You can make money from a business in two ways : by running it for income, and by selling it. Today we look at the selling option.

This year, some 700,000 American businesses will be sold. Most will be small and mid-sized businesses like yours. If you, too, are thinking of selling, consider these practical steps for making the process go smoothly.

* Determine a Realistic Price Range
* Understand the Tax Consequences
* Prepare for a Sale
* Seek Potential Buyers
* Negotiate Your Deal
* Sign a Sales Agreement
* Plan for the Closing
* File Paperwork With the IRS

Getting the Cash Out of your Business Note
Business notes, known more specifically as seller carryback business notes, are created when the buyer of a business can not or will not pay all cash. Frequently, banks and similar lending institutions are hesitant to loan money to new business owners who have minimal track records and where hard assets make up a small percentage of the total purchase price.

In the case where a buyer cannot obtain a loan, the seller is left with two choices (1) hold off until he/she find a buyer who can pay all cash or (2) carry back a note in order to collect future payments. The first option is often not realistic. In the second case, the seller is hopefully able to at least extract a large down payment to make extra sure that the buyer has some “skin in the game”. However, even then the seller is usually in a position that he prefers not to be in – he has no lump sum of money to either invest in other opportunities or to retire. Unlike a real estate note, where is there is a hard asset that is fairly easy to appraise; the business note is relatively risky to hold.

So, what is a business seller to do when he didn’t want to be in the lending business to start with and now has a need for immediate cash? What many people don’t realize is that the business note can be sold. The former owner can sell all or part of the note to get a lump sum of cash. In this way, both the goals of selling the business and getting the cash out of it are met.

In summary, selling a business note is an excellent way for the former owner of a business to get his cash out of the business. Whether the reason for selling the note is that the seller would have preferred all cash all along, that he now has large debts to pay, or that he has the opportunity to pursue other investments, the sale of a business note is a tool of which you should always be aware.

Our guest author, Afra AmirSanjari, is the Principal for Peacock Capital. Peacock Capital specializes in solving the cash flow challenges of Small/Medium Businesses, Government Vendors and Individuals with innovative financial solutions by providing a network for securing operating capital.

http://www.peacockcapital.com

The Money Blog has no financial holdings in Peacock Capital, nor knowledge of its affairs.

Writing in The Times (London) today, Anatole Kaletsky reminds us that “the financial hurricane season” is now upon us.

“Nearly all the greatest financial accidents — the Wall Street crashes of 1929 and 1987, Nixon’s closure of the Bretton Woods gold window in 1971, the Asian currency crisis of 1997, the Mexican and Russian defaults, the attack on the French franc in 1993, the sterling devaluations of 1949, 1976 and 1992 — have occurred between late August and October”.

On Wall Street buyers generally hold off until Hallowe’en, on October 31, while selling is automatic for various reasons: “…selling of equities is partly a passive phenomenon, since portfolios have to be liquidated when their owners die or cash retirement cheques or make insurance claims.

“These liquidations happen steadily through the year, regardless of seasons. Buying, on the other hand, requires conscious decisions and investors are less likely to make these when they and their brokers are away on holiday.”

So the next couple of months will be crucial for financial markets. Have yourself a safe financial hurricane season.

How best to invest your cash in the UK is always a tricky problem, especially if you don’t have specialist knowledge.

Here are a few pointers that may help :

* Check out the internet-only accounts, which often pay the highest rates.
* You can put £3000 ($5640) in a cash Isa account every tax year. Interest, which is currently over 5pc, is tax-free.
* Some accounts offer guarantees — e.g. Investec’s Hi 5.
* National Saving’s index-linked certificates are definitely worth considering if you pay higher-rate tax.
* Spread money over several accounts. If you opt for a one-year account for some of your savings, you could earn 5.5pc or even more.
* You should be able to earn at least 5pc at today’s rates. Don’t settle for less. Monthly-paying accounts pay around 4.75pc.
* Less fashionable banks sometimes pay more. You can check if an institution is registered here: fsa.gov.uk/consumer.

Finally, be aware of rate changes and read the financial press.

Commercial blogging is not necessarily the same as business blogging. The latter means working for a corporation and blogging its products and services.

Commercial blogging is what this blog is doing. The Money Blog is part of a Web Network Magazine, called Syntagma. It lives, like its print counterparts, by selling advertising around useful content.

There are many types of commercial blogging. If you work alone, you are a “problogger” by one definition. If you work as part of a group, a commercial blogger.

Basically, we are what H.G. Wells called, Originative Intellectual Workers. In one sense, we securitize our talents and put them on a global market to sell to the highest bidder.

Originative Intellectual Workers (OIWs) face many challenges and opportunities in the new world of independent publishing. The opportunities come mainly from relatively cheap, universally-available means of publishing content. A short-list would include, print-on-demand books, ebooks, P2P file distribution, blogs, RSS, content management systems, Wi-Fi, and podcasting.

The challenges arise from the commoditization of information and the inevitability of supply overeaching demand. As Bill French put it: “… information nears the point of zero-price (not zero-cost).” In other words, how does one get paid? Many OIWs simply give away their content and rely on name-brand consultancy and speaking engagements to drive cash flow. Many writers are uncomfortable with that. Showbiz and the pen are not natural bedfellows.

Blogs have come into their own quite quickly. Although business blogging is still in its infancy (less than 1pc are business blogs), all the top OIWs are blogging. But why have blogs taken off in the world of business? Because, says Joyce Wycoff, they are

“Creating an environment where ’serendipitous types of conversations’ occur, a place where people from various disciplines bump into each other and start talking about possibilities.”

So we’re talking innovation here. In an uncertain world situation where educated Indians and Chinese are taking intellectual and software jobs from the West, OIWs are right to be on their guard. They are also right to think innovatively. The East may be good at playing catch-up but, as Tom Peters clearly believes, through innovation we can ensure that they’re always chasing the game.

Blogs play an enormous role in this process. By capturing new ideas and keeping them alive. And by chasing new uses for ideas and testing them in a fluid, receptive environment, they cut the mustard in unpredictable ways.

Blogs can build and drive an innovation factory with the slenderest of tools. Robin Good’s “RSS NewsMaster’s Toolkit” follows up his recognition of NewsMastering as the latest job chrysalis for emerging OIWs.

In Robin Good’s terms, RSS channels — even those originating from simple blogs — are “News Radars” for a new breed of independent publisher and content provider. A News Radar is “a constantly updated thematic channel of highly relevant web references that are gathered in accordance with specific, persistent search criteria.” In simpler terms they are a new means of publishing our work, which may be on “topics, people, opinions, products, news items, events or passions.”

Whichever role you wish to play online, you have to do it very well, because competition is fierce and growing and is not restricted now to the English-speaking world. The whole world is now the English-speaking world.