Business Planning

Letting Go While Still Keeping Control

Active business owners often put off thinking about how to pass their business on to a child, or other family or non-family successor, because they don't want to think about retirement--just like they don't want to consider the possibility of premature death.

Yet this failure to carefully plan for their succession, both as regards management control of the business as well as ownership of business assets, is cited as the main reason why only 30% of family-owned businesses continue into the second generation and only 10% make it as far as the grandchildren.

Success and failure

Failure is not a single, catastrophic event. Neither is Success a bolt of lightning or a chance lottery ticket.

We do not fail or succeed overnight.

When we fail at anything it is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Contingency Planning

Creating a Strategic Contingency Plan to Keep Your Company Going in an Emergency

It's the kind of situation that none of us like to think about--a fire burns the headquarters or a flood damages inventory and shuts down the entire area, but it's the kind of situation every small business needs to be prepared for. We’ve all seen news stories after disasters showing people who don’t know what to do about their business and if it will survive.

The best way to prepare is to create a strategic contingency plan that will keep your business operating, even if only on a reduced basis, until the damage can be repaired or the business otherwise restored. Such a contingency plan need not be very complicated or involved.

The plan should answer certain key questions:

What are the most important elements to keeping this business operating?

Why Plan?

Most entrepreneurs prefer to be an "entrepreneur" first and a businessperson second.

This is the first big mistake most new business owners make! Planning and good management skills are vital to business success. Those who do not plan run a very high risk of failure.