Blog

Making Your Mark—Tips for Identifying, Adopting, and Protecting a Trademark

by Damon Ashcraft, Esq. & Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA For business owners, trademarks can become one of your most valuable intangible assets as they allow consumers to identify your brand of goods or services and distinguish them from those of your competitors. Adopting a proper trademark helps you achieve critical brand recognition, promotion, and…
Read more

How to Profit from the Commoditization of Products and Services

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Manufacturers and service providers need to realize that their product or service will start on a path to becoming a commodity on the first day it is sold to a customer. There are ways to protect products and services with patents, copyrights, and trademarks, but the fact is that…
Read more

Implementing a Business Exit Strategy

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA and Howard W. Fisher Business owners need to have a complete understanding of how to successfully prepare a business for sale, which will save time and reduce the stress that goes along with implementing an exit strategy. The process of selling a business is stressful unto itself, with due…
Read more

Letters of Intent: An Underused Tool to Get a Deal to “Done”

By James P. O’Sullivan, Esq. & Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Entrepreneurs seeking to buy or sell businesses may start the process informally, but all deals conclude with some form of binding written agreement. A preliminary and often largely nonbinding document called a “letter of intent” (LOI) or “memorandum of understanding” can be a great…
Read more

The Importance of Measuring Salespeople’s Performance

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Sales are the key to every company’s success and the reason for every company being in business. However, often salespeople are left to their own devices, which can cause the demise of a company. Set Sales Quotas for Sales Reps Sales performance is the easiest goal to measure in…
Read more

Financial Business Modeling can Help Executives Predict Outcomes

By: Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Basic Assumptions Related to a Business Decision Executives base major financial business decisions on a series of assumptions most often centered on risk and cost. For a new line of goods, risk factors include projections, such as, “The new product line will grow at X rate.” Or, if a…
Read more

Five Options for Utilizing Free Cash Flow

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Envision free cash flow for a business, to the tune of $25 million. The question is: What’s management’s wisest use of that extra cash? There are numerous ways for a business to use additional working capital, and here are five major options every business should consider. 1. Shore Up…
Read more

Are Spreadsheets Running Your Business?

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA Businesses need spreadsheets and make widespread use of them. Spreadsheets increase the ease and convenience of analyzing operating information, employee data, forecasts of financial results, or just about any other type of business data. They are an incomparable tool for analyzing numeric and alphabetical data. Some companies, however, overuse…
Read more

Eight Essential Elements of an Exit Strategy for Business Owners

By Daniel R. Siburg, CPA, CVA and Stephen E. Koons, CPA/ABV/CFF, ASA All business owners will need to transition their businesses to new owners at some point in time. The new owners could be business partners or family members, and transactions range from management buy-outs to outright sales of the businesses on the open market.…
Read more