Tweet

Small Business Liquidation? Then What? Get Ready To Start Over.

Written by: Bruce Wood

Article Overview: Small business owners who are going out of business and liquidating their inventory are often perplexed when it comes to their next move. Re-creating their original businesses online may not be the answer.

Small Business Liquidation? Then What? Get Ready To Start Over.

Small business liquidations are everywhere, it seems. With record numbers of bankruptcies, even business which were considered successful are failing at alarming rates. Liquidation is often the most visible sign of their passing. Business liquidators are operating in every major city, including Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Baltimore and New York. Small business owners often opt to conduct their own liquidation sales, and contact professional liquidators to haul away their excess inventory, office furniture, computers and fixtures.

Small business owners faced with selling to a liquidator can expect to receive only a portion of the original cost of the inventory or equipment. However, the upside is that within a specific time frame their responsibilities for that portion of the business will be over.

Sometimes the proceeds from liquidation can keep a business owner from bankruptcy. Unfortunately there is often not enough money generated to pay off creditors. In either case, the business owner may come to view the final day of liquidation as the beginning of a new phase of his life.

When the business is finally wound down and closed, the sense of relief may soon be replaced with a feeling of anxiety. The certainty of the old business has been replaced with a clean, if not clear, view of the future. What are the owner's options? Starting another business? Getting a job?

True entrepreneurs will start looking for the next venture, and will compare the potential of each new opportunity with the successes and failures of his past. If liquidation served to point out the downside of business overhead and inventory costs, perhaps a new business model will be examined.

Many former owners of brick-and-mortar businesses have turned to the internet to find an alternative business model to the one which ended in liquidation. Unfortunately, their investigation usually begins with re-creating their former business by making a website. For example, a store owner may try making an online store. Such ventures are often dragged down by lack of knowledge on how to market online and create new customers.

Traditional off-line marketing methods are outdated when it comes to internet businesses. The advertising methods used in offline media are not effective for small businesses online. In addition, re-creating an offline business such as a store will carry many of the same problems which destroyed its offline counterpart: inventory costs; overhead (web site design and maintenance, and warehousing inventory) employees & geographic limitations (shipping restrictions).

A truly new internet business model includes electronic delivery of information products, no employees, no inventory costs, no warehousing and an unlimited world market. Some business opportunities following this model also include a turnkey marketing system and expert marketing training.

Related Articles
  4 Ways to Find Products to Sell on eBay
  Asset Sales
  How to Start Liquidation Business
  Should the UK and the Eurozone adopt America’s Chapter 11 format for bankruptcy?
  Debt Settlement Sales Training

Article Tags: business liquidation, going out of business, small business owners



Related Forum Posts
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Re: Biz Plan Competition - i just wanted to say that posting Small Business Events on CanadaOne is a great resource. Thanks Julie!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Gas bills go up by 18% can we take any more

Basic Operating Question (BOQ) for Empowerment

Paint A Word Picture - Excite Your Customer

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.