Now that the holiday madness is over, business consultants suggest taking some time to get organized and set goals for the New Year, both for your business and yourself. Suggestions include budgeting, journaling and helping employees help the company. Identify the Budget When asked what the single most important thing to do when making plans for the New Year, T. Paul Thomas, a veteran CEO, business leader and professor at Northern Arizona University, says it is putting in … [Read more...] about Creating the Optimal 2017
Business
The Point of Your Life
Flying home from visiting my 92-year-old mother in Orlando recently, I reflected on the length and the shortness of life. It struck me that my mother has lived almost exactly twice as long as my first wife (Debbie), who lived to be 46. By most standards, Mom has lived a long life (with more to go), while Debbie’s life was tragically brief. Despite the vast differences in the length of their lives, both lived well. As I flew across the country, I re-read portions of Marcus Aurelius’ … [Read more...] about The Point of Your Life
Preparing Your Business for Sale
WCI Brokers is the largest full-service business brokerage firm in Northern Arizona. As business intermediaries, we have facilitated more than 500 business acquisitions in Northern Arizona over the past 15 years. This article is part of a series of articles written by our professionals at WCI Brokers on topics important to business owners interested in selling their businesses. A couple of statistics are noteworthy. Did you know that only 8,000 small and mid-sized companies are sold every … [Read more...] about Preparing Your Business for Sale
Flagstaff Experiencing Growing Business Interest
The past couple of years have seen a significant growth in the number of businesses operating in Flagstaff, with newcomers such as Sportsman’s Warehouse, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers and Smashburger. City officials attribute it to Flagstaff’s burgeoning reputation as both an affordable location to carry out business and a desirable place to live. This trend looks to continue as more restaurants, hotels and other commercial and industrial developments move forward from early planning to … [Read more...] about Flagstaff Experiencing Growing Business Interest
Personal Training Entrepreneurs Flexing their Business Expansion Muscles
Some clients have lost well over 100 pounds, some are no longer on blood pressure medicine, and some have experienced greater success in their professional lives after achieving nutrition, weight and fitness goals. Positive stories of personal achievement and healthy lifestyle changes abound in the High Altitude Personal Training gym on the west side of Flagstaff. But now, the owners of HAPT plan to impact more lives as they expand into the Phoenix market. Flagstaff natives Dustin Evans … [Read more...] about Personal Training Entrepreneurs Flexing their Business Expansion Muscles
How Much is Your Business Worth?
Estimating the fair market value of a business is part art and part science. For the purposes of this article, we are discussing “Small Businesses.” Small businesses are generally considered to be businesses that are independently owned and operated, organized for profit, and are not dominant in their field. The Art of Business Valuation The art of valuation is a factor in determining how attractive a business will be to the fair market of buyers of businesses. The ability to accurately … [Read more...] about How Much is Your Business Worth?
Businesses Gaining from NAU Students’ Marketing Research
While the term “win-win” may seem a bit passé these days, here is a situation in which it applies perfectly. At Northern Arizona University, two classes are offered that help businesses with very effective marketing plans for free and help students take what they have learned from their marketing classes to apply in real business situations. Win-win. “There are two NAU classes that I teach. One is strategic marketing [and] the other is marketing research. Both lend themselves to … [Read more...] about Businesses Gaining from NAU Students’ Marketing Research
A Business Practice of Giving
Increasingly, you hear about the importance of “giving back to the community” and you see and hear more and more examples of it. Popular musicians perform concerts to raise money for disaster relief, professional athletes donate to youth programs in their home towns, accountants prepare tax returns for veterans and senior citizens, people from all walks of life and all professional pursuits donate their time and their expertise to help others. You see it, too, in the way corporations are … [Read more...] about A Business Practice of Giving
Promoting Business and Helping Others
As the song silver bells rings through the air it is once again time for the annual Salvation Army Kettle Campaign. This year, The Salvation Army is providing two opportunities for you to greatly impact the community while promoting your business. Without even spending a cent, you can have a sign put on a kettle stand for an entire day where every customer to that store will see the sign and your support of this community. This great positive free advertisement only requires your business to … [Read more...] about Promoting Business and Helping Others
Business Accelerator to Create 300 Jobs
Expanding beyond the initial phase of incubating a new business is accelerating a growing business. This is the first goal at the city of Flagstaff’s Innovation Mesa, where the city intends to build a business accelerator adjacent to the current location of Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NACET) by Buffalo Park. The accelerator will provide resources and an environment to help local businesses advance. The U.S. Department of Commerce recently gave the city of … [Read more...] about Business Accelerator to Create 300 Jobs