Small Business Owners, What's Your Exit Strategy?

When I ask small business owners or professionals the question, "What's your exit strategy from your business at retirement?," they rarely have an answer. The most common response is that they haven't given it much thought. That's a big mistake.

As a small business CEO, your job is to develop your business into an asset that can be sold in the future for top dollar. In order to do that you need to look at the big picture and begin with the end in mind.

For your business to be truly saleable, it needs to function without you. Too many small business owners make the mistake of not scaling their business to a size that allows them to virtually delegate every task so that the hands-on, day-to-day workload is performed completely by employees rather than themselves. That ultimately includes hiring a general manager to manage the business.

I'm regularly told by business owners, "I don't want to grow my business any larger."  What it comes down to for those people is this - they are already over-worked and they believe that growth means more hours, more risk, more people headaches, and for what? More gross revenue with little or no more profit? If you are a small business owner or professional and your business won't run without you for more than a couple of weeks, let me challenge you. At this point you don't own a business, you own a job. You don't have to know how to take your business to the next level, you just have to want to grow and then start assembling the team to help you do it. Beyond making the decision to grow your business, the first step in the process is to become a small business CEO rather than a small business owner/manager. In truth, you need to become both.

None of this happens overnight. It's a process of developing a vision, strategic planning and recruiting and developing people. This will likely take years. The payoff is big if you get it right. It's not easy, as a matter of fact it can be very difficult. That's why most business owners and professionals don't do it. I'll let you in on the secret, "don't try to do it alone." Assemble a team of service providers and professionals to come along side of you and to work with you in the areas of your business that you need or want help with.   

There are lots of business owners and professionals who are doing exactly what I've laid out before you in this article.  That general manager that I spoke of earlier is typically developed from within as part of a strategic transition plan and served under the business owner as the assistant manager until they proved themselves by personally driving business growth to a predetermined objective at which point they were promoted to the position of general manager. As general manager the next step is for them to purchase the business at the owners retirement. How will they pay for it? It's all part of the plan.

What role do you want your business to play in your retirement plan? Are you willing to make an investment of time and resources over the next several years in order to develop your business into an asset that can be sold through a transition plan for a significant sum of money? You can't coast your way to success, you have to put your foot on the gas and push the pedal... Enjoy the ride!

The Stakeholders In Your Business

As a business owner or professional, you're in charge, you're the boss. When you interview prospective employees, two of the things you're undoubtedly looking for is loyalty to the company and commitment to the job. Turnover is costly, and the last thing you want is to put time and effort into developing someone to become proficient in their position only to have them leave a few months or years later.

I've always said that the ability to look at things from both sides of an issue is what makes a good leader. That being said, lets take a look at both sides of this important question. What would happen to your business and the lives of your employees and your customers if you died in a traffic accident on your way home from work today?  Could the company survive your death?  Would your employees still have a job and a paycheck to support their households?  Lets now look at this issue from an employee's point of view. Just as we don't want to lose an employee, our employees don't want to lose their job and have to start all over somewhere else.  Employees want to find a company to work for that values them and looks out for them. If they don't feel that they have job security where they are, they may start looking for something that offers more security. This is especially true with key employees. Both employers and employees are typically looking for a common denominator when it comes to security and longevity. This common goal creates a real opportunity for the proactive business owner/professional.

We're clearly talking about the need for business continuity & succession planning. The smaller the company or professional practice is, the more vulnerable the company is to the loss of a key employee or owner. Most business owners that I talk with on this topic have a complete misunderstanding of the real issues at stake and the opportunities and benefits that can come from business succession and transition planning.

I'm frequently told by business owners "I have that all taken care of." Really, I say, that's great to hear, can you tell me about that. "Sure, I have a big life insurance policy, so if I die my family will be well taken care of."  What about your stakeholders beyond just your immediate family? "What stakeholders?" Your employees to start with. "What about them." Well, will the company survive your death? Will your employees still have a job, and if so, for how long? Once you're gone, will the employees stick around to see if the company can make it, or will they begin to look for new jobs right away? What do you think the chances of survival are for the company if the employees start leaving? I'm not saying that the life insurance policy isn't important for your family, but lets not get confused into thinking your succession plan is "all set."  What if you get critically hurt or sick? What if it's your spouse or child who is critically hurt or sick? What role do you want your business to play in your retirement? Do you know what your business is worth?

To truly develop a solid succession and transition plan involves layers of underlying planning. It involves identifying and developing key people within the company. It involves business owners learning how to create leverage by strategically growing the business and delegating important tasks and responsibility. It's about building a successful company and creating an exit strategy.

Who are the real stakeholders in your business? You and your family, your partner(s) and their families, your employees, your customers, your suppliers and service providers, and your business entity itself. Focus on taking good care of your stakeholders by really digging in and working on the continued growth and success of your business, don't get caught up like so many business owners do, by just working in their business.

This is a topic with layers of issues to be covered. Follow me as I continue the discussion in upcoming posts.  

Better Money Management Habits This Year?

This is the time of the year that most of us take a few moments to reflect on the events of the past year and to take stock of those things that we would really like to improve upon in the new year ahead. 

I like to challenge my clients in December to set at least one financial goal and to make a commitment to begin tracking every penny they spend in the new year. Keeping a detailed list of daily expenditures is the first step in truly working to improve ones personal and/or business finances. I say if you're not tracking it, you're not working on it. When money is tight, people are more likely to pay close attention to their spending. When times are good and cash flow is plentiful it's easy to waste money by over spending on things that we really don't need.

Good money management requires two components, a financial goal, and a system for tracking progress toward that goal. If your goal is to accumulate $1,000 in your savings account by March 31st. and your game plan for accomplishing that goal is to cut out all unnecessary spending so that you can save as much as possible each week, then your system for tracking the goal and game plan is to track any and all spending. Your commitment to the goal and the act of tracking your spending will cause you to think about your goal before making any expenditures.

Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. My experience in working with people who have created personal financial security and wealth for themselves is that they didn't do so by accident. They pay close attention to their spending and they avoid wasteful spending by focusing on goals.  Developing good money management habits happens on purpose and it happens over time.  

Challenge yourself to become a better money manager in 2016. Set a specific savings or debt reduction goal by March 31st. 2016, and begin tracking your spending and progress toward the accomplishment of that goal today. Best wishes for a Prosperous new year.

The Definition Of Success

How do you measure success? It's not made up of dollar signs, says the late Zig Ziglar, famed author and speaker. No, success is much more than having money, power, or business success.

Here are the eight things that Zig Ziglar says success is:

1. Knowing that you did a great job when you close the door to your office at the end of each workday and head for home.
2. Having a home and people to love who love you in return.
3. Having the financial security to meet your obligations each month and the knowledge that you have provided that security for your family in the event of your demise.
4. Having the kind of faith that lets you know where to turn when there seems to be no place to turn.
5. Having an interest or hobby that gives you joy and peace.
6. Knowing who you are.
7. Taking good care of yourself and waking up healthy each day.
8. Slipping under the covers at the end of the day and realizing with gratitude that, "It just doesn't get much better than this!"

I often say to my friends and close business associates that it's not what we don't know that is holding us back in life, it's the fundamentals that we already know and look past that keeps us from the lifestyle that we seek. 

Thanks, Zig for giving us words that we can come back to over and over to help keep us on course as we journey through the game of life.

People

There is one common denominator that all companies have.  Whether they’re large or small, no matter if they are super successful or struggling for survival, they all have one thing in common - people.

As a business owner, unless you’re working by yourself from home, your company depends on people.  Employees, customers, vendors and service providers, they are all people.

Understanding how people think, what they want and need, what they like and don’t like, what motivates or demotivates them, and what challenges and obstacles they are dealing with, that’s your business.  As a hands-on small business owner, first and foremost, you’re in the people business.  Your company’s success or failure will be determined by how well you do at mastering the people business.

Believe it or not, the most commonly overlooked area inside most small companies is the people side of the business.  Larger companies have a human resource manager whose job is to focus just on the people within the business, but in a smaller company, it’s not cost justifiable to have a HR manager.  Since the duties then fall back to the business owner, who is already wearing multiple hats, often the administrative side of people management gets delegated to a clerical assistant or an office manager.  The day-to-day motivation, development, and performance management often gets overlooked by owners and managers because they just don’t have the time in their day.

If you had just spent $150,000 for a new piece of equipment, would you invest additional money on performing regular maintenance on the machine?  For most, the answer is yes, of course!  By maintaining the equipment, it operates at peak efficiency. On top of that you have fewer breakdowns and the machine will have a longer lifespan.  People are not that different from machines.  They have needs and desires and need regular attention or they are not going to last long or operate at peak performance. Over time, without development and motivation, people get stagnant or burned out. They may develop issues such as tardiness or absenteeism, or they may just quit altogether.

As a small business CEO, be careful not to make the mistake of overlooking the importance of investing time and resources into developing the people side of your company.  A well designed and executed people attraction, selection, compensation, administration, training, development, motivation and retention process is the key to successfully managing the employees that your company depends on for your very survival.

In closing, let me leave you with this:  Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. The most critical component of any business is the people that make it run.  Successful CEO’s invest time and resources in developing people
 
By Todd W. Meyer, President/CEO of MMI Financial Group, Inc.

August 11, 2014

How to handle taxes for household employees

Taxes.  They’re just about the last thing parents might think about when they hire someone to watch over their child.  Yet a hefty tax bill is a possibility for anyone who pays a nanny, adult care-giver, housekeeper, gardener or other household employee enough in annual wages to trigger a bevy of requirements under tax laws.  In 2013, that financial threshold was $1,800, and it makes the person who hired the household employee responsible for paying federal and state payroll taxes on that worker, just like any other business owner.  They also must reflect in their own annual tax return that they had a household employee. ‘‘People think if they pay this person in cash, they don’t have to report it, and the recipient doesn’t have to pick it up as income,’’ says Cindy Hockenberry, manager of research for the National Association of Tax Professionals.  ‘‘But there are taxes due on that money, and the IRS wants their taxes.’’  Here are six tips on how to make sure you’re not running afoul of the tax man when hiring household help:

Sort out: independent contractor or household employee.  Whether you’re on the hook for your nanny, adult caregiver or maid’s payroll taxes, the process begins with determining if he or she meets the IRS’s definition of a household employee, rather than an independent contractor.  The IRS defines a household employee as someone hired to do work in or around a home, at the direction and control of the person who lives in the home.  Meaning, you tell them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and perhaps provide the supplies; for instance, if you hire someone to mow your yard and they use your lawn equipment.  In the case of a nanny:  ‘‘Any parent would have an almost impossible case to make that they don’t have the right to control the schedule and the work that’s being done in their private home with their child, ’’ says Kathleen Webb, president and co-founder of HomeWork Solutions, which provides payroll and tax services to people with household employees.  Other examples of household workers include drivers, home-health aides and maids.

Determine which taxes you are expected to pay.  Assuming your nanny or other household hire meets the household employee standard, it all comes down to whether you pay the person cash wages of $1,800 or more.  If that’s the case, you are required to pay 15.3 percent of their wages in Social Security and Medicare taxes.  The employer covers half of those taxes (6.2 percent for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare) and can withhold the other half from the employee’s paycheck.  If your household employee is an immediate family member, your spouse, parent, or child under 21, you don’t have to pay any employment taxes.  Be aware that you also could be on the hook for federal and state unemployment taxes.  If your employee is paid $1,000 or more in any calendar quarter, then you must also pay federal unemployment tax of 6 percent of their annual wages.

Decide early on how you’re going to pay.  The IRS gives you the option to withhold your employees’ share of their Medicare and Social Security taxes from their paycheck, or to elect to pay their share yourself.  Let’s say you are looking to hire a nanny to come over a couple of nights a week for three hours.  At the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that’s $43.50.  Extend that over a year, and it’s $2,262 — triggering the requirement that you pay the nanny’s payroll taxes. Under that scenario, unless you have been withdrawing payroll taxes over the year, you’ll have to come up with $173.04 to settle the nanny’s portion of the tax, and an equal amount for your obligation as the employer.  That’s probably a manageable amount to shell out come tax time.  But if you end up needing to hire the nanny to come over more than several times a week, or maybe like so many families today, you've had to hire a caregiver on a regular basis to care for an aging parent or loved one, that tax payment could be much more.  In that case, withholding payroll taxes along the way makes more sense.  Specialists suggest that household employers begin withholding payroll taxes as soon as it seems likely that they’ll be increasing their employees’ hours, and wages, dramatically.  Even if you choose to cover the payment yourself, another option is to set the money aside in a separate bank account, so that you’re not scrambling at tax time.

Verify an employee’s legal status.  The government doesn’t look favorably upon employers who hire people who can’t legally work in the United States.  So the IRS requires that employers and their hires complete an employment eligibility verification form, dubbed I-9, before the end of the employee’s first day of work.  The form requires that non-US citizens provide information backing up their legal employment status and that the employer examine the information against a list of acceptable identification documents.  Once it’s filled out, employers must simply hang on to the form.  It can be downloaded at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf.

Keep solid records.  It's important to keep accurate records of all wages and federal and state taxes you pay or withhold on behalf of your employee.  The record-keeping will come in handy when it comes time to file several forms with the IRS.  They include Schedule H, on which employers report household employment taxes paid, and Form W-2, which outlines your employee’s annual wages, taxes paid by you and other details.

Get help.  Instead of dealing with the intricacies of the U.S. tax code, you can pay an accountant or consider hiring a professional daily money manager (DMM) to assist you in getting things set up with one of the many on-line companies who cater to handling payroll and tax concerns for domestic employers.  The DMM can also help you set up your record keeping system so that at tax time you have everything in order.  To locate a professional daily money manager (DMM) you can contact the American Association of Daily Money Managers (AADMM).  This organization will provide referrals to DMMs in your area.  You can visit their website at www.aadmm.com.

Why families don't talk about money or estate planning decisions.

I've been working with senior clients for the past 31 years, first as an insurance and financial services agent, and for the past 20 years as a financial planner and daily money manager (DMM).  The one common denominator that I have seen among families is a lack of communication about finances and estate settlement decisions between senior parents and their adult children.

As we, or our parents reach retirement age and become seniors, why is it so difficult to talk openly about finances and estate settlement wishes with the family?  Seniors think about the possibility of becoming dependent upon family members, or worse, ending up in an assisted living facility.  Adult children are keenly aware that if something happens to their senior parent(s) someone would need to step in and manage the finances or settle the estate.  Here's where it gets tricky.  My professional experience has been that Mom and/or Dad are not taking the lead and proactively communicating their personal information and wishes with the kids - they just don't want to think or talk about it.  I've also been told countless times by adult children that none of the kids want to be the first to bring the topic up for discussion for fear of being seen as "a little too interested in what their inheritance may be."  Now throw blended families into the mix, and of course a little (or a lot of) dysfunction and believe me, nobody wants to bring up the issues that everybody knows really need to be discussed. 

So how do families overcome these communication issues?  Sometimes getting outside help can make all the difference.  I've found as a professional daily money manager that my senior clients have no problem disclosing all of their confidential information to me; in fact, they like the fact that someone other than themselves has a complete record of everything.  For many clients their greatest fear is that the kids will fight over financial decisions or the estate settlement wishes.  Having someone outside the family to assist their loved ones in managing the estate and carrying out their estate settlement wishes gives them peace of mind.

My best advice is to bring all family members together to proactively discuss the financial and estate settlement details long before any issues come up.  Decide as a family how you will proceed going forward and who will play what role.  Discuss whether or not you want professionals to be involved to provide services or if you will try to handle everything inside the family.  If family members are going to provide services, what should their compensation be for providing such services?  What checks and balance process will be used to assure finances are being managed appropriately?  More often than not providing oversight and care will fall on one person rather than being divided evenly among all of the siblings.  Get everything worked out in advance.  Maintain an open line of communication and review the game plan periodically to keep things current.