UK Unemployment falls - RTA Business Reports

With the news that UK unemployment has fallen to 2.16 million, RTA Business asks this week, what the current trend in employment statistics means for the savvy business owner, looking to sell their company in the current economic climate.

At RTA Business We Know Why Unemployment Numbers Matter

Here at RTA Business, we know that when you decide it’s time to part with your business, you want to receive a return on every last bit of hard work that you’ve put into your company. In order to do that, we have learned in our tenure as a business sales facilitator that if you want to receive the highest return possible, you need a favourable economic environment.

That’s why unemployment figures are key. When the unemployment rates fall, it generally means that companies are hiring; expanding to make more money. Expanding companies often look to diversify their business model, and lift their bottom lines, by buying other companies. Essentally, the lower unemployment numbers are, the more likely you are to sell your company.

An Employment Trend

The last several years have not been encouraging when it comes to unemployment numbers. The recession that hit the country due to the global economic crisis, forced companies to lay employees of in droves. At the height of the downturn, unemployment numbers were staggering.

However most financial experts agree that the UK economy is now in full-fledged recovery, partly because unemployment numbers have gradually been decreasing over the last few years. This month, the trend continues, as the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the number of people out of work fell to 2.16 million, dragging the national unemployment rate down to 6.6%. In contrast, the number of people working saw a record rise of 345,000 to hit 30.5 million; most of these people, according to the ONS, are in full time employment.

More People in Full Time Employment than Ever

David Tinsley at BNP Paribas commented on the nature of the trend to the BBC, highlighting the fact that: "The rise in employment this month is concentrated in full-time employees, not self-employment, which in the past has been used to 'talk down' the strength of the rise."

The fact that less people are unemployed since the recession, and that these people are working full time jobs, really does indicate that employers are hiring more than ever at the moment. They’re looking to expand, and we’d suggest that if you’re thinking about selling your business right now, you jump right on that!

RTA Business, Complaints Effect Businesses in These Five Ways

As part of the RTA Business complaints series this week, we want to go a little deeper into why complaints are so bad for your company.

Complaints Are Really Bad for Business

When you eventually decide that it’s time to cash up, sell your company and move on, or that you want to expand your operations by buying a new business, come to us. RTA Business are business acquisitions specialists, who ensure that you walk away with the right deal for you.

We’ve talked a lot about complaints over the past few weeks – how to avoid them, how to deal with them, why people do it etc. and we’ve told you that they’re really bad for business, especially if a potential buyer finds out about them. This week we want to go a little deeper into that.

RTA Business and the Top Five Effects of Customer Complaints

The reality is that when a customer complains about your business, it has number of ramifications that have the ability to put off a potential buyer when you decide it’s time to sell your business, including:

1)  It Damages Your Reputation: The obvious effect is that it damages your reputation because a complaint suggests you can’t deliver what you’ve promised.

2) It Costs to Deal With: Whether it’s in man hours talking the complainant down, or giving them a replacement product etc. a customer complaint will cost you money, money which you could be using to make your business more attractive to potential buyers.

3) It Encourages More People to Complain: If a dissatisfied customer discovers they aren’t the only one, they’re more likely to be willing to complain; power in numbers and all that, further damaging your reputation.

4) It Has the Potential Generates Press: If a complaint is effective enough, it could generate bad press, which makes your company look far worse to a potential buyer than a single complaint ever could. Case in point: the payday loan industry.

5) It Could Prompt a Boycott: Worse comes to worse, it could spark a campaign against you, which would combine all the previous four effects of a single complaint. Translation; you can forget making any money off the sale of your business.

Just remember, there are a number of ways that a complaint can affect your business and drive away a potential buyer so do everything you can to avoid a customer complaint!

RTA Business’ Top Five Tips For Boosting Creativity

The best, most lucrative businesses are built on creativity, and without it, you’re never going to attract a buyer and make a tidy profit. This is why RTA Business, this week, has decided to list its top five tips for boosting creativity!

The Importance of Creativity

A business isn’t built on knuts and bolts alone. You need a product and that product has to be capable of generating a significant amount of revenue over the long term. That’s why you need to be creative. You need to have the capability to dream up a product so useful that it’s capable of attracting a sustained customer base. No easy task.

It’s doubly important if you’re looking to build up your company, only to sell it off for profit one day. A buyer won’t be interested in a firm that merely stays above water. They want to buy a business that will make them a lot of money; the more profit avenues you can dream up, the more attractive your business will be when you decide it’s time to sell.

The Creative Top Five from RTA Business

However it’s easier said than done to get creative – that’s why writers so often have writers block, it’s all about inspiration, which isn’t something you can automatically tap. However, you can help stimulate your mind along the way with these top five tips:

1      Observe the World around You: How are you ever going to dream up a new product that will sell well if you don’t know the world you’re selling it to? Observe your customer base and let them inspire you.

2      Seek out a Little Help: Other people have fresh life experiences to bring to the table that you don’t. Use that different perspective to spark your own imagination. They may know something that you don’t that makes your impractical idea work.

3       Embrace New Experiences: Get out of your comfort zone. Travel to new places, listen to music you never have before etc. If you open your mind, you never know what you may encounter that will give you that ‘profit margin changing’ idea.

4    Get Imaginative: You need to think outside the box, and to do so, you need to ask ‘what if.’ Take a scenario and ask what the wildest possible outcome could be. You’d be surprised what practical ideas often come from the wildest of situations. Take the internet as an example!

5       Be Brave: This is the best possible tip we could give you, don’t be afraid to take risks. Do you think people like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs got to where they are by playing it safe?

Reach for the Sky: RTA Business on the Art of Innovation

The amazing news that Google is attempting to build an honest to goodness self-driving car, only highlights the need for creativity and ambition in business, and this week, the RTA Business blog will explore just why you need to reach for the sky if you hope to make a substantial profit on the sale of your business.

It’s not as easy as showing a potential buyer your profit margins and waiting for them to sign on the dotted line. Buyers want to know that they can use your business to build on profit margins in the long term. If you’ve developed a lucrative, innovative product that fills a gap in the market, they’ll be biting your hand off to gain access to a veritable gold mine. This is why you need to reach for the sky.

Google: A Case Study in Ambition

Google is the perfect case study to highlight the benefits of ambition. They’ve practically constructed their entre brand through sheer ambition. Time and time again, Google have attempted the improbable, or at last the inadvisable (such as introducing Gmail in a saturated market) and they have seen success that has spurred them on to new heights.

They’ve become so popular because they find gaps in the market where they can make the most money - they find the practical opening then ambitiously shoot for the stars to fill it. The numbers back it up. Since it was first created in 1998, Google, according to Forbes, has become worth a staggering $382.47 billion.

RTA Business Asks: Will the Self Driving Car Work?

So is the self-driving car a step too far. It’s certainly an ambitious project; a car that will have a start/stop button, but no controls, steering wheel, pedals etc. If it’s possible, and that’s a big if, we at RTA Business believe that it could be Google’s next highly successful project.

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin explained why to the BBC, stating that it aims to "improve people's lives by transforming mobility". The amount of people this could benefit is sky high – disabled people, older people, people who can’t drive, blind people etc. There’s so much potential.

This is why you need to reach for the sky if you ever hope to sell your business. Find that gap in the market and truly fill it, and you have a gold mine on your hands, a gold mine buyers will flock to acquire for a tidy sum!