Is Your Home Insurance Policy Covering Your Home Business? The number of people who run their business out of their homes is increasing all the time. Some people work from their kitchen table or home office because it saves money. Others do it because they just enjoy having a 30 second commute to work. There are lots of reasons why home offices are ideal places for people to run their businesses.But one big risk that many home business owners make is to rely upon their homeowners or renters insurance. There are quite a few reasons this may not be a prudent idea. This is especially risky if you have not reviewed your home policy since you started your business.Home Contents Insurance Most homeowners policies are a package of coverage. One part of the package is home contents insurance. When you purchased your policy, some time ago, you may have estimated a value for your personal property like your furniture, TV and jewelry. But most businesses rely on supplies, inventory, computers and accounting records. If you purchased your original policy without thinking of these things, it is very likely that you do not have enough coverage.Liability InsuranceA typical home policy may cover you in case a visitor to your home claims damage. But this may not cover you in case a customer claims your business caused damage. You may need business or professional liability insurance to be sure you are not risking your assets.Relocation One very handy feature of many modern home policies is relocation in the case your home must be vacated while it is repaired or rebuilt. This feature may help you rent a motel room or apartment. This may be fine for temporary living arrangements, but probably will not provide enough space to keep running your business.How Can You Cover Your Home Based Business?Some larger insurers may present you with a simple and affordable solution. For a very small business, an additional rider for a home based business may be all you need. You may just need to increase your personal property insurance. A chat with a good insurance agent should point you in the right direction.If your business is a bit larger, you may be able to purchase an inexpensive Business Owners Policy (BOP). These policies provide a package of commercial coverage, but can be customized to your needs. They are common choices for small business owners like store owners, dentists, and home business owners.How Can You Find A Good Deal On Home Based Business or Homeowners Insurance?You can find online quote forms for homeowners or home based business insurance. You start off by entering your zip code, a few basic details, and you can be quickly matched with the top insurers who do business in your city or town. Remember that most insurers have policies and prices that differ by location, and that is why you need to look for top insurers in the place where you live or do business.

Estimating your assets value:

Typically, one of the first questions a business owner will ask me is, “how much will the assets bring at an auction”. After taking the time to review the assets, the auctioneer should give the client a conservative estimate of the sale based upon his experience and the current market trends. It is important that the company give realistic expectations so the seller can make informed decisions based on their best interest.

Compensation and Expenses:

Is the company you are considering working for you or against you? The agreement you decide may determine this.

A business owner should carefully consider how the auction company is compensated. The most common commission structures include: straight commission, outright purchase of assets, guaranteed base with a split above to both auctioneer and seller, guaranteed base with anything above going to auctioneer or a flat fee structure.

In a straight commission structure, the company is paid an agreed upon percentage of the total sale.

In an outright purchase agreement, the auctioneer simply becomes your end buyer. The company purchases your assets and relocates them. While this can be an option in some unique situations, keep in mind that they will want to purchase your assets at a very reduced price to make a profit at a later date.

In a minimum base guarantee, the auction company guarantees the seller that the auction will generate a minimum amount of sales. Anything above that amount either goes to the auction company or split with the seller. While a seller might feel more comfortable doing an auction knowing that he is guaranteed a minimum amount for his sale, keep in mind that it is the best interest of the auction company to secure a minimum base price as low as possible in order reduce their financial liability to the seller and secure higher compensation for the sale.

In a flat fee structure, the auctioneer agrees to show up for the sale and call the auction. There is no incentive for the auctioneer to get the best prices for your assets. The auction company is compensated regardless of the outcome of your sale.

What is the best option for business owners? In my experience, an agreed upon straight commission structure. This puts the responsibility on the auction company to offer the best outcome for everyone involved. There is an incentive for the auction company to work hard for both parties, set up and run a professional sale, get the highest bid and sell every item on the inventory. Successful auctions translate to a higher bottom line for both the seller and the auction company.

Auction Expenses:

In most auction agreements the expenses to conduct an auction are passed to the seller. If the auction company pays for the expenses, it is simply absorbed in higher commission rates.

All expenses should be agreed upon in advance in a written contract. Typical expenses will include the costs of advertising, labor, legal fees, travel, equipment rentals, security, postage and printing. A reputable auction company will be able to estimate all expenses based upon their experience in previous auctions. An agreement should be actual costs charged as expenses, not an estimated amount.

Advertising is typically the highest cost in conducting an auction. The auction company needs to set up an advertising campaign that will promote the sale to its best advantage and not overspend to simply advertise the auction company.

Once the auction is complete, the auction company should provide a complete breakdown of all expenses to the seller, including copies of receipts within the auction summary report.

Buyer’s Premium:

What is a buyer’s premium? If you attend auctions regularly, you are very familiar with this term. The auction company charges a fee to the buyer when they buy an item at auction.

The buyer’s premium has been around since the 1980′s and is standard auction practice. It was first used by auction houses to help offset costs of running brick and mortar permanent auction facilities. Since then, it has spread to all aspects of the auction industry. It is prominent in online auctions and allows auction companies to cover added expenses incurred from online sales.

It is the responsibility of the auction company to provide clear disclosure of the buyer’s premium to both the buyers and the sellers. Those not familiar with auctions are often taken back by the buyer’s premium. They looked upon it as an under handed way for the auction company to make more money. Reputable auction companies will provide full disclosure within the auction contract, advertisement and bidder registration.

Typically, an auction company will charge online buyers a higher buyer’s premium percentage than those attending an auction in person. Extra fees are incurred with online bidding and are charged accordingly to online buyers. This provides the seller a level playing field for both online buyers and those attending the auction in person. Without the buyer’s premium, there is no way to do this.

Pre-Sales:

We’ve all been there. We’re looking forward to attending an auction only to find that some items were sold prior to the auction date.

As an auctioneer with over thirty-six years of experience, I can honestly state that pre-sales will hurt an auction. When a company decides to liquidate their assets, it is easy to sell off high-end pieces of equipment through online sources, equipment vendors or to other businesses. The seller receives instant cash and avoids paying a commission to an auction company.

Auctioneer’s find themselves appearing to acting in a self-serving capacity when potential clients say they are planning to sell off parts of their inventory prior to an auction. It’s hard not to consider the auctioneer’s commission when they warn you not to pre-sell anything. Yes, the auctioneer wants to earn a commission on those sales but it is more important that the auctioneer protect the sale from potential negative backlash that comes from pre-selling. The buying public knows when an auction has been “cherry picked” prior to the sale and it reflects in their bidding. It becomes a sale of “leftovers” and that impacts prices.

A buyer who purchases prior to the auction usually does not attend the sale. They already bought equipment at a good price with no competition. If they do attend the auction, they tend to let others know of their great pre-sale purchases which again, impacts prices and the overall excitement of the sale.

It is important to understand that auctions work best with a complete inventory. You want competition on your higher end equipment. The easy to sell items make it possible to gain respectable prices for hard to sell items.

When a business owner decides to liquidate their equipment assets, there is only one opportunity to do it right. Hiring a reputable auction company will assist you with a professional, orderly and timely liquidation.

Facebook advertising has become the most effective and successful method to get the desired traffic for your business. Even better, Facebook offers two methods for paid advertising in which the advertiser can weigh the Facebook advertising price options to fit the budget. There are over 800 million users today who will support your business or brand and gain fast growing visibility over the internet. And these two price options Facebook offers is fairly reasonable, and favor the small and medium scale business, too.

Since Facebook is the most well-known social network media over the internet, many advertisers or traders want to take advantage of the site’s popularity. Although most people visit social networking sites mainly to check their accounts for personal and social purposes, they can actually become a part of you and can be instrumental for your company’s popularity.

Of course, businesses need to advertise their products or services to hopefully gain more customers, thereby increasing profits. The emergence of social networking presents an exciting new way to advertise, at a fairly reasonable price, but with your ads reaching hundreds of millions in just a matter of days or minutes, even. Now, carefully looking at the Facebook advertising price offers will help you decide which option you will be paying.

Just like the other advertising services, you are going to pay for the publicity you need for your company or business in Facebook. There are two kinds of payment for advertising on Facebook. These are the CPC and the CTR. Facebook advertisers can choose whether to bid on ads that are based on:

• CPC- “cost per click” or the amount of clicks their advertisement receives or how many times your ad is shown in the Facebook page. CPC is also sometimes known as PPC or “pay per click” on other advertising sites.

• CTR- “click through rate” or CPM for “cost per thousand impressions”. In this scheme, advertisers who select this CPM bidding are more interested into positions and brand awareness. This is a clickable advertisement which leads into concrete conversions of ad impressions. CPM is charged per impressions or feedback even without a single click of the ad.

The actual Facebook advertising price for each scheme is as follows:

For “cost per click” or CPC type of bid, your daily budget depends on how much you want to spend on that particular day. Then you are going to bid per click you receive. For instance bidding for $1. 00 per click of bid will cost you $25 budget for your daily budget.

For “click through rate” or pay for views, you can set your daily budget for a minimum of $1.00 but the default rate on Facebook is $25.00. It’s up to you in how much you are going to spend per day and then adjust whether you like to increase or decrease on the suggested cost. In every 1000 impressions, you can also bid on the maximum suggested by Facebook per impression for instance ($0.01-$0.50).

After adding your new campaign, complete the process by selecting a type of bid you are going to take. Then, schedule your advertisement if you want it to run continuously starting today or run the ad on its specified dates you want. And finally, after reviewing your ad, you can place your ad on the site.

If you avail of Facebook Ads, you have nothing to lose. The Facebook advertising price is guaranteed as is – no hidden charges. It’s the most cost-effective and convenient way to advertise your company or brand to every Facebook user in the planet.