Personal And Business Implications Of Your Decisions

Before starting a business, you must understand the personal and business implications of your decisions. It is advisable to consider a range of factors before making a decision to start a business. Some important factors include the location and nature of your business, the number of people involved, your potential exposure to liability, taxation considerations, and the company’s financial requirements.

• Consulting an experienced legal professional and tax accountant is also important.
• Your professional advisors can help ensure that you are well informed on important matters like the legal and taxation issues that you may encounter.
• Small businesses are often a family-owned business and represent more than half the value of the owner’s estate.

• Consequently, if much of your net worth is tied up in the business, you may be less well diversified than those who have a more traditional retirement portfolio.
• Remember that unlike a salaried employee, it’s up to you to fund your own retirement.
• Strategize it well if you are relying on being able to sell your business for a sum that will enable you to enjoy a financially secure retirement.
• If you haven’t given further thought to that far-off day, consider that many business owners each year are unable to sell their businesses for a variety of reasons.
• These include difficulties finding a suitable buyer and obtaining financing for the successor, once they have been identified.

Research & Marketing

• Since you are still new to the industry, competitors do not know you yet. Use that to visit your competitors’ showrooms, if any, anonymously, like any regular customer and collect valuable input to use in your research.
• Do not think this as unethical, after all, we all learn from watching.
• Market research involves surveying the market to know what people are interested in.
• Marketing is making them aware of the product that your business can offer, attracting their attention and making them interested in buying it.

 

• As discussed in my post Business Development – Clients and Competitors, try to find out what are the projects your competitors are targeting within your market segment, assess if you can develop an offering that can win those businesses from them.

Employee Benefit

• There are two kinds of retirement pension plans that small business owners can set up for their employees. Defined Contribution – Employees in DC pension plans choose the investments within their individual plans and the retirement benefit is based on the value of the investments in the plan when the employee retires. Defined Benefit – Employees in DB plans enjoy a specific benefit at retirement, calculated using a formula based on earnings and years of service.
• DB plans generally specify an age, usually 65, at which employees are expected to start receiving retirement income.
• Planning a better retirement for your employees provides security to your employees. Funds accumulating within a retirement plan for individual members are generally locked-in by provincial or federal legislation.
• The ability to recruit top tier talent is the biggest obstacle affecting the growth potential for small business today. In an economy where so many people are looking for full time employment or a better job, you would think it should not be it hard to find staff, however, the irony is that a small business oftentimes cannot compete on salary and benefits with larger organizations or well-funded venture-backed start-ups, when a worker has the skills needed to fill the position.
• DC is generally a less costly option than a DB plan for an employer and is easier to administer.

• Because you are making the investment decisions and guaranteeing a fixed benefit to the employee at retirement, as an employer, you face a potentially greater obligation with a DB plan than a DC plan.
• If there are insufficient funds in the plan, you may also be required to top up the plan by making a greater current cash flow commitment to the DB plan than expected.
• However, if there is a surplus in the plan, you may have reduced payments.
• Keeping employees vested and skilled is a simple yet powerful formula for growth.
• So, the best way to tackle this obstacle is to recruit those who are passionate about the business and then have each new recruit go through an ongoing employee development and skills training program.

Today, most companies even have custom social networks, to connect their staff. This not only helps form better business relationships, it makes possible the sharing of best practices across cultures, locations and departments. If this sounds interesting, contact HyperEffects, for a free consultation on the concept, now.