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Elevator pitches, or speeches, are the average length of an elevator ride of 30 seconds. They should be persuasive, memorable, interesting, and also need to explain what makes you and your business unique. Here are some points on how to craft a great pitch:

· Identify your goal
· Explain what you do
· Communicate your unique value proposition
· Engage with a question
· Pull it together and practice
· Leave behind a business card or company brochure

Example: “I work with small to medium size technology businesses to help launch important new products, improve profitability, and attract more clients than they could possibly handle. Can we schedule a meeting to discuss how can I help you?”

Again, Maryland end up in the bottom half of the list when it comes to how we treat businesses. No businesses-No Jobs, why is this so hard for these Liberals to figure out?

Walkersville, MD. – June 2nd, 2012, The Inaugural Peterite Golf Classic at Glade Valley Golf Course

Our sister company, U S Franchise Brokers, fielded our first Golf Team for this event. Consisting of Jim King, David Fugit, John Winston and Dan Richardson. The tournament was very successful with over 120 golfers organized in over 30 foursomes. Breakfast was provided along with a catered barbecue Dinner and many prizes. Our foursome finished in the top ten without using any mulligans, just 6 strokes behind the first place winners who turned in an impressive 63 for the round.

The weather was beautiful, the course in excellent condition, a good time was had by all.

The golf tournament supports not only Saint Peter’s College Alumni Association, but also two other causes; a Pediatric Cancer Hospital and the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction (NFFR). Because of their importance to the membership, theyplan to share the tournament net proceeds in the following manner:

1. Establishing a Career Guidance Center and developing the Trust Fund at St. Peter’s College, Sri Lanka (34% of the net proceeds).
2. Purchasing hospital equipment for the new Pediatric Cancer Hospital Unit in Jaffna, Sri Lanka (33% of the net proceeds).
3. Funding research at the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction (NFFR) New York, USA (33% of the net proceeds).

The 3 Biggest Mistakes Most Business Buyers Make

Buying a franchise or an existing business is a very exciting process. There are so many things to consider while you are searching for the right opportunity such as; income potential, growth and expansion, competition, local market, facility, etc. that many business buyers get so caught up in the details that they forget the basics. Savvy business buyers won’t let the details get between them and their entrepreneurial objective.

Counting them down backwards like Letterman does it:

Mistake #3: STAY FOCUSED – KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS.

We receive hundreds of buyer inquiries a year from prospective buyers asking for information on several unrelated types business at one time. A person that asks for information on a gas station, a nursing home, and a construction company, all at the same time comes off as lacking focus and unaware of their own limitations. Because the drive to own a business and be your own boss is so strong, many people just jump out on the internet and start sending in inquiries before they have any idea how they would evaluate and then operate a particular business, much less secure the funds to acquire the business.

As a business broker, I have trouble taking this type of prospective buyer seriously. More often than not, this prospective buyer will never end up buying a business from me or any other business broker.

Mistake #2: KNOW HOW YOU ARE GOING TO FINANCE THE BUSINESS.

Once you have asked a business broker to share information about a particular business you must be prepared to give him/her detailed financial information to show that you have the financial resources to be considered a serious potential buyer. If your answer when asked for this information is something like; “Don’t worry I have plenty of money,” or, “I will worry about that if I decide I like the business,” or “I have investors that will be going in with me,” a business broker worth his/her weight in salt will most likely let you know immediately that he/she do not work with unscreened and un-qualified prospective buyers. Sellers do not want their brokers wasting their time with people that are not ready, willing and able.

If you are not sure how you are going to finance the business ask your broker to give you some ideas how a deal might be structured to make an acquisition possible. When we know about it ahead of time we can usually help many buyers through the process to successfully secure financing.

Investing your time looking at businesses that are beyond your financial resources is a waste of everybody’s time.

Mistake #1 (BIG MISTAKE): FAILING TO MAKE AN OFFER

Every successful journey starts with the first step. You might be a great candidate for a particular business, you might have all your financing lined up, you could well be the most ideal potential purchaser for a business, however, if you don’t make an offer you will surely never make a deal on that business.

When you make an offer on a business you are starting the buying process. It is interesting to note that not all first offers are accepted, not all second offers are accepted, there is no guarantee that any offer you make will be accepted. The only thing that is guaranteed is that if you never make an offer, you will never buy a business.

When you are ready to make an offer, make your offer on a contract not a letter of intent. A purchase contract tells the seller you are serious, ready, wiling and able to buy their business. Your broker will help you to ensure that there are safeguards built into the contract to give you the ability to back out and void the contract if you are not satisfied with the books, or the valuation, or if you cannot secure the balance of the financing you need, or if the landlord will not approve you to take over the remaining unexpired term of the real estate lease, or just about any other contingency you can think of for your protection.

Never being one to waste a whole lot of time getting things done, our new website is done, up and running, ready to go. Our Certified Franchise Brokers help people from all over the country to find the perfect Franchise opportunity for them to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. Why so much time and energy invested in this? Check out these statistics about Franchises and the economic effect on our economy.

Economic Activity in Franchised Businesses

In 2007, there were more than 828,000 establishments in franchise systems in the United States. These businesses directly provided:

9.1 million jobs
$304.4 billion in payroll
$802.2 billion of economic output
$468.5 billion to GDP

Franchised businesses amounted to 2.8 percent of all non-farm business establishments. Their economic activity accounted for:

6.2 percent of all private, non-farm jobs
3.4 percent of all private non-farm output
3.9 percent of all private non-farm GDP
3.4 percent of all U.S. GDP, including the government and farm sectors

Franchised businesses provided about the same number of jobs in the United States in 2007 as the manufacturers of durable goods, such as computers, industrial equipment, cars, trucks and planes. Franchised businesses provided more jobs than many other sectors of the economy, such as financial and insurance, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, and others.

Economic Activity Because of Franchised Businesses

The economic significance of franchising is greater than the activity in franchised businesses alone. Franchised businesses generate economic activity in other businesses, which is described as the indirect economic impact. Taking into consideration economic activity in franchised businesses and additional economic activity caused by franchised businesses, the total contributions to the U.S. economy in 2007 were:

17.4 million private non-farm jobs, or 11.8 percent of the total
$707.6 billion private non-farm payroll, or 9.7 percent of the total
$2.1 trillion of private non-farm output, or 9 percent of the total
$1.2 trillion of private non-farm GDP, or 9.7 percent of the total
Overall contribution to GDP because of franchised businesses accounted for 8.4 percent of total U.S. GDP, including government and farm sectors in 2007.

Business Model and Lines of Business

In 2007, business format franchising was far more prevalent than product distribution franchising, with 20 times the number of establishments, five times as many jobs, and four times the amount of economic output and contributions to GDP.

A further breakout of business format franchises into 10 business lines shows that Quick Service Restaurants generated millions of jobs and have a huge economic impact on many other businesses through ancillary purchases.

Quick Service Restaurants provided more establishments and jobs and generated more economic output than any other line of business with 37 percent of all jobs. Table/Full Services Restaurants provided 12.7 percent of all jobs and Business Services provided 12.4 percent of all jobs.

In terms of contribution to GDP, Quick Service Restaurants provided 21 percent of GDP, followed by Business Services 19.4 percent of GDP, and Real Estate 13 percent of GDP.

When measuring the ratio of franchised establishments to all establishments within a line of business, franchised restaurants made up the largest component of all Quick Service Restaurants (46.2 percent), followed by franchised hotels in the Lodging sector (21 percent), and franchised full service restaurants in the Table/Full Service Restaurants sector (12.7 percent).

When measuring the ratio of jobs in businesses compared to all companies within a line of business, Quick Service Restaurants also provided the largest share of jobs (68.5 percent), followed by Lodging (31.8 percent), and Table/Full Service Restaurants (21 percent) within their business sectors.

Eighty-six percent of establishments in the business format franchise sector were owned and operated by franchisees and 14 percent were company-owned and operated.

*Government sources indicate there are approximately 29 million businesses in the United States, including both employer and non-employer establishments.

**The Economic Census does not cover non-employer businesses, such as small family-run businesses and independent contractors. According to the Census Bureau there are 21.4 million non-employer businesses (73.8 percent) compared to 7.7 million businesses with paid employees (26.2 percent).