January 2007

Good morning.

My friend Betsy Harper of Sales and Marketing Search advised her clients this month to protect their "precious assets" — their employees. That makes sense, since Sales and Marketing Search is a recruiting firm. Betsy doesn't want to just place talent, she wants to be sure that her clients know how to retain these folks.

Betsy's New Year's advice gave me cause to think about my own clients' assets and wonder how they were protecting them… the subject of this month's newsletter!

And, given that January is the month for resolutions, why not resolve to begin the year on the right foot with some high quality, peer-to-peer networking and entrepreneurial learning? Join me and my fellow SBANE colleagues tomorrow morning for breakfast and a lesson from an expert in "Thought Leadership: Separating Yourself from the Pack."

Cordially,


Marijo McCarthy, Esq.
President, Widett and McCarthy, P.C.

Protecting Your Assets: An Achievable New Year's Resolution!

When a business owner contemplates the company assets, it is often a somewhat limited view of the landscape. We all quite naturally think first of monetary assets… whether it is cash in the bank, accounts receivable, equity in the business, etc.

But, if we take a step back and look at the tangibles and intangibles that helped produce those monetary assets, we would recognize the "raw" assets — the people who helped produce the product or service that we sell and the physical assets which provide the infrastructure in which and with which our people produce.

Let's break our company's assets down into bite-sized pieces and ask ourselves a few key questions about each segment.

  • First and foremost, we have our employees to protect, compensate and nurture.

    • Do our employees have adequate benefit packages, fair and valued in the marketplace?
    • Do our employees receive fair compensation, relative to the size of the business, the industry and the marketplace, and reasonable vacation policies?
    • Do we "nurture" our employees (don't roll your eyes over this one… it is sometimes more important than top pay) with training, development, fair supervision, promotions when available, and feedback on a regular basis?

    Reach out to the professional resources who can help you review your employee benefit and compensation packages, particularly if you haven't done this in a while. Be sure you are still competitive with the market and, if you are not, the New Year is a good time to review the process for achieving that competitiveness. After all, without our human talent, where would most of us be at the end of the day?

  • Second we have our physical assets, office or manufacturing equipment, to protect.
    • Are you keeping current with the equipment needed to produce your product or service most efficiently? Old, slow technology can sometimes hold you back, and it's important to periodically review the physical assets in your office or plant. Protection is often best achieved by an upgrade.
    • If your equipment is current, have you shared the existence of those new assets with your insurance advisor? An insurance advisor is more than just someone who sells you a policy… an insurance advisor actually "advises" us on protection we hadn't even thought of or perhaps knew existed. An insurance advisor is part of the professional team (just like your accountant and your attorney), and should be consulted whenever you upgrade physical assets or assume new or different risks as your company grows.

  • Third we have our physical structure, office or plant, to protect.

    Of course, we all protect our office or plant with property and liability insurance, and the same kind of advice with respect to meeting with your insurance advisor fits here. However, the asset is more than just the four walls of the structure… it's the lease as well (that's right, that long-winded document you filed away years ago and haven't looked at since!):

    • Most leases tell us when they begin and end, but suppose you had enough foresight in the beginning to ask for one or more options to renew that lease? Maybe you were able to negotiate a fixed rate for the option or some percentage of fair market value, which gives you just a bit of incentive to stay put right now instead of moving.
    • Protect that option by exercising your rights according to the lease. Otherwise, you could lose the right and find yourself out on the street at just the wrong time in the real estate market. Most leases will require that you give the landlord a certain number of months written notice if you intend to stay on. Letting that date slide by leaves your business vulnerable to a landlord who then has the ability to declare your right to stay null and void!

So here we are, barely into 2007, and we already have a list of things to accomplish. Protecting our assets is something we want to do and something we need to do. We just need a "to do" list (which you now have) and a well-intentioned "nag" to motivate (consider yourself nagged)!


About Us

Widett and McCarthy helps small business owners start, grow, acquire and sell their businesses.

We serve as "in-house counsel"… on-call when needed, but not part of the company overhead. Our best clients understand that the relationship between lawyer and client is a two-way street, built on information sharing and problem solving.

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  • Protecting Your Assets: An Achievable New Year's Resolution!
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