Exit Planning Review  
  Exit Planning Information and Education for North America's Business Owners  
 


The Exit Planning Review™ is an opt-in, bi-monthly newsletter published by Business Enterprise Institute, Inc.


This issue is provided to you by Michael C. Valdez, CFP, CLU, REBC, AIF, Exit Planning Specialist  with Business Exit Planners, LLC.

For an overview of Exit Planning or our company, please visit our Web site.

View my Executive Briefing schedule and other Exit Planning offers.



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Issue 166

Announcing a Tool For Business Owners:
Meet Today’s Challenges and Exploit Today’s Opportunities

 

Over the past few months we have shared with you a number of ideas about how you and your company can approach both the challenges and the opportunities that this economy has thrown at all of us. We’ve discussed specific issues such as fraud, and more general issues such as preserving value, focusing on cash flow, increasing revenue and keeping all actions consistent with your ultimate goal: leaving your company when you want, to the successor you choose, for the amount of cash you want or need.

That’s a lot to digest for anyone, let alone for business owners who are focused on steering their companies — successfully — through this economic turbulence. For that reason, we’ve developed a diagnostic tool to help you pinpoint the areas in your company where your actions can have the greatest positive effect.

This tool is a workbook that is organized into four sections:

  • Maximizing Current Cash Flow and Projecting Future Cash Flow
  • Preserving and Protecting Value
  • Creating and Maximizing Business Value
  • Reassessing Strategic Objectives

    In each section, we ask a series of questions that help you think about various ways you might address current challenges and take advantage of opportunities. Once you answer all the questions, we will generate a chart that will illustrate for you where you feel you’ve been deficient (and successful) in meeting today’s economic challenges. From there, we can generate a report that includes a list of suggestions to help your company survive and grow during uncertain times.

    Let’s look at one section: Maximizing Current Cash Flow and Projecting Future Cash Flow. We’ve divided that section into several sectors that deal with assessing:

  • Company cash flow and your ability to measure and manage it;
  • The company’s current business model and suggesting ways to modify it as necessary;
  • Your efforts to produce future cash flow; and
  • Your company’s long-term growth strategy.

    Depending upon what we learn from your answers to our questions, our suggestions may include everything from sitting down with your CPA or CFO for a quick “Cash Flow 101” tutorial, to outsourcing non-essential or non-core business functions. For some, we might recommend a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis, while we may work with other owners to create future cash flow projections for the best, worst and likeliest case scenarios. The suggestions we make will be based on your answers, and will be tailored for your unique business situation.

    Completing this new Workbook takes less than one hour. We are confident that the time you spend on this Workbook will be the most productive hour you’ve spent working on (not in) your business this year. We encourage you to take advantage of this diagnostic tool that was created for mid-size business owners and is available exclusively to us as members of Business Enterprise Institute.

    We are anxious to help you sort through the challenges and opportunities you face and to help you create a strategy for your company’s unique situation. As Exit Planning specialists, we will create a strategy that is both consistent with your ultimate exit planning goals and will place you among (according to a May 30, 2009 report in The Economist) the businesses that will succeed because they “are miserly with costs, wary of debt, cautious with cash flow and obsessively attentive to what customers want. ”

    We will contact you directly soon to schedule a time to complete the Workbook. If you’d like to get started today, just give us a call.

    Subsequent issues of The Exit Planning Review™ discuss all aspects of Exit Planning. The provider of this Newsletter (Michael C. Valdez, CFP, CLU, REBC, AIF) offers you unbiased information about what you may need to know — How To Run Your Business So You Can Leave It In Style™.

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    DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is general in nature and is not legal advice. For information regarding your particular situation, contact an attorney or tax advisor. This newsletter is believed to provide accurate and authoritative information related to the subject matter. The accuracy of the information is not guaranteed and is provided with the understanding that none of the providers of this newsletter, including Business Enterprise Institute, Inc., is rendering legal, accounting or tax advice. In specific cases, clients should consult their legal, accounting or tax advisors.

    The example provided is hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. It includes fictitious names and does not represent any particular person or entity.




    Circular 230 Disclosure: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS under circular 230, we inform you that any U.S. Federal tax advice contained in this communication, unless otherwise specifically stated, was not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (1) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (2) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any matters addressed herein.

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    Exit Planning Information and Education for America's Business Owners

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