Category: Business Strategies and Planning

A Strategic Plan is About Communication

A Strategic Plan is about communicating financial and operational objectives by taking numbers and converting them to words. The reason for Strategic Planning is to implement a plan of action that will make the business’s Vision/Strategic Plan a reality.  Strategic Planning is the actual process of implementing a Strategic Plan that has set obtainable and…
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Chart of Personal Saving Rate from January 1959 to June 2020

Personal saving is equal to personal income less personal outlays and personal taxes; or can be viewed as the portion of personal income that is used either to provide funds to capital markets or to invest in real assets such as residences. Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income (DPI), frequently referred to…
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Evaluating and Operationalizing Short-Term Decisions Made in a Crisis that Have Long Term Benefits

In the past six months, businesses have been making numerous short-term decisions that can have long term operational benefits.  The key is to evaluate and operationalize these short-term decisions to provide long term benefits to the business operations. The fact is that almost all businesses during the past six months have been forced to do…
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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.…
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A Simple Way to Get Reacquainted with the Business

Recently, I have been having conversations with clients on how they need to get back in touch with what is going on with and in their business.  Below is a simple methodology on how to get back in touch. Sign all the checks the business issues! Yes, it is that simple.  Sign the business’s checks…
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Strategies for Budgeting and Forecasting Due to Extraordinary Events

At any point in time during a year a business may need to revise their annual budget or forecasting models and processes. The Differences Between Budgeting and Forecasting Budgeting is a planning process that is done on an annual basis to help the executive management team define what they want the business to achieve during…
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Avoiding a Liquidity Crisis from Becoming a Solvency Problem

Any size and type of business can have a liquidity crisis. Liquidity can be defined as the ability of a business to pay their current financial obligations, which requires converting assets, such as, accounts receivable, inventory or services provided into cash as quickly as possible.  Cash is the most liquid of all assets and is…
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Why Management Wants the Turnaround Person Gone as Quickly as Possible

In the course of my career I have done more turnarounds than I want to remember.  Over the years, I have learned that most turnarounds follow a similar pattern. First – Business management or owner(s) are questioning why the turnaround person is even needed to begin with.  It appears that no one thinks there is…
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Everyone Hates Annual Performance Reviews – Stop Doing Them

Manager’s hate writing and delivering annual performance reviews.  Employees hate doing self-appraisals and the dreaded annual review meeting.  Why?  For one, this might be the only formal feedback an employee receives all year.  There’s a lot riding on it.  Raises are often tied to the overall rating which adds to the pressure.  Even for employees…
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Turning Two Negative Job Functions into One Positive Job Function

When I talk with business executives and managers two of the most negative job functions they are responsible for are: Annual employee performance reviews How to engage employees in the business’s goals and objectives. The key to solving these two negative job functions is to combine the two activities into a positive job function that…
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