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Two big stories broke last week & it could mean HUGE opportunities for the Fort Smith jobs market in the future.

1st: Whirlpool: Recall of 150 workers possible

This is big news for workers of the local Whirlpool plant (WHR) that laid off about 300 workers a few months ago. The news comes as they investigate the possibility of increasing the production in the refrigeration portion of the plant. The availability of these jobs is dependent on the availability and cost of necessary parts & components.

2nd: Mitsubishi to bring 400 jobs to Fort Chaffee

Breaking Friday afternoon, Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas will be building a $100 million wind turbine plant on 90 acres in the Fort Chaffee development area. Construction is slated to begin in early 2011 and will employee up to 400 workers when fully functional.

More on these developments as they happen! Exciting times for Fort Smith, Arkansas!

The US Chamber of Commerce released two charts explaining the difference in the current health care system and how the new health care system would look as explained in House Bill 3200. To download these charts as a PDF visit: http://bit.ly/HB3200ByUSCC or click on one of the images to view the whole PDF file.

It is widely agreed that the proposed new system would hurt small businesses - who employ about 80% of the US workforce. Visit the US Chamber’s website to get the latest news on the current plans & bills that have been proposed by our government. They have great resources on this page.

Be sure to call your congressman and let them know what you think! Maybe if they actually read it, they would have a clue.

Which one do you think works best for YOUR family?

A Business Broker’s take on “Shark Tank” - by Ray Ellen, Owner & Intermediary for CBI Sunbelt

The show, Shark Tank has caught my attention & deservedly so! I have been watching it for a few weeks and the application for small business owners is enormous!

In the show, business owners and entrepreneurs present their business before a panel of “Sharks” - titans of business in multiple industries. The business owner is usually attempting to raise capital for an investment in their company. The Sharks then make a decision whether or not to make an investment in the company and become partners with the business owners.

There comes a time in the life of every small business where they need to sell all or a portion of their interest to raise capital to grow the company or to move on to other interests by selling the company.

If you need to raise capital, you should talk to a “venture capitalist”. However, if you need to sell your business and turn it into an annuity, you need to talk to a “confidential business intermediary” [me!]. Either way, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the show “Shark Tank”. Here is one of them:

Valuation: What is the company worth?

When you watch the show, pay close attention to the “valuations” that the business owners or investors talk about. For instance, one business owner says, “I’d like $200,000 for 10% of the company.” The Sharks will quickly calculate how much money it would take to own 100% of the company. In this example, the business owner would be asking for $2,000,000 for his entire company! That is necessarily unreasonable - it depends. The question & lesson is: How did he determine the value of his company?

This is truly the multi-million dollar question & the most common mistake of business owners. I don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of business valuations because I don’t want to put you to sleep, but here are two quick tips about Determining your Businesses Value that I have noticed in the show and directly apply to most businesses.

1. The CURRENT Value of your company is not based on FUTURE projections. In the show, business owners will stress the “future” sales & income projections, which has almost ZERO effect on value. (I say almost because there is an economic factor called “demand” which has to be present to have a profitable business, but the factor of demand is still considered a current economic factor vs projected demand.) The majority of your business’s value will be determined by historical cash flow from sales. This is the #1, most important factor: cash flow.
2. Know where the value is in your company. There have been several occasions in the show where the REAL value in the company is not the business itself but in the product or patent that the company or owner owns. In those situations, it is almost always better to sell the patent to a major company already involved in producing products for that industry or partner with them and collect royalties!

This show is full of practical truths and applications for main street businesses and entrepreneurs! Take a look at the episode above and tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading! Please comment!

NOTE & Shameless self promotion: At CBI Sunbelt, to determine the value of a business, we use an independent third party who is a certified business appraiser. We receive a professional report that is approved and accepted by the Small Business Administration, lenders, and venture capitalists. If you have any questions about the value of your business, contact me for a free, no obligation, confidential consultation. (ray@cbiteam.com)

Hello all! Today, as I read through the news, I noticed some thing that I just had to share with business owners.

Google has another new “gadget” for your websites & blogs that will allow you to easily sell your products online! This is truely a game changer for small businesses! On Google’s Website they outline how to do this with three easy steps:

1. Sign up for a Google Checkout seller account. Checkout will process your orders and help you attract new leads, convert more sales, and enjoy advanced fraud protection.
2. List the products you want to sell in a Google Docs spreadsheet. You’ll just need to create a copy of our template spreadsheet, and then replace the sample inventory with your own.
3. Place the Google Checkout store gadget on your website. You can embed your online store anywhere you’d like — on Google Sites, Blogger, or your personal website.

Because this checkout program is integrated with google docs, you wont have to keep informatoin on a third party system (such as quickbooks)! This is really amazing! If any of you impliment this system for your business website, please let me know how it works!! It is still in beta, so start small & do some testing.

This is HUGE! Have fun!

Hey all!

Thanks for all your prayers as we move! Here is a quick update of where we are:

Housing
We are moving out this Friday, July 31st! Actually very busy packing up the house right now! Oh, the smell of tape and cardboard…

We’ll have pix and video when we get settled in.

Katie’s Job
Katie will be working as a Kindergarden teacher in the Alma School district! We are really excited to be there! We were so impressed by the people in the administration and on staff. Great people & great school district!

CBI Sunbelt
We are already rocking and rolling in the area! I’ll post what the biz cards are going to look like soon!
We don’t have an office yet. Everything we do can be done with a computer & personal visits & phone calls, so we don’t need one yet. As we get busier and I have to hire some office admin, we will be looking for some good space in the area.

Church Home
We haven’t even started visiting area churches, so please keep this in your prayers. Once we get some boxes unpacked and a little “settled” we will start visiting!

Websites
Still working on them. We’re switching over to Tumblr to test it out. I have the business site up: www.cbifsm.com. There are still a few problems if you are using IE7. The nav bar at the top is acting up. Use firefox. You’ll be glad that you did.
Our personal site: rayandkatie.tumblr.com
My personal site: rayzorback.tumblr.com - NOW www.RayZorback.com!
Those will be moved to their own “www._.com”s when I finish editing & tweaking them.

That is about it for now! Talk to you soon!

Don’t forget to follow us on twitter: Ray ♥ Katie