Where to Find Help
Business Concern
As the owner of a small to medium size business, you may have felt the need to ask for help but not felt comfortable doing so. Owners of businesses are often skilled in the business they own and enjoy the respect of their family and friends. If their businesses are successful (profitable), it is usually based on their leadership and good fortune. But things change and sometimes the successful are faced with difficulties and even poor results. The humility it takes for an owner to recognize that business is a team effort and that the policy-making group of a business needs help is a principal...
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Creation of Wealth for Business Owners
Business Concern
Among the common goals of members of a capitalistic economy is the creation of wealth. This is often a reason why people own businesses. For an individual, the concept of wealth creation is the escape from dependence on earning funds for current expenses to live a certain lifestyle to building up assets and resources that appreciate over time and are of a magnitude to sustain that lifestyle or a better lifestyle without the need to earn funds for current expenses. Creation of wealth is a reference to accomplishing financial independence through the creation of passive income from investments....
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When Planning Becomes Dynamic
Business Concern
Traditional planning is static. If there is a written plan, we see the plan formulated, documented in writing, presented at a meeting, and then put on the shelf to be consulted for next year’s retreat. This is the opposite of a forceful and changing dynamic plan. A dynamic plan can accomplish continuous improvement in business performance over time resulting in increased profitability. How does a static plan become dynamic? The answer is in the format of the plan. To be forceful a plan must be understood and implemented at all levels of the business – operational as well as management. The...
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The Concept of Time – How Its Progression Affects Important Tasks
Business Concern
The Concept of Time – How Its Progression Affects Important Tasks Time is the progression of events from the past to the present into the future. Time marches forward relentlessly. From birth to death, we age, and every moment that passes is unique and unrepeatable. The more important tasks we accomplish within our lifespan, the more fulfilling and impactful our lives can be. But what defines "important"? Is it happiness? Recognition? Pursuing a passion? How we define, or not define, “important” has a great deal to do with how we spend the time of our life span. I believe in defining...
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Pay Attention to What is Important
Business Concern
In the new year make sure you pay attention to what is important but not urgent. This is the time to make resolutions – that process involving review of the past year and resolving to do something different in the new year. It is a given that urgent but not important matters often replace important but not urgent matters in the time allocation of business owners. This diverts the owners from accomplishing important long-term tasks such as obtaining maximum value for their business interests. To pay attention to what is important you must prioritize paying attention to what is important by...
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Important Accomplishments
Business Concern
As a business owner imagine how it would feel at the end of the year to look back and realize you have reached one or more important accomplishments. You used your values to create a strategy. You set a goal at the beginning of the year. You created a plan to act to accomplish the goal. You executed the plan by acting to reach the goal. The feeling would be one of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. For most owners this feeling of satisfaction will not be possible. Most will not have articulated their values and created the strategy to set the goal. Some will not have published the...
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Establish a Profitable Business – Do Not Stop There!
Business Concern
No one said it would be easy. If you are the owner of an interest in a business which has become profitable, you and your team have done something right and it probably was not easy. Moreover, it will not be easy to keep your business profitable. What follows is a chart for the failure rate year by year from a LendingTree analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data (). Time Frame Percentage of Failure Within 1 year 23.2% After 2 years 32.8% After 3 years 36.2% After 4 years 43.2% After 5 years 48.0% After 6 years 52.9% After 7...
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Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
Business Concern
The idiomatic phrase – shoulda, coulda, woulda – conveys the feeling you as the owner of a business might have in three years. Ok, “Could've, Would've, Should've” is a Taylor Swift (and Aaron Dessner) song. But it derives from the phrase often written as “shoulda, coulda, woulda.” The combination of the meaning of each – should conveying correctness, could conveying possibility, and would conveying a thwarted intention – yields a meaning of the uselessness of looking back or looking for excuses. Pat Riley, President and former coach of the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers...
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“No One Wants to Buy a Job”
Business Concern
The quote is from Mordecai Evans who is the Lead Advisor for Business Acquisition Advisors, LLC located in Augusta, Georgia. Mordecai went to work for a pharmaceutical company after graduating from Clemson. His passion for entrepreneurship and sales led him to becoming a broker with a business brokerage firm. Recently, Mordecai formed his own merger and acquisition firm, Business Acquisition Advisors. Rick asked Mordecai to do a Zoom interview about his experiences with the small to medium size business market. What follows is a summary of that conversation. Rick began by asking about what the...
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Thinking About Who Will Buy My Business
Business Concern
If you are thinking about who is going to buy your business, you have already dealt with the significant core perception necessary for business strategic planning: that inevitably, voluntarily or involuntarily, with good results or bad, you will transfer your business interest. The reality check for the owner-manager of a business is the perception of and planning for the inevitable transfer of the business interest. Coming to this realization is the basis for the Prior Diligence strategy. The owner and the business will separate, the principal unknown factor is when and what happens to...
info_outlineMost businesses are founded on assumptions. Founders with a common purpose initiate the business, and, upon its profitability, assume that all owners share the same goals and interests. What do you know about your co-owner’s plans for the business? Have you simply assumed that all of the other owners have the same interests and desires? What if this assumption is incorrect? When the assumption that all owners want the same thing proves to be wrong, there is inevitable conflict. To prevent this conflict, owners need to communicate about their values with respect to the business and develop strategic plans which honor those values. The understanding between owners should rest on conversations and not assumptions. Those conversations need to be about values with respect to the business.
A value is a normative principle that informs and shapes thoughts, desires, feelings, choices, and behavior. A value is not a preference, but an enduring and essential attribute of character. Most owners are only vaguely aware of the standards and concerns that compose their personal value systems. Most unthinkingly embrace an array of normative standards to which they assume most caring and intelligent people adhere. To bring clarity and order to the owner’s personal value system, the owner should reflect on the circumstances and experiences that have informed and shaped the owner’s hopes, fears, and perspectives. The product of this reflection should be memorialized in writing. The writing should be reviewed and altered from time to time to reflect changing circumstances and perspectives. In addition to not thinking about their personal values, most owners have given little thought as to how the business they own fits with those values. Few owners have consciously attempted to resolve the tension that inevitably arises when their personal values conflict with the conduct of the business.
The owners as a group provide the strategic planning for the business. Each owner should understand his or her value system and be able to bring an articulation of that value system into conversations regarding the conduct and ownership of the business. The discussion about owner values should establish the goals for the business. Owners will not all have the same values, and the goals for the business will have to respect those differences. When that is not the case, the discussion should turn to how can the owners go forward given the differences in values. While this may result in a separation of interests involving a change in the business, it will avoid a conflict or dispute involving a traumatic event and damage to the business interests of the owners.
Where there is no dialogue about values, realistic goals not set, and strategic planning not done, then when initial assumptions are found to be inaccurate, emotional responses will create an environment of conflict between the owners and traumatic disruption for the business.
To begin to have a dialogue with co-owners about value, ask all owners to reflect on the circumstances and experiences that have informed and shaped the owner’s hopes, fears, and perspectives. Create opportunities for the owners to articulate their value to one another. Based on those discussions, focus on the goals for the business such that those goals fit with the values of the owners. If you need help implementing this agreement among the owners, visit https://btcllc.net/shop.