You can contact the property manager and see how you can get out of the location or at a worse see how much of the deposit you will lose. Did they have any information on prior capacity certifications before you put the deposit down? Also did the city say this just about the space alone or was it because of a floor plan that you may be able to change?

I would like to also note that I do not know much about your plan so I can only go off of the little info you sent. But how big will this place be? How much business do the others around you do?

I do not know of many sub shops that need 50 seats unless your in a real major metro like New York or Chicago. A local subway around here may have seating for 20-25 people and I never see them booked. I also took notice to a Chipotle grill capacity sign that noted they could have 87 people but I only seen room for maybe 40 because of the floor plan.

I do not want to second guess your plan but it is something to think about. A smaller crammed place can often give people a  notion that if your that busy then the food must be worth trying.

And the answer is no!

Yes it could seem odd that someone is willing to help you without charging you but some of us are good people. You do not need to include any personal information if you do not want to as you can see in the past many have not. And if you choose too I will post up the information so it is a bit of free marketing for you if your a business owner.

 I enjoy talking business and helping others so that is a big reason behind this site.  All you have to do is send me a question and if I can answer it and help you then I will. Or if you own a business and would like to mention it for a review I would also do that especially on startup’s which I love.

The only thing I can ask is if I am able to answer your question or help you then remember to send the link of my site to a few friends and associates as a thanks.

So to everyone else, please feel free to send me some more issues to think about!

This question came in from Tristen about how to secure new business.

 And the answer is pick up the phone and make something happen!

Tristen, in the email you noted your coming from a communications company. After working with account managers from that industry I did learn that it is not a horrible business to be doing sales in since most companies need the products\service and they are always looking for something better.

The good news is the path you take to secure business is no different then any other industry.

Step 1- Check out your local library and get access to Info \ Reference USA or like service. Most libraries have access and you will be able to log in from home for free.

Step 2  - Use the reference service to do searches on the companies you want to target. Often it will have the name of the individual you want to target. If it doesn’t then you can call in and ask for the manager you would like to speak with.

Step 3 - Research the companies you are targeting so you can speak about their business intelligently.

Step 4 - Your typical sales calls. At this point you want do your pitch and set an appointment. Face time is key so if you cannot get them on the first call then keep following up until they give in and decide to meet you.

If your looking for active marketing then cold calling is the quickest way to success and with services like Reference USA and the Internet you have half the battle won by already knowing whom you need to speak to so the rest is left to your salesmanship skills.

I hope this helps. Post a comment below if you have more questions on this topic.

 What do I think about franchises?

Are they for me? No. Are they for you? I would say probably so without knowing more.

Franchises are great for the those that want to start a business whom are not that business savvy. Even for those that are business saavy a franchise will have a higher chance of succeeding vs an independent setup more times then not.

Many people will say when you buy a franchise you are paying for branding which I do agree with. It is easier to start a Subway with everyone knowing the brand that it is to start “Jim Smith’s Soothing Taco Hut”. But the core thing you are paying for is a fully functional and proven business. That includes the branding, marketing, the product, the store layout and all the operations to go with it(you will still need to buy some equipment outside of the startup fee’s). Those operations also include some basic cost accounting and profit margin calculations so you know what you may make if you turn X amount of sales.

Another good thing about franchises is the assistance you will receive from the corporate office. This includes training on the business and all of it’s equipment and the most important part is they will help you choose a location so hopefully you don’t make the wrong mistake on choosing a site.

With that being said I still like running my own gig and I would be willing to risk failing to do so.  I like to roll the dice and I would rather roll the dice then pay someone a percentage of my profits forever.

Are you a risk taker? Well, maybe you are better off with the franchise if it took you a moment to think about that.

Finance                 Marketing

Strategy               Startup’s

Business Plans     Business News

IPO’s                     Funding

Recruiting            Technology

 That really depends on what kind of consulting but from what you wrote it looked like IT Consulting. If your in an office building most people will have a general liability policy but people neglect to think about what happens when your workers are on site somewhere and make a mistake.

When I ran my IT firm I had an E&O (errors and omissions) policy to cover me from mistakes.

Lets say you send someone out to work on a webpage and they crash it by mistake so now your customer is losing sales. They could come after you for the loss of sales that your employee caused.

Or lets say you write an application that does something incorrectly and ends up costing a company money, you would once again have to worry about a law suit.

There are several kinds of insurance to look for out there and I know a few that do not have any at all but I believe in the IT business it is worth having. E&O may not be a fit for you but it is worth asking about. I had a small policy that ran me about $3000 a year.

You really should consult an attorney before you make any choices but I will spill what I know. My first LLC and my first business attorney pushed for an Delaware LLC and we went that route. After buying out a partner and having a new attorney we went with our local state.

The Delaware LLC can have its advantages. I believe they are the most private of places to file and they may not even record the members name (not sure how they do that?). As far as I know they also do not share any information with the federal government.

I guess in reality if you need to keep things private for the most part that is one of the key benefits. Our second attorney also noted the benefits of Delaware often work better for much larger corporations so most small businesses really do not need to file there unless they offer a huge advantage over their local states LLC’s offerings (such as if you have to pay a franchise fee etc).

In the end I do all my LLC’s within my local state now and do not plan on filing a Delaware LLC unless a new business comes about and it is recommended by my attorney. Then again my state is pretty fair so it will vary state to state.

This is really a tough question given each market is so different. Right now rates are some what low so the appeal to do a rental bussiness is high since you may not have to charge as much rent to get that note paid for.

On the other hand I know the market is flooded with rentals right now in many areas since when someone cannot sell their house as a worse case scenario they will try to rent it.

The prospect of picking up bank owned homes cheap right now mixed the lower rates to finance does put the odd’s in your favor unless your market is completely saturated. In my opinion many of those that could sell their home could be living off whatever equity they pulled out of it which means there is a high chance they are renting and not buying homes.

A good indicator is to drive around the neighborhood you are thinking about purchasing in and seeing how many rental signs are up. To back that up it is worth stopping by apartment complexes and prodding around a bit to see what their vacancy rate is. If you hit a 500 unit complex and they have 100 open units it could be a bad sign that the market does not want to support any more rentals.

On the financing side it looks like a great time to buy homes on a deal and finance at a low rate but for me personally I would not jump into it just because of that, given the right area it could be the right time to load up on rental properties give the property appreciation you will hopefully see over the next 5 years as the market rebounds.

 To the emailer, you didn’t leave me much information to go on so if you can provide more I will get more in detail.

Over all depending on your product you have to look at passive and active marketing.

Active marketing such as cold calling can be very cheap if you are doing the calling yourself or hiring a account manager with a base + commission. You may have to set $30,000 aside to get that off the ground for the first 6 months.

Passive marketing such as mailers, billboards and online advertising can cost you $100 or $100,000, whom and how many do you want to reach? I like passive marketing for advertising when I factor in the Branding bonus but I also do not like waiting for results.

With active marketing via calls and or networking I feel like I can make something happen today rather then sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring.

This question came in from James at Health Food Hut in regards to finding good investors\financing in the food industry.

James I took a quick look at your site and I don’t know if your looking for investors for working capital or in terms of people to purchase \ buy into franchises so I will offer a view on both.

As far as raw financing (startup, working capital, capital purchases etc) often people have a great idea but fall into this gray area and never get financed. The high road is a full business plan and sell some venture capital firm on your idea or the most popular way of self financing and maxing out cards. In the middle many stand with great ideas and no where to turn.

At this point you have to start to think about loans if you truly believe in your product. SBA loans do work if you can back it with a little something. You can look into local Angel Investors which is a long shot but people do get capital from them. You can also do some research and phone other business owners in the food or restaurant arena since it is a product they know best and will be the first to listen if you can sell the idea.

You can find these people by using services such as Ref Usa which is free at many local libraries. Call these people up and setup a lunch and pitch them. Yes this does take work but nothing comes easy and I will say it now and will say it many times on here, bold people make money and you will have to be bold to track some people down and pitch them.

If you were looking for investors in franchises, you could also use the method of tracking down other successful people in the industry but your best bet on growing the franchise is by making people believe you have something special. You will find these people walking in your own doors one day to buy your product and then a few days later calling to see how to open one up.

The trick here is you need a fully running, well running store which is going to be your primary marketing tool. You should make franchise information noticeable so your customers can see that opening a franchise is an option, this will plant a seed for them or could turn into a referral from someone they tell.

I hope this helps and maybe someone reading this will be interested in talking to you about some financing.