Perhaps the most common advice I give to business owners is to delegate more. This is because the ultimate scare resource is the business owner/operator’s time. By delegation, we hope to accomplish more by working through others. One can achieve managerial leverage much as we achieve financial leverage. Delegating is difficult. One must let go […]
Ice Chip Grannies
I was a sponsor of Impact 2016 again this year. Impact is an annual three-day gathering of CEOs of small to medium-sized businesses. Our closing speakers this year were the “Ice Chip Grannies.” These are two grandmothers who have started a number of businesses. But they’ve finally hit the big time with a sugarless candy […]
The Three-Week Vacation Test
Later this month I will be participating in Impact 2016, a meeting of one hundred CEOs, COOs and business owners. The theme of the event is Change. I’ll be co-presenting on the topic of “How to Build a Business a Buyer Would Love.” It’s a great topic and fits well within the overall theme. We […]
Why are My Taxes so High and What Can I Do about It?
I get asked this a lot lately. Here is what I think has happened. Back in Olden Times when I was working for a CPA firm and the Earth was cooling, earned income tax rates were 50% and unearned income rates were a whopping 70%! I’d ask successful clients whether they were considering expanding. Most […]
Built by Anhalt
Do you know the name Fred Anhalt? If you’ve been around Seattle for a while or you’ve been involved in Seattle real estate, you might. Real estate professionals often speak of “an Anhalt” being for sale. “An Anhalt” means one of the buildings built by Fred Anhalt, mostly apartments. I think most people agree that […]
Should We Worry So Much About Making Employees Happy?
There have been countless studies on whether happier employees make more productive employees. These studies have shown mixed results but generally the answer is no, happier employees are just happier, they are not more productive. One of the outliers, a study that shows that happier employees are more productive, was sponsored by a workplace snack […]
Of Profit Levers, Cost Behaviors and Sparklines
I am usually asked to work with a client because of one or more of these three reasons: 1. Poor accounting information. 2. Poor profitability. 3. Poor cash flow. In terms of priorities, sometimes cash flow just can’t be ignored. If I have a choice, I begin with accounting information, meaning accurate and timely financial […]
Emergency Succession Plans—The Need
My clients are mostly owner/operators of businesses. Working with these entrepreneurs, it is natural to ask, “How does this end?” That leads to working on succession and exit plans. It makes sense and it is a big part of my practice. But what about emergency succession? I’m talking about when the owner operator has a […]
Emergency Succession Planning for Closely Held Businesses
Purpose The purpose is to create a plan to ensure the viability of a closely-held business that has an owner/operator and lacks an independent board of directors. Common characteristics of this type of business are often a few key employees but few or no executives within the employees. Certainly there is no executive team. The […]
Taking Advantage of Good Times; Preparing for Bad
I’ve written about this topic before. We all want to take advantage of good times, such as those we’ve been experiencing for the last several years, while preparing for the next downturn, which will inevitably come. Most of my clients have had increased revenues in every year from 2012 through 2015. In fact, many were […]