and money, including saving them from having to pay fines levied for misconduct. The institutions also have an effective tool to comply with ongoing rules and regulations specified by financial authorities, which are constantly prone to amendments. Payments From banknotes to coins to plastic cards and mobile devices, payments have evolved over the centuries to include a number of ways to help financial transactions take place between individuals, institutions, and governments. Payment technologies and global infrastructures that facilitate payments around the world also are changing. Over the last few years, mobile money has helped millions of people in developing countries get access to the financial system and tackle the goal of financial inclusion. Digital and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ether have also entered the payments sector, which is innovating more rapidly than ever with the goal to move value cost-efficiently in real time and at near zero cost. As a result, the PayTech sector is booming; established players closely work with newcomers as there is no end to the creativity of the PayTech and payment industry.

Article / Updated 07-19-2022

In strategic planning, benchmarks are surveys and assessments that help determine how well your company performs compared to other companies in your industry or business size. Following are just a handful of benchmarking tools available: BizStats: Visit the BizStats website for instant access to useful financial ratios, business statistics, and benchmarks. BizStats has effective and understandable analysis of businesses and industries. You can benchmark a business in five seconds for free. BizMiner: Check out BizMiner to produce a granular industry statistical report for your industry. The site offers industry financial analysis benchmarks for more than 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. Report access requires an affordable subscription fee. Fintel: This organization has both free and paid access to a financial benchmarking database of privately-held companies. Two products to help your benchmarking include an industry metric report and a business scorecard. For more information, check it out their website.

Article / Updated 07-19-2022

No matter whether you’re just starting your own micro-business or you’ve been working for several years, you want everything to run smoothly and cost effectively. As a micro-entrepreneur, your focus is to meet your target market’s needs while staying ahead of your competition. These free resources can help you. Get a free e-mail account for personal or business usage. E-mail is indispensable for communication, marketing, and other pursuits. You can get free e-mail at Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Try Open Office Software Suite. This powerful suite of business productivity tools includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation software, and other software programs. The software is free and regularly upgraded and refined by open source software developers. Network with LinkedIn. On this site, you can network with other businesses and professionals. You can make lots of valuable contacts, find prospects, and get answers to many of your questions from other professionals and specialists. Market through e-mail. Mailchimp is a free e-mail service to do e-mail distribution and marketing. You can send an e-mail blast for up to 2,000 addresses on your list at no cost, which is perfect for businesses just starting out and needing a good way to manage a list of prospects, customers, or e-zine subscribers. Use YouTube. This popular video platform gives you the ability not only to gain information and news (including lots of free how-to videos on a variety of business topics), but you have the ability to create your own videos (ranging from providing content to doing sales and marketing presentations) at no cost.

Article / Updated 07-18-2022

All M&A deal-makers need some extra help, so these resources, advisors, and private equity firms may come in handy. M&A groups, associations, and networking organizations M&A, as with most industries, has some networking and professional associations. If you’re thinking about pursuing a career in M&A, acquaint yourself with the following groups: Alliance of Merger & Acquisitions Advisors Association for Corporate Growth Global M&A Network Institute of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances DealStream M&A virtual data rooms M&A deal-makers today utilize online data rooms for due diligence. Here are few of the commonly used rooms: Firmex Merrill Datasite Share Vault V-Rooms Periodicals The following sections help you satisfy your nose for news. The first section lists some good sources of M&A-specific news, while the second provides some sources for more-general business news. M&A periodicals Buyouts The Deal Deal Reporter Debt Wire Dow Jones LBO Wire Mergers & Acquisitions Merger Market Thompson Reuters Business periodicals Barron’s Bloomberg CFO Financial Times Forbes Fortune Inc Investor’s Business Daily Wall Street Journal M&A Advisors A deal-maker needs suitable counsel from lawyers and accountants. Some firms that focus on M&A transactions, especially for the middle market and lower middle market, include the following: Accounting and auditing Baker Tilly BDO Seidman Crowe Horwath Deloitte Ernst & Young Grant Thornton KPMG PriceWaterhouseCoopers RSM McGladrey Law firms Baker McKenzie Horwood Marcus & Berk Morrison Foerster Quarles & Brady Ulmer Berne Vedder Price Winston & Stawn Private equity firms Private equity is one of the usual suspects when it comes to finding a Buyer for a company. The United States alone has hundreds of private equity firms. Here are just a few of them. Audax Group Beecken Petty O’Keefe & Company Eos Partners Frontenac Company Gemini Investors Geneva Glen Capital Harbour Group H.I.G. Capital Huron Capital Partners LaSalle Capital Group Linsalata Capital Partners Mason Wells McNally Capital Monomoy Capital Partners Pfingsten Partners Prairie Capital Prospect Partners Saw Mill Capital Sverica International Svoboda Capital Partners Trivest Partners Wynnchurch Capital Agencies that regulate mergers & acquisitions An M&A advisor should be registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc (FINRA). The Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC) is a federally mandated entity charged with protecting investors from fraud, so you should be familiar with it as well. Online business references A few good sources for business information include the following. These sites don’t necessarily focus on M&A, but they provide great information and research tools for M&A-related work nonetheless. Biz Stats Capital IQ Deal Logic Ibis World Investopedia Avention US Census Bureau – Business & Industry

Article / Updated 07-18-2022

Defining niche marketing is a little difficult. Niche marketing is actually the conjoined Siamese triplets of niche market, niche product, and niche audience. Think about niche marketing in this context. You can’t really choose the products you’re going to market until you know the niche you’re going to address. You can’t really choose the niche market unless you know there are niche products that you can promote profitably. Of course, you can’t choose either the niche products you’re going to promote or the niche market you’re going to address without knowing that a smaller, well-defined niche audience of buyers ready, willing, and able to buy exists. What is meant by this? Niche marketing is going after a smaller, specific, defined area of the market. You’re interested in serving the subset of customers who are interested in this smaller, specific market area. So the first benefit of niche marketing is that you can more closely customize your approach to meet the customers’ needs and desires. The second benefit of niche marketing is you’re able to avoid being crushed by either well-funded corporations or experienced marketers fighting for top position in areas where the potential payday is much higher because of the higher number of searches. Do you want to be going head-to-head with the NFL, BBC, ESPN, and other well-funded corporate giants? Niche marketing is crucial to the beginning affiliate marketer. It’s even more important to the beginner than a more experienced affiliate marketer who has built up some credibility and a reputation. Why is that? Two words: competition and position. Today many affiliate marketers are looking for affiliate profits. Many of those affiliate marketers may be competing against you. They may be more experienced than you; their domain may be older and more established, which gives them more credibility. The products and niches that pay the best and have the most searches — which mean the biggest paychecks — have the fiercest competition. Do you want to go up against these affiliate marketing gladiators, who are often major corporations armed with million-dollar budgets? You could try, but getting in on this subsection of niche marketing would be like pounding on a brick wall. Rather than being a small fish (you) in a big pond (a high-competition area), you have a much higher chance of success being a big fish in a low-competition area (your niche). Beginning affiliate marketers are often seduced by the dancing dollars of high-competition markets. They start calculating in their heads — “Well, if Google says football gets 7.5 million searches a month and I target football, I’ll be rolling in dough even if I get just a tiny, tiny fraction of those web visitors visiting my site and making a purchase.” The Google search also shows there are 4.3 billion results (competitors) for this niche. But Google tells a different tale than the one the dancing dollars are telling you. In your Google search for football, you can see the top listings are the National Football League, ESPN, Wikipedia, BBC Sport, and CNN. As you can see, the first page of results consists of all major corporations or news organizations that have multimillion-dollar budgets, are well established on the internet, and surely have staffs of hundreds if not thousands of people to run their websites. If you were trying to get on the first page, you’d have some formidable competition. Enter niche marketing. A niche is a small, specialized area that may not get many searches. Since the imagined income is so much less, it attracts fewer affiliate marketers, which means less competition. Less competition means you have a reasonable chance, as a new affiliate marketer, to build a website or develop a social media campaign that will rank reasonably high, and you will make money. You’re also looking to cultivate a small, specific group of potential customers who are looking for the product you’re offering. For comparison, take the niche “football snack helmet.” It has a very low search volume, which means a much lower potential income, but it also has less competition. Google tells a much different story when you type “football snack helmet” into the browser. The top listing on the page is an affiliate marketer’s site selling Amazon football snack helmets and making a profit. So you, too, can find your own specialized niche, build your website to address the needs of your specialized market, and start to build your affiliate business around this niche by answering the needs of this specialize audience. How do you do this? By writing informative articles that answer the needs and questions this group may have or provide information they may find helpful. Niche marketing can help you from drowning in the competitive pools and let you find that specialized audience.