Running a Business
If you’re a business owner, you have a lot on your mind. As a business owner myself, I can relate. I’m constantly thinking about how to improve our practice. How do we increase our client base? How do we get more efficient with our time? How do we decrease risk? How do we grow in a sustainable manner?
A lot of the issues in running a business are solved by simply doing a great job for your clients, being honest about what you know and what you don’t, and being a clear communicator. Many others, like those around efficiency and sustainable growth, are a little more complicated yet vitally important to the survival and success of a business.
Stages of Growth
Businesses have different considerations at different stages. A new business owner has to be lean and mean as they carve out their space in the marketplace. What is the product? Who is the market? How do you build an infrastructure around you such that new business regularly finds you and you can ultimately generate a profit? At this initial stage, you may not have the capital to invest in things like professional services (attorneys, accountants, bookkeeping, etc.), or if you do, perhaps not at a high level. You might look into things like entity creation or intellectual property rights for your work. However, at these early stages, because you’re not making as much money, you probably don’t have employees, and as a result things aren’t that complicated yet.
Ideally, a business survives and thrives during these early years and progresses onto the next stage, where you may be leasing office space, hiring employees, upgrading contracts, retaining talent, or any number of other factors that come into play with a maturing business. This is where professional services become indispensable as a means of reducing risk and growing efficiently and sustainably.
Risk
What are we really talking about when we’re talking about risk? In short, we’re talking about the things that could serve as an obstacle to efficient, sustainable growth and/or cost you large sums of money. With business owners, I’m talking about the risk of unfavorable terms in an office lease, the risk of being sued by a former hire, the risk of not paying your payroll taxes properly, the risk of losing a key employee, and the risk of a dispute over a client contract. These are very real concerns that require attention and assistance from experts. A failure to finely parse the wording in client contracts can be the difference in hundreds of thousands in legal fees and lost revenue, not to mention the associated time and stress.
Solutions
If you run a growing business, and you haven’t yet, it’s very important to connect with your business attorney for a “check up." We regularly review client vender contracts, employment contracts, and other documents to ensure that the hiring and firing of employees complies with all relevant state and federal laws, advise around the retention and compensation of key employees, and paper agreements among parties who may have initiated a venture informally but now need things a little more well-documented.
From a personal planning perspective, it is also advisable to consult a trusts and estates attorney who is well-versed on businesses and succession planning, so that your heirs benefit from the value of your hard work. For most small business owners, they are the business, and without a well-conceived plan in place, a business might fail in their absence. There are a lot of different strategies, but inaction shouldn’t be one of them.
If you have any questions, we’re happy to help however we can.