Dun and Bradstreet’s latest trade payment analysis publication (June 2014), shows that Australian Businesses are identifying cash flow as the most likely impact on their business operations with new analysis on invoicing revealing payment times have slowed to their lowest rate in three years. Business to business payments in the 1^st quarter of this year are now slower than the previous quarter and that of 12 months ago, indicating that business finances may be under strain. This emphasises the importance on controlling debtors (and stock), and the advantage of positive cash flow business such as service stations, childcare centres, super markets, liquor stores etc. Benchmark offers a wide range of businesses for sale across four states.  With over 400 businesses listed for sale, Benchmark offers something for everyone.

Benchmark has a very extensive database of buyers looking to acquire a franchise business for sale right across Australia. Our specialist team of franchise brokers are available to meet your needs in a professional and confidential manner wherever you may be looking to buy or sell. Our Franchise Sales Division [FSA-Franchise Sales Australia] boasts a team of dedicated specialists with many years’ experience in business ownership, management, valuation and sales. Our experience not only covers established businesses but also the acquisition and development of potential new sites and outlets for greenfield sites.   Whether you are a franchisor or franchisee, or if you want to buy or considering selling a Franchise, we have the very latest information regarding franchises for sale in Australia, including many new listings every week. You will find our specialist brokers have their own areas of expertise within the franchise sector, some are dedicated towards franchise Cafes and fast food takeaway and others are dedicated towards those non-food franchises such as; pool shops, bedding stores, building products, tyre retail, and furniture retail. In any event, we have the right franchise broker to do the job.

How's this…………………. “…………………….buyers often ask me, “is it a good time to buy a business in this market at the present time”? ? I tell my buyers …the time is right if the business is right for them… there is no right or wrong time. Quality businesses will be bought and sold no matter what the economic situation… because there are not that many options around, How can you make a living if you don’t want to work for a boss? Most of us cannot live off an interest return of 5% on a say a $million dollars sat in a savings account these days. – So the need to earn income cannot be ignored. “Sellers ask me is it a good time to sell their businesses? “   I tell them from my experience over the last 9 years in selling many diverse General Businesses, through various economic times, that the right time to sell is when it is timely for them to sell…that means having their business properly prepared for sale as “Victory loves preparation” … Russell Crowe said that in the Gladiator after beating all his rivals in battle!  Selling when it’s timely for the seller is not always possible, as life is a game of chance and the tides can change unexpectedly any time in a life cycle. – So the best business owners are always prepared to sell – then they will be able to sell when it suits them best.

As the economy slows somewhat and job losses mount up, the demand for quality stock has never been higher. Job losses have allowed for higher multiples of sale than previous years. Why? The answer is redundancy packages and a higher demand from astute individuals who value high quality stock. Buyers are carefully using their unfortunate windfall ever so wisely. They cannot afford to risk on low quality stock and prefer established profits with the opportunity of adding even more value to their investment. Spending wisely means buyers are prepared to spend the extra multiple to receive quality stock that can suit all their criteria. So what are buyers with excess cash looking for at present? Cafes, cafes & more cafes with one extremely popular criteria: NO KITCHENS! In prior years buyers main criteria seemed to be the big seated venues with commercial Kitchens, but as more and more corporate investors and ex-corporate redundancy types enter the industry their inexperience in hospitality calls for them to purchase simple set ups with no kitchens. Other key factors that buyers are requesting:

1. Is the business fully managed?
2. Is rent under 10% of gross turnover
3. Is the business showing a healthy profit on the books?
4. Is their minimal staff required to manage and roster?

As wages increasingly become the highest cost of hospitality businesses, I now see even seasoned veterans preferring to opt for NO Kitchen venues. Quality venues without kitchens have become so highly sought after that in a lot of cases can be sold without even marketing the listing. So what does this tell the rest of us? I know what it tells me, SIMPLICITY = PROFIT. Emil Parthenides Food Service Specialist benchmarkbusiness.com.au

In 2012 an Australian publication "Marketing Magazine" published the following article. How close were they to getting it right? …….in no particular order, the Top10 trends in Aussie retail and hospitality are: The pop-up shop Unused properties provide fertile ground for temporary shops, restaurants and cafés. Last November the South Melbourne Market played host to SO:ME Space, bringing together established and emerging designers in a marketplace aimed at capturing the younger set in an atypical retail destination for clothes, jewellery, books and more. Presently, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is underway, and local publicationBroadsheet has opened the Broadsheet Bar (pictured above) for the festival’s duration, with guest mixologists running the bar during that time. It’s up-front limited timeframe gives it a festival edge. As does the festival. The food truck Sure: ice creams and kebabs have always come from the back of a truck, but the last few years has seen the ignition of a veritable food truck craze. From burgers to tacos to gourmet hot dogs, all the way down the palate to cupcakes. Melbourne has lead the way over the last year or two, but word on the street in Sydney is that food trucks will very soon be cruising them, too. In the wild: Beatbox Kitchen, Taco Truck (above), Gumbo Kitchen, Grandstand Hot Dogs… The iPad2 ordering system The days of yelling your order to the barperson just for them mishear and bring you an avocado instead of an affogato are thankfully coming to an end with some tech-savvy establishments installing tablet ordering systems at tables. Japanese tapas and cocktail bar, Little Red Pocket, invited Marketing along to the debut of its self-developed iPad2 ordering system, which lets patrons browse an interactive menu of the bar’s food and drink offerings. Once you’ve decided what to order, you can customise it right down to the number of ice cubes in your Lychee Long Time. Payment is then made through a credit card swiper attached to the iPad, and you can sit back until it arrives. But the fun doesn’t stop there, with access to Facebook included, and plans underway to add extra functions such as social gaming and music voting systems. The virtual shop 2D images. QR codes. No staff. Instant payment. What’s not to love? Well, there’s the unnecessarily limited product range, for one thing, although we’re sure this idea will develop further. Woolworths‘ virtual stores in Melbourne’s Flinders Street and Sydney’s Town Hall railway stations were more of an attention-grabbing interactive advertisement, but they proved a point about Woolies’ mobile shopping app. Likewise, Sportsgirl decided to turn what would usually be downtime at its stores on Melbourne’s Chapel Street and in Sydney’s Paddington into opportunities for mobile shopping. The Co-op Bookshop‘s ‘window shopping for textbooks’ (above) aims to cut out some of the hassle of the back to school period by offering a purchasing channel outside the usual queue-happy in-store environment, complete with free delivery to save slipping discs. A recent development: Woolworths’ has expanded its virtual store placements to include bus shelters and vertical scrolling posters within train stations. Scrolling. Moving. While people are meant to scan it? Points lost. The social dinner club Sydney is a transient city, says Cenk Baban. For all the coming and going, it can easily be an unfriendly place to make new friends and try new restaurants. This is where Baban’s Social Dinner Club comes in, with monthly excursions through exotic cuisines, expert speakers and great opportunities to meet fellow foodies. But the benefits extend to business owners too. The Social Dinner Club gets bums on seats from people who may never have set foot in your restaurant. It’s also a great way to get involved in social media promotion, as it’s these channels the Social Dinner Club keeps Sydney foodies up to date with the social dining happenings. The people’s market A few bucks to come along and sell your junk, er…treasure? It must be a flea market. But in The Year 2012, they feature gourmet tricked-out shipping containers dishing out gourmet tricked-out foodstuffs (not to mention employing professional PR agencies). Debuting this Saturday, The Melbourne Flea will open its converted shipping containers, with anybody able to sell their wares. The hippest local bars and cafés will be there, and so will anybody who with $35 for a stall. The pop-up shop within a shop An extension of the simple pop-up shop, the pop-up shop within a shop adds a dash of cooperation and cross-promotion to create a win-win-win situation. The host store rewards customers for purchasing, the resident store gets in front of a different audience, and the customer gets some freebies. During March, Topshop on Melbourne’s Chapel Street is hosting a series of temporary shops within a shop celebrating indulgence: manicures, gourmet ice cream, stationery experts and floral delights will treat the customer who spends $50 in store. The co-op 2012 is officially the International Year of Cooperatives. The UN says so. However, it’s not always a cause for celebration, but in some cases a necessity for the survival of essential services. Business owner Natalie van Veen says the trend in small rural towns is towards amalgamating existing services into, “the old fashioned ‘general store’, the one-stop-shop because the individual retailers can no longer afford to stay open.” Van Veen is selling her business to the local cooperative, which already owns the grocery store: “They’re buying the post office, newsagency and nursery from me. I’m keeping the cafe and putting my art gallery in there. Country stores have to amalgamate to maintain basic services for small towns.” The sustainable café Home cooking, locally sourced ingredients, old art installations. Even the venue’s recycled. Kitchen by Mike (above) is set up in an old cannery, the spacious factory floor has a canteen feel with atmosphere being dished out by the ladle. But you don’t have to set up a café in an old warehouse to be part of this movement. The craze among inner-city bean-pushers is currently exploding in a downpour of delicious black caffeine syrup from espresso machines and cold-drip chemistry sets, all sourced from fair trade, sustainable plantations. Food and hospitality sales is a dynamic and growing division of Benchmark Business and Commercial Sales.  We have specialist brokers that deal exclusively with food and hospitality sales.  Some of the types of businesses that we assist business owners in selling and acquiring are cafes, takeaway businesses, restaurants, catering businesses, food wholesale and manufacturing, just to name a few.  We have specialist brokers in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.  As our brokers are specialists they know these sorts of businesses very well, they fully understand the market and often have a database of active buyers looking for a very specific business, whether that be type of business, desired turnover, or location. J0-Anne Wilson Hospitality Specialist benchmarkbusiness.com.au

Market Overview – June 2014 End of financial year approaches! Now is the time to do some tax planning and decide if you want to sell/buy this financial year or next. Most sites under contract now, will settle in the next few weeks and it is an excellent time to chat to your accountant to find out what is the best strategy for you. There are some great bargains ready to move on now so if you are in the market for a new salon then act now! STOCKTAKES Now is the time to get your stock in order, best thing to do is print off a report from your salon computer systems to see what stock is selling and what is not. Then make a decision to package up the non performing stock and create value packs with the high performing stock. Even if you can get back the price it cost you on the poor performing stock it would be a good idea to move this dead stock and make way for some more high turnover items. Just make sure you don’t order any more of the slow stock. You’ll find that your product sales will climb and your stock holding should decrease slightly. Leaving you with more profit and less stock to count at June 30 … By the way you should all be doing end of year stocktakes at June 30 and reporting these figures to your accountant so that you can have accurate closing stock amounts for your tax returns.

Independence – own your own business and you are the boss, you make the decisions, you control your destiny, and you have opportunities for personal growth. Employment – still the #1 motivation for business ownership, “buying a job” for you and your family, and particularly for immigrants (who enrich our country culturally and financially!) Security – with unemployment high, and redundancies constantly in the news, owning your own business provides a solid safety net. Profits – yes, a business has to make a profit to survive, but many buyers are not truly entrepreneurial and are happy if they have a business that provides a secure and comfortable living. Lifestyle – it is great to own a business allied to a hobby or passion, (e.g. a bookshop, sports, music, food, etc.) or a lifestyle change such as a country store or a beach store. Challenge – for some investors the focus is on building the business, growing sales, increasing profits, or tapping the potential. Most businesses we see are improvable. Our surveys consistently show owning your own business is the best investment – offering exceptional returns on capital even after taking out a market level salary. Bruce Rylance. Senior Benchmark Business Broker

The Supermarket business is competitive. However, there are opportunities for a broad range of participants to compete and to achieve great success through offering a mix of product differentiation, competitive price, convenient location & superior customer service. Independent Supermarkets provide a mix of selected products unique to their market, and are able to compete with both smaller convenience stores – as well as the larger supermarkets. A principal grocery buying strategy is to select products and brands that are not necessarily available in larger supermarket chains, as well as providing a full range of staple products, which are sourced from METCASH, and sold at competitive prices. Supermarkets are considered to be “recession-proof” businesses. Everyone needs to buy food. This type of commodity-based business allows for consistent sales and simple budgeting and business planning. This is why so many owners operate multiple stores – once you have mastered the management of these businesses – expansion is easy. For further details contact Bud the Victorian supermarket specialist. Bud (Gamil Baddour) Business Broker Supermarket Specialist

“Where the vendor leaves a percentage of the purchase price as a loan to the purchaser” In the next five years, vendors placing their business on the market are going to have to give some consideration to providing some vendor terms as part of the buyers financing package. This will quite possibly form part of the marketing strategy to obtain the maximum value for the business, particularly if the business has significant goodwill (non-tangible asset) content. The difference between what the bank will value and lend against a business, as opposed to the current market value, is widening – and purchasers will look for assistance from the business owner to help them to purchase the business. This practice is common place in the USA, South Africa and the UK and is viewed as ‘vendor confidence’ in the business which is being sold. This method of financing a buyer into the sale has been a very popular development overseas – and it is only a matter of time before it becomes widely utilised here today. The alternative, with many baby boomers contemplating the sale of their business as they enter retirement, is potentially lower business values, as purchasers calculate what the traditional lenders will lend and the gap between that and the asking price of the business. Ask us about using “vendor terms” to help sell your business faster, and for the best possible price.