Are you too busy running your company with no clear plan in place?

“What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

          -Peter Drucker

As an attorney in Manhattan Beach for over 25 years, I have met many men and women who own and operate their own businesses, but have never taken the time to hire a lawyer to help them take their business to the next level.

Here is what I see:

You have worked months, maybe years to capture the opportunity to land this deal.  It will mean a major expansion just to do the job, maybe needing to add additional employees, machinery, space, or all of these.  It could be the deal that is a “make or break” for your business.  The contract comes in and is as thick as the Los Angeles telephone directory.  So, you just close your eyes and sign on the dotted line and hope for the best.

What risks are you taking?  What will happen if you order all the extra materials needed and the customer doesn’t pay you on time?  What will happen if you are late in delivery?  Are the terms flexible enough to give you the time to perform if the customer is late in providing information or materials needed?  The bottom line is “people don’t plan to fail they just fail to plan.“

The reason the biggest and most successful companies all have a CFO, trained executives in human resources, strategic planning and a legal counsel is because it saves money.  The costs for this expertise are simply a part of doing business.  Every dollar you spend to get the terms of your deal thought out, planned out and written out will save you tenfold should problems occur.

Here are some questions I ask when putting your team together:

• Does your CPA have knowledge of your industry?  Can they advise you on cash flow, financing receivables, or financial forecasting?  Do they offer advice on tax minimization?
• Does your management team have skills to create both a long range and short-range strategic plan that minimizes risk while maximizing gain?  Have they identified your core competencies and where you need to add strengths?  What is your exit strategy?
• Do you have an employee handbook?  Do you know how to terminate a poorly performing worker?
• Do you have a strategy for growing your wealth? What are your goals for retirement?  Do you have a plan in place?

The most common response is I am too busy now, so where do I get the time to do all this?  Yet these are the very things that can help your business attain the next level of success.  I recommend you put a Fortune 100 executive with legal and business management expertise on your team and get going on your way to bigger profits.

 

Rochelle J. Schneider, P.C., Attorney at Law, Executive MBA, can help.