What is the primary stumbling-block to business success?
There are wide variations among businesses, from law firms and dental practices through manufacturers’ reps and rental companies to tool-and-die makers and building contractors and wholesale distributors and landscaping firms. No matter what they do to earn their income, though, all closely-held businesses are amazingly similar; and while their problems may seem unique, often they share some of the best solutions.
Unfortunately, though, the ideal way to manage the issues of a specific business may require cooperation among a set of experts. Attorneys, accountants, and specialists in insurance and investments all have their roles to play; but if there is no one coordinating what they do, too often business owners end up with just one solution provided by just one expert.
Remember that if you are a hammer, everything you see will look like a nail! So if your primary adviser is your accountant, he may give you just what information he can see and suggest the solution that he knows best, and you may never learn that there was much more that you could have learned, and other, better combinations of solutions that you could have considered. If your primary adviser is a salesman, then your obstacles to success are worse: you could wind up with lots of whole life insurance or a very well-managed retirement plan, but little thought given to tax planning, growth management, employee issues, succession planning, estate planning, and your eventual business sale.
My job is not to tell you what to do. Instead, my job is to come to understand your business and your wishes so well that I can help you ask all the right questions and assemble all the needed information so we can together review the pros and cons of your various potential solutions and you can then decide with confidence. Then once your decision is made, I can work to make certain that your advisers carry out your wishes. Every decision is yours alone to make! But being given just one or two options, and never being told what else you might have done, makes your right to decide pretty limited, doesn’t it? My job is to let the daylight in!
