When you first opened your business, growth seemed inevitable, right? You found a recipe for success and you stuck to it. You advertised, you networked and you worked very hard to produce a quality product or service that people need.

So why does it seem that while your efforts haven’t changed your business isn’t growing? Whenever entrepreneurs feel caught in a rut, they should take that feeling as a call to action.

I’m going to share two ways you can kick start growth into your business.

First, write down your top 10 customers. Now pick up a phone to interview them.

Ask them the following:

1. Why did you choose my business to serve you?
2. What do you like about my business?
3. What do you not like?
4. What are some issues or obstacles are you concerned about and how can I help you overcome those things?

After you’ve spoken to them, go over your notes. What are their backgrounds? Do they have similarities beyond the surface? How did they find you?

Determine from these interviews something about their demographic and why they need your business. Once you know these factors, brainstorm ways to clone these kinds of customers. In other words, figure out how to reach prospects that are just like your best customers.

Second, repeat this process with your top 10 referral sources. Who sends you new prospects? Who sends you the most? Who sends you the most profitable ones? If you aren’t already tracking such things, do yourself a good service and start now.

Ask your referral sources the following:

1. Why do you send your clients to my business?
2. What benefits do you get out of our relationship?
3. Is there anything I can do to make your job easier?
4. Tell me about your average customer and their needs.

Whenever you offer to help a current customer or a referral source with a problem, you are more likely to pick up new work from them. This isn’t always the case, but more often than not, it does happen.

It is undisputed that the majority of job growth comes from small businesses.

Logically, one would think that the best strategy in the current economic environment would be to help the small business owner.

However, the TARP bailout funds have been lavished upon major banks, who used the money to improve their balance sheets and pay bonuses to top executives.

But nothing is going into the market to stimulate lending.

I am seeing small business owners having their lines of credit pulled for no reason other than the bank wanted the capital back. It made no sense because these business owners had no defaults on their loans and their payments were timely.

The government’s plan to raise taxes will be a stake in the heart of small businesses. If you are a small business owner, or are employed by a small business owner or just want to see the economy improve, you need to read this analysis available at WSJ.com.

When my dentist will pay a greater percentage of income tax than Google, there is something breathtakingly stupid occurring.

Many of my clients have spent decades building businesses right alongside raising families. They’re entrepreneurs, and I love that about them.

For as much calculating thought as they put into running successful businesses, many have never put any into who’s going to run the place after they are gone – whether by retirement or death.

They haven’t asked themselves how much money they might need in order to exit the business (retire) or under what terms they would transfer the business (sell). If they plan to sell, will the buyer be a relative, an employee or someone outside the picture?

It behooves me to help entrepreneurs realize the critical importance of proper succession planning.

“I Thought Junior Would Take Over”

Many mistakenly fall into a common trap of assuming one of their children will step in and carry on the family business. But let’s face it; sometimes our kids think our jobs are boring and want no part of it.

I know an optometrist, David, who wants to retire soon and regularly prods his adult daughter to take over managing his successful practice of three offices. He wants to hire another eye doctor to serve his patients and to receive income from the business during his retirement.

However, his daughter has never expressed any interest in running the business. She’s got a graduate degree in literature and enjoys teaching. Eventually, David, who is in his early 70s, will have to stop working. He’ll be forced to sell his practice for less than it’s worth or shut it down and miss out on any retirement income because he didn’t do any reasonable succession planning.

Nobody Wants a Family Feud

On the flip side, more than one child might want to take over a client’s business and a the conflict could tear the family apart.
For example: Tim ran a successful manufacturing company that makes pneumatic tubes. After he died, he left the business to his wife, Sue, with a small percentage of shares also left to each of their three children.

Sue is ready to retire. Their oldest child, Rick, has worked in the business since college and managed it alongside his mother since Tim’s death. Rick wants to buy out his two sisters to run the factory on his own. While she’s never managed any part of the business, his sister Kelly decided she wants the same thing. Unfortunately, they have no desire to run it together and Kelly refuses to sell her shares for less than a grossly inflated price.

Sue wants to keep the business in the family but has been unable to broker a decision that either side sees as fair. A legal battle is looming.

Don’t Put It Off, Do It Now

In the two examples I’ve shared, we have a father who is putting off succession planning to his own financial detriment and a mother too afraid of hurting anybody’s feelings to make a decision that’s best for the business.

Both situations could have been avoided through proper planning. I encourage you to make some decisions about what you want to happen to your businesses after you are gone. Consider what might happen if you don’t start to make some choices now.

As always, I hope this article has helped you and your families. If there is a specific case or concern you’d like to discuss, please contact our office.

Check out another trend that our small business owners are suffering under.  Do you cut jobs or do you cut benefits?

The recession is pounding on the small business community.  It is ugly, and will get uglier this summer.

The newspapers are not reporting it. I doubt you will ever see this in the New York Times, but the unemployment rate here in Florida must be in the low teens. I doubt that its at 10%.  I would say more like 15%.

I deal with small business owners daily.  My prediction is that the increases in benefits, the fact that banks have cut off any form of lending and the upcoming increase in taxes proposed by the Obama administration will only further crush the small business owner market.

I think that you will see 10% unemployment for at least another year and more business owners confronted with what to cut.  Benefits or jobs.  Never an easy choice.

I have heard this over and over from small business owners: The banks are pulling out of the small business market.

Lines of credit are being rescinded left and right. I am aware of several cases where the bank called the small business owner and said, “We are pulling your line of credit.”

It did not matter whether the business owner was using the line of credit or whether the payments were timely. In each case I am aware of, the businesses were current on payments. The banks pulled the lines of credit because they were afraid the customer might use it.

As the banks continue to hoard the TARP funds to keep their balance sheets strong, the next wave of financial pain is hitting the small business owner.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that merely scratches the surface of what is happening. It’s much uglier in the trenches than many people realize.

If you’re a business owner and you experienced this, what did you do to solve your need for additional credit? Share your thoughts and ideas here.

The Wall Street Journal published an article about business owners scrambling to stay afloat in the tough economy by skipping their own paychecks, sometimes for months at a time.

Those interviewed for the story already had cut staff, dipped into personal savings, reduced their own salaries and renegotiated bill payments with suppliers. Have you had to take similar actions to save your business or to retain hard-working employees? What did you do?

Read the article, “Entrepreneurs Cut Own Pay to Stay Alive,” and share your cost-saving ideas for small business owners.

When most of you bought your first home, you probably signed a deed as a joint tenant next to your spouse’s signature. That’s the way your parents and grandparents did it, and the real estate agent told you it would to protect the surviving spouse from probate court after one of you dies.

It’s not unusual for the surviving spouse to assume that, because joint tenancy worked well to avoid probate the first time, it will work just as well twice. In thinking this way, the surviving spouse adds an adult child to the deed.

But there’s a trap in joint ownership with a child that you might not know.

Dad’s Dutiful Daughter

Here’s a hypothetical to consider:

Five years ago, Edward became a widower and sole owner of a home and three rental properties he bought with his wife. Edward has two adult daughters, Gwen and Stacy. Stacy has three minor children.

Edward is disabled. Gwen visits daily to do light housekeeping and processes his bills and the bookkeeping for the rental properties. Edward assigns her as joint tenant on deeds to his home and co-owner of the rental properties. Stacy lives in another state and isn’t involved in the upkeep of the properties.

Edward’s will indicates he wants both daughters to benefit equally from his estate and for a portion of its value to be set aside for his grandchildren. Despite this, Gwen will legally own the properties upon his death. The joint tenancy could cause Edward’s other daughter and grandchildren to be unintentionally disinherited.

Disaster Strikes, Estate Targeted

However, while Edward is still alive Gwen causes an automobile crash. She is unable to pay her medical bills and her debt goes into collections. The other driver in the crash was seriously injured and sues Gwen for damages. In the midst of this lawsuit, Gwen’s husband files for divorce, seeking half of his wife’s assets.

Any property she owns, including assets she shares with her father, is in jeopardy of being seized.

The Joint Tenancy Trap

Wanting to protect his estate, Edward decides to remove Gwen from the joint tenancy and then sell the properties. However, Gwen refuses, saying she deserves half the assets as payment for her caretaker duties. Edward must seek a court order to remove her from the deeds.

Even if Gwen had never faced debt problems, a nasty divorce or lawsuits, Edward’s final wishes for his estate might still have remained in jeopardy.

As you can see from this extreme example, the downsides of joint tenancy far outweigh any upsides. I urge you to consider these risks carefully before holding property in joint tenancy with an adult child.

I hope this information helps you and your family. As always, if you have a question or concern about a specific case or issue, contact our office.

Good intentions or not, the $787 billion stimulus package our government recently passed can’t create the momentum I believe is necessary to carry this nation through the current economic crisis into renewed prosperity. President Obama’s strategy to save existing jobs is a noble endeavor, but the funding package does very little create new ones.

This really goes against my grain as a business owner. I’m a futurist, and I tend to support ideas that take us away from where we’ve been and into new worlds of business possibilities.

I also am a huge fan of novelist Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It’s eerie how recent conversations I’ve had with frustrated business owners and entrepreneurs have reminded me of her book. These business owners have told me that if our President and Congress intends to tax away half of what they earn, then they’ll just quit working.

In Rand’s story, our country’s most prolific entrepreneurs, the great engines of the global economy, grow frustrated by overregulation, excessive taxation and a government whose approach to battling poverty is built on the quasi-socialism belief that big government “knows best.” To everyone’s shock, the entrepreneurs and business tycoons in the book quietly shut down and disappear.

Naturally, the world suffers when everyone feels the loss of such entrepreneurial activity. The consequences are dire. New growth stops. The economy collapses. Anarchy sets in.

Paint any scary picture you want of greedy moguls who chase bigger and bigger profits, but life without entrepreneurial ingenuity is a far more frightening image to me. Most of society is fed by the seeds sewn by business owners.

On Feb. 23, I read a Wall Street Journal editorial at online.wsj.com that mirrors my feelings about the President’s stimulus bill and what it lacks – namely any substantive assistance for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

I wanted to share it with you here and encourage you to tell me your thoughts on the issues.