Tom Wolfe, the author of The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff and many other bestsellers, once wrote an article called The Great Relearning. It was about how societies sometimes need to relearn things that have collectively been forgotten. One example was San Francisco’s health clinics in 1968. Hippies were challenging the status quo […]
Archive | Planning
The Future Revisited: The Outcomes of Increasing Productivity
I remember when I was in teenager (a long time ago), hearing a pundit say, “If productivity gains continue, by the 1980s we’ll all be looking around for something to do.” That didn’t happen, of course, except it sort of did. The factories of North America were mostly automated long ago. The computer revolution that […]
RMA Predictions on Recession
I’ve been a member of the board of directors of the local RMA chapter for many years. RMA is Risk Management Associates, the national bankers’ organization. It has been around for over one hundred years and was know for most of its existence as Robert Morris Associates, Robert Morris being George Washington’s banker and the […]
The Middle 30
This blog is about an important business topic. It’s just going to take me a moment to get to it, so stay with me. Digression 1 Most of my blogs are the result of two or three clients or colleagues mentioning a topic. I figure if two or three are interested, probably more are. In […]
Enjoying the Good Times, Preparing for the Bad, Redux
For several years I predicted that 2017 would be the year a recession would start. I began saying this about 2013 and for several years I thought my prediction looked good. But now it looks like I’m going to be wrong. The economic expansion continues with no end in sight. How long can this continue? […]
Emergency Succession Plans—The Need
My clients are mostly owner/operators of businesses. Working with these entrepreneurs, it is natural to ask, “How does this end?” That leads to working on succession and exit plans. It makes sense and it is a big part of my practice. But what about emergency succession? I’m talking about when the owner operator has a […]
Emergency Succession Planning for Closely Held Businesses
Purpose The purpose is to create a plan to ensure the viability of a closely-held business that has an owner/operator and lacks an independent board of directors. Common characteristics of this type of business are often a few key employees but few or no executives within the employees. Certainly there is no executive team. The […]
Taking Advantage of Good Times; Preparing for Bad
I’ve written about this topic before. We all want to take advantage of good times, such as those we’ve been experiencing for the last several years, while preparing for the next downturn, which will inevitably come. Most of my clients have had increased revenues in every year from 2012 through 2015. In fact, many were […]
SRO Budgeting and SMART Goals
It is the time of year when most companies are doing their budgeting for the next year. This can be a frustrating and time consuming exercise. It is also important. Does every company need a budget? I don’t think so. Smaller companies, where the owner is very close to the transactions, may not need a […]
New Entity Choices: LLLPs and SPCs
Most of us are familiar with the various choices for the type of business entity. Traditionally there have been proprietorships, general partnerships, limited partnerships and corporations. About 25 years ago limited liability companies (LLCs) were added and they have been a very popular choice. In 2012, the Washington State legislature provided us with two new […]