Business Owner

What Your Buy Sell Doesn’t Do Can Hurt Everyone

   May 9, 2016     1583  

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day – she had called with a concern about her business. She is a co-owner in a retail store that’s been doing really well. She and her business partner get along and see eye to eye on most things. When they started the business together about 5 years ago they took all the right steps and that included setting up a buy sell agreement. That agreement spelled out what would happen if one of the owners died or terminated employment.

So, what was her concern? Her business partner had recently become ill and was having a hard time coming to work every day. They agreed that they needed to hire a part timer to fill in …now it’s six months later and her business partner isn’t showing signs of improvement. (more…)

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The Benefits of Life Insurance in a Qualified Plan

   March 22, 2016     1431  

Within a qualified retirement plan, such as a profit sharing plan, defined benefit or defined contribution plan (think 401(k)), there are a variety of options in terms of where you can “put” your money, but there is one well-kept secret that very few business owners take advantage of: the ability to offer life insurance inside of a qualified plan. Some types of plans are designed specifically to allow life insurance, while the ability to include life insurance in other plans, especially those already in place, will depend on the plan document. When it is allowed, using qualified plan dollars to purchase life insurance is a strategy that can satisfy a variety of needs for a variety of people.

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Be CAUSE Driven

   February 24, 2016     2116  

WHY? Employees don’t give their lives to a job; but they will for a noble cause. 

When quality and price are equal, the most important factor influencing brand choice is Purpose. This outpaces design and innovation, and brand loyalty. Across the globe, the prominence of Purpose as a purchase trigger has risen 26 percent since 2008. 1

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Breathe Life into Your Business Plan

   January 21, 2016     1472  

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you shudder when you hear the dreaded words “business plan.” You envision an unrelenting tomb of market research, numbers and statistics, and spreadsheets as far as the eye can see, and fees…lots of consulting fees. That’s just one of the reasons that business plans get bad raps. The biggest one though is that after all that investment, the business plan doesn’t see the light of day.

I know because I’ve been on both sides of the business plan. As a consultant during the heady days of the dotcom boom, I wrote jillions (technical term) of them. And time and time again, I saw them succeed at bringing in the money from a venture capital firm, and then get shelved when reality set in.
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