Ultimately, your ability to get top dollar for your company may depend on your ability to create an employee incentive plan that will motivate and keep good management. An important characteristic of any successful incentive plan is that key employees earn the incentive bonus based on a performance standard that, when attained, increases the value [...]

One constant of successful companies is a stable, motivated management team. This quality not only contributes to corporate success, it is also key to increasing the value of your business and your successful business exit.
Should you decide to sell your business to a third party, you’ll discover that potential buyers place significant value on the [...]

The necessity of having a trained and motivated management team in place before and after you leave the company cannot be overstated. In the eyes of a buyer, a business has little value if its owner’s departure means the new owner must reinvent the wheel. So it is with systems. Once you are gone, can [...]

“Exit Planning? I’ll start soon—I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Exit Planning? I’m too busy. I just don’t have enough time.”
The problem with both of these statements is that active business owners seldom slow down. We all know that the only things likely to reduce your pace are death or terminal burn-out. This is not to imply [...]

Let’s review the four areas where business owners who want to both survive in today’s economic climate and emerge from it poised for growth (or sale) can focus their energies. As you may recall, those areas are:

Preserving and Protecting Value
Identifying Value and Cash Flow
Creating Revenue
Creating Value

Most owners are currently waist-deep in the first area: cutting [...]

Business owners may be telling their advisors things like, “I’d like to back away from my business”, “I’d like the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want”, “I don’t want to worry about money. But if I sell, I’m unlikely to get enough cash in today’s merger and acquisition marketplace.”, “If I could [...]

We have all heard the old proverb that it’s dangerous to put all of your eggs in one basket.” But does the proverb apply in the world of business ownership? Specifically, is it a valid warning or just a worn-out cliché? It seems to make good sense to concentrate all of your business effort and [...]

Previously I outlined the four characteristics of a successful Employee Incentive Plan. Namely, such plans should:

Be specific, not arbitrary, and be in writing;
Be tied to performance standards;
Make substantial bonuses; and
Handcuff the key employee to the business.

Here I will focus on the last characteristic; handcuffing the key employees to the business. The goal of the handcuff [...]

Too often, owners discover that the compensation plans they’ve put in place for key employees are sadly inadequate only when those key employees leave their companies for greener pastures. The departure of one or more of these key employees can not only complicate your daily business life, but it can slam shut the door on [...]

What’s the point?
“I want to install a bonus plan for my key employees to reward them for their performance.”
“One of my best employees left last week for a company for more money. I think I’d better install a good bonus plan to stay competitive in the marketplace.”
These are just a few of the comments I’ve [...]