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    The Hot100 business.com is a website that may help you as an entrepreneur expand your business five times of your present earning power.  Watch the video and read the article below for details.

          I first met Russell Allred many years ago as I was doing a story about bankruptcy and what would happen when a business failed and ended up in receivership.  The court would appoint trustees to oversee the operation of the business and sometimes they could help turn things around so that it became profitable once again.

            That’s what Russ and his brother Roger did.  Roger was a CPA and Russ was an MBA and they used their skills to help several businesses in that situation.

            Later they developed some ideas for family businesses to better organize and plan their infrastructures so that the business would continue once the family ownership changed after the death of a principal partner, etc.

            The Allreds published a couple of books about their efforts in the process.

            Russell eventually ended up in commercial real estate working for NAI Capital.  But because of the economic downturn, that office was recently closed and he’s now moved his office to Sunbelt Brokers off of California Avenue.

            But he’s expanded his ideas that will help businesses focus on expansion and profitability, even when the economy is in the tank.

            He calls this “The Hot 100.”

            “Not long ago, Chamber of Commerce CEO Debbie Moreno was quoted as saying that businesses in this economic downturn need to go back to basics.   I think what she meant was that businesses need to look again at their “core business.”   That is, to figure out what it is that they do best.  Of course that includes watching expenses and keeping your cash flow going, and so on.  That’s what the “Hot-100” process does,” explains Allred.

            “We created the process not as a growth tool, but as a method to turn bankrupt companies around.   We looked at businesses by saying ‘what needs to be done here to stop the decline and start it to growing again?’  So it’s a matter of re-evaluating your business and trying to find out what you do right and then do it better than anybody else,” Allred explains.

            Allred says a friend of his in Seattle tried his concept after doing some research which showed a business is 500% more likely to survive once it hits a million dollars in gross sales.

            “We try to inspire them by suggesting they multiply their gross sales by 5, then think of that as their new income goal.   The goal is not just 10% or 30% but 500%.   Then we ask them to consider their average sale and determine how many sales they would have to make to get to that new 5x figure.   Then we ask them to break that number down into weekly sales.   Then, to make that many sales in a week, how many people would they need and how many locations and what kinds of technology would be needed, what kinds of financing, and what kinds of people would be needed?   By the end of our seminar they have designed a new business model that would produce 5-times their current revenue,” Allred concludes.

            Allred sites a local case-in-point: Porterville Citrus was packing oranges for Sunkist 8-years ago and were happy because they were doing about $3-million a year. 

“That’s a good amount for a small business.  But we went through our process with them and they began to implement our ideas.  Today they’re doing $30-million a year!  And they’re new goal, following our same process is now $150-million.  Because they’ve grown so much, the scope of all of their best practices has changed,” Allred states.

Allred is hoping to expand his ideas to Small Business Assistance Centers here in California, in Utah and Washington where he has existing clients now.  He’s offering to teach this method to small businesses for free, hoping that down the road as the business has expanded and is ready to sell, they’ll remember him so he can help them broker the sale.