Now that we’ve officially welcomed a new year, we can start or continue to plan for what’s to come in the next 365 days! For businesses, this may include a host of things aimed at improving current operations. However, sometimes planning for the next year includes things that are simply necessary in continuing to keep things moving along smoothly and successfully. No matter what’s in the works or what your goals are for the coming year, planning ahead properly and getting the right resources into place is essential.
Planning to Utilize Leadership & Development Tools
All of the most effective business owners understand that developing talent and utilizing each person’s strength to its full potential is essential, as well as the benefits of utilizing experts for things that they don’t specialize in themselves. There are several great ways that a few local companies can help with both!
Cornerstone Leadership Solutions offers plenty of tools for businesses of all kinds, small or large, to implement in 2015. “We of course offer leadership development courses and team building workshops for both for the seasoned executive as well as the first time manager,” says Nat Crawford of Cornerstone Leadership Solutions. “But we are especially proud of our 3 tools we use for nearly 100% of our clients:
PROFILES PERFORMANCE INDICATOR™ is a DISC personality-style employee performance test. The employee performance report this test provides can be used to manage employee performance in order to make every employee more valuable and productive. The reports help you understand how an individual can be understood, motivated, and managed so that you can improve job performance.
The PROFILES PERFORMANCE INDICATOR™ also provides recommendations for improving employee performance. Recommendations include: how to respond to job-related stress, frustration and conflict; how to stimulate employee motivation; how to conduct effective performance appraisal; and how to determine whether the employee is internally motivated or will need external stimulation. The PROFILES PERFORMANCE INDICATOR™ is used to understand employees’ behavioral characteristics and to use this knowledge to increase performance of employees.
The PROFILEXT® is a multi-purpose, total person employee assessment used for pre-employment screening, selection, development, training, managing, and succession planning. This employee assessment measures how well an individual fits specific jobs in your organization, and the results can be used during the training or succession planning stages. PROFILEXT® is customizable, and peak job performance models can be developed by company, position, manager or geography.
The PROFILEXT® is used as a pre-hire screening tool to find the best-matched candidate for a particular job. It is also used to develop job descriptions and job performance models. PROFILEXT® reports help managers interview and select people who have the highest probability of being successful in a role, and provide practical recommendations for coaching them to maximum performance.
The CHECKPOINT 360°™ is a leadership assessment used primarily to evaluate the leadership skills and effectiveness of your managers and leaders. This leadership development survey compiles a feedback system from direct reports, peers, and supervisors, with a personalized program for developing specific leadership skills based on that feedback. The reports explain how to improve training, management techniques, and communication for greater success.
The CHECKPOINT 360°™ is a 360-degree leadership assessment used to help managers identify and prioritize their own development opportunities and leadership skills. It is also used to surface management issues that could lead to low employee productivity, morale, satisfaction, and turnover.
Between our Columbia, SC office and our home office in Lincoln we have a combined 50 years of consulting, strategic planning, and leadership development experience. We’ve worked with hospitals, universities, retail stores, restaurants, franchises and more. If their need is to measure employee engagement, customer satisfaction, or leadership capacity, we can help. If their need is a strategic plan for the upcoming year, 3 years, 10 years, we are eager to build the roadmap. If your culture is not what you wanted or you’re just starting a company we can use our systematic and proven-method of creating a Culture by Design™.”
He adds, “Business often fail to accurately plan for the upcoming years for two reasons: no objectivity and lack of accountability. I was blessed to see Bill Hybels speak this past year. In his talk he challenged us to stop trying to do it all. Businesses cannot afford to figure out their issues and create a roadmap to success on their own. They cannot be objective in their discovery and will likely fail to follow through. Bring in an outside consultant because we can see things you can’t (or don’t want to) see. We break the habit of circular thinking to find the solutions, and we become the guide by your side to see your plan is executed to your expectations.”
“Business owners or entrepreneurs often find themselves so engaged in the daily details of running their businesses that it can be difficult to look at the big picture, let alone plan for it,” adds Terry Wieczorek of The Alternative Board (TAB). “Large corporations often benefit from having an outside board of directors that can work with the company on a range of issues to take it to the next level. However, small business owners rarely have the time or financial resources to hire a board that can give them thoughtful and objective views on tackling problems and coming up with practical strategies.
Lincoln’s local small and medium businesses, (SMB), can now have access to the same kind of business advisory boards as larger businesses, at an affordable price point. The concept is called Business Owner Advisory Boards. TAB creates business owner advisory boards which are comprised of groups of noncompetitive local business owners who meet regularly to help each other improve profitability and build a more valuable company. Members of TAB apply their collective experience to offer objective, quality advice during these board meetings.
By integrating the final strategic business plan into monthly TAB board meetings, along with TAB business owner coaching sessions, we hold the SMB owner accountable. If business planning sessions are conducted annually they need to become an integral part of the TAB boards – 4 times per year. The following schedule assumes that your fiscal year aligns with the physical calendar year and conduct the strategic planning workshop in December or early January.
1) January TAB board meeting – members will bring their new business plan to review and get feedback from board members.. 2) April TAB board meeting – review of progress against the plan with all TAB board members. 3) August TAB board meeting – conduct a second review of progress against plan. 4) November TAB board meeting – discuss the performance of the past year’s plan with all board members.
The TAB coaching session prior to each of these board meeting reviews will focus on preparing the SMB owners material and presentation for the TAB board meeting.
Good planning takes time, but by using the SMBs available leadership team as your trusted resources, it certainly gets everyone on the same page along with their buy in. Keeping everyone accountable – especially the business owner – is the difference between success and failure.
Strategic business planning involves a variety of exercises divided into sessions in order to create executable goals. The TAB process concentrates on team building, team alignment, developing the company vision, SWOT analysis, critical success factors and goals. These planning workshops should be held off-site and have plenty of time allotted to complete all of the exercises. This workshop is usually planned for two full days or four partial days and includes the entire company leadership team. TAB has the tools to assist in the process and TAB can facilitate the sessions to keep the team on task. Afterwards TAB will hold the business owner and the leadership team accountable for delivering their assigned tasks in order to meet or exceed their 2015 goals.”
Planning to Incorporate Professional Services
It’s fairly safe to say that business owners are always thinking about how to improve their systems and take their businesses to the next level. Planning to incorporate services over the next year that help with this will ensure you have more precious hours of time to run your business and less to stress about. Moreover, it’s difficult to see the full benefits of a service until you’ve given it enough time to work. Planning to implement new services at the beginning of the year will allow you to try out something new for a long enough period of time to fully integrate it into your current operations and then to evaluate whether implementing it was beneficial at the end of the year.
Commercial Cleaning Service When people walk into your place of business or office, first impressions are everything. Moreover, having a clean and comfortable work environment for your employees is a must. While cleaning may sound pretty straightforward as far as planning is concerned, there are many ways you could potentially utilize the full range of services generally offered by a cleaning company that specializes in commercial spaces.
“There are many studies that show the condition and cleanliness of the workplace affects productivity,” says Jon Paolini of ServiceMaster PBM of Lincoln. “We provide a consistent, high level janitorial service at a fair cost to businesses. This allows them to focus on what they do best–their core products or services. We can provide any type of daily cleaning or specialized work on floors, ceilings, rafters or walls so they can deal with a single vendor no matter what they require.
In terms of planning ahead for the coming year, we provide a free no obligation proposal for cleaning that can show many different options which allows businesses to decide what they want to have done, how often they want it done and know what that cost is going to be over the year. This allows them to make informed decisions and plan for what if any investment in their workplace appearance they choose to pursue. This of course can be modified over the course of the year as things change. Also, the Nebraska Business Development Center is a wonderful resource that has been instrumental in helping us with our business planning and offers a lot of free help for local businesses.”
Professional Answering Service Utilizing an answering service is one way to increase your level of customer service offered without having to hire additional staff to cover phone calls outside of the normal hours of operation. Executive Answering Service offers friendly telephone receptionists who can answer your phones whenever you cannot – whether you are on the other line, out of the office, with a client or spending treasured time with your family/friends. Many callers will hang up and call someone else when they receive a voice mail or busy signal, resulting in what could be hundreds of dollars of lost business!
“Hiring, training and then the overhead cost for a friendly and customer service oriented telephone receptionist – including salary, benefits, etc. – is expensive!” says Megan Lipert, owner of Executive Answering Service. “Our operators can obtain messages and/or seamlessly transfer calls to you or your staff, just as if they are working directly in your office. They are trained to be the best virtual receptionists in the industry. We don’t want to be just your answering service, our goal is to be a part of your team and your customers are our number one priority. Executive Answering Service is able to offer the quality of service that is aligned with your reputation and the communication technology that your business requires.”
Collection Service Collection of past due receivables is a prime example of how financial aspects of running a business can be problematic for business owners to tackle on their own. With the help of a company like AR Solutions that specializes in this area and can fully devote its resources to getting you the money you are owed, you’ll invest less time in chasing after the money you are owed and more time deciding how to spend it!
“Business planning for an upcoming year or fiscal period is very important,” emphasizes Aaron Newell, President and CEO of AR Solutions. “First, analyzing the prior period’s data will allow you to make any necessary changes for efficiencies or to correct any short comings. Secondly, this will allow you to implement those changes internally or using an outside vendor. One very important part of planning for the coming year is reviewing aging balances on past due receivables and knowing what is a healthy percent of gross revenue for your industry. If neglected, past due receivables can grow out of control and place a burden on your bottom line. Statistically on average only 60% of past due receivables are collectable by the original creditor. So the sooner you can identify the 40% that need to be outsourced to a trusted collection partner the higher the probability of recovering a larger percentage. The collectability of past due receivables declines dramatically after they are aged 120 days. In healthcare specifically, according to the American Collectors Association, recovery averages 12.5%.
Choosing a collections partner is a very important decision; they are truly a partner of your business. Every contact they make on your behalf reflects on your business name. Consumer protection is a ‘buzz’ topic currently, so choosing an agency that will handle your accounts ethically and with professionalism is paramount. AR Solutions was founded with a guiding mission ‘If you have integrity nothing else matters…..If you don’t have integrity nothing else matters.’ AR Solutions offers a variety of collection solutions to add money back to your bottom line. Call AR Solutions today at (402) 817-3929 or find us on the web at www.arsolutionsinc.com to learn more or for a review of your current collections procedures.”
Planning Your Financial Future
To increase your profits, you must have a complete understanding of your finances and manage them according to what is in your best interest. The professionals at Nebraska Bank of Commerce, or better known by many Lincolnites as NBC Bank, are always willing to provide their knowledge and expertise to make sure you are headed in the right direction for the next year. “We meet with our clients on a regular basis to ask and answer questions about upcoming plans for their businesses,” says Joel Clements, Vice President of Commercial Banking and a Senior Loan Officer at Nebraska Bank of Commerce. “Many times our conversations encompass several aspects of growth, expansion, and acquisition plans. NBC officers will go through those plans and work with the clients to provide sound advice not only for financing, but to ask questions on topics our clients may not have thought about. It’s important that clients keep their lenders informed of these plans so that they can provide input that will help ensure the goals of the client are met. NBC lenders take pride in working with the client to think of all options that may be on the table.
NBC is a preferred Small Business Administration (SBA) lender. We have significant SBA experience and can work with businesses on SBA loans that give the borrower options that may not normally be available with conventional financing. Now is a great time to be working with a bank if businesses are looking at growing, expanding, or acquiring other businesses. Interest rates remain historically low.
We reiterate to our clients that we appreciate their willingness to call and obtain advice from our lenders. In addition to multiple areas of lending, NBC provides a wide array of cash management products which many small businesses don’t use to the greatest potential. I would encourage any small business not using a cash management product to contact one of our lenders to inquire about how cash management can provide simple solutions to everyday cash management issues.”
Jim Smith, Vice President – Treasury Management Services at Union Bank & Trust, also offers some of the ways that your bank can assist you with planning for the coming year:
Fraud protection: Large organizations or retailers are not the only victims of fraud and network attacks. Planning for the new year should include an overall review of your tools to resist payment fraud and network vulnerabilities. Make sure your PC and computer network protections are working and up-to-date. Regular updates to your account or other software including tools such as Adobe or Microsoft is extremely important. Payment protections are equally important to protect against counterfeit checks and electronic payments. Check volume is on the decline but does not stop check counterfeits and fraud.
Employee Benefits: Organizations of all sizes are trying to manage healthcare costs. Have you considered a health benefit review including a qualifying High Deductable Health Insurance plan coupled with a Health Savings account to better manage increases or even reduce medical costs? Have you considered some type of wellness plan for employees?
Retirement Benefits: While we are talking about employee benefits, does your organization sponsor a qualified retirement plan of some type and do your employees take advantage? Now is a great time to consider the health of your retirement benefits, associated costs, and education for your participants. Employees who understand the requirement plan and their options are much more likely to save for retirement. Do you provide some type of teaching or education for their financial well-being?
Electronic Payments: Check volume continues to decline but not as quickly in the business world. Small Business is still the largest user of checks for payroll or vendor payments. Consider the benefits of going electronic for even part of your company’s regular payments. The savings go beyond just the cost of check stock to use electronic ACH for payments. ACH is not only more secure but is more convenient for employees and customers. Do you accept credit cards for company sales? Maybe you could benefit from an app allowing you to accept card payments from a mobile device (smart phone or tablet) from anywhere. Depending on the volume of checks accepted for sales, you will soon have the ability to use that same mobile device to submit check deposits from any location.
Online or Electronic Statements: This ties back to Fraud Protection for the potential of hard copies of your bank, credit card or investment statements to be stolen or intercepted from your physical mail box. Enroll in electronic statements where you can for your financial information. Paper takes up space, time to organize, and is susceptible to theft or accidental destruction. Limit access to this sensitive information and reduce the risk of theft by keeping it online and behind a secure web portal.
He adds, “Check with your bank for solutions to protect your accounts such as Positive Pay and an ACH Filter. These services use payment information you provide to allow only authorized transactions to pay from your bank account on a daily basis. Also, use online banking to review your accounts on a regular basis. Union Bank has full capability for electronic ACH payments to gain speed and efficacies of all types of payments including direct deposit of payroll, recurring client payments, vendor payments, and tax payments as well as the accompanying remittance information. We can offer mobile solutions that allow you or your staff to accept a credit card payment through their smart phone. It’s called POGO and includes a simple, quick application process to get you started. POGO provides you the credit card reader that plugs into your Apple or Android device.
You can contact Union Bank any time to add electronic statements or eStatements to help your sensitive financial records stay more secure with the ability to retrieve up to 18 months information for your checking account. Electronic statements are an option for your credit card, merchant statement, or investment records. Just tell your banker you want to make the change and for which accounts.”
In addition to your bank, your accountant, insurance agent and/or investment advisor are financial representatives who are also invaluable resources for assistance with keeping your finances secure and in educating you about all of the options that are available to you and what might be the best fit as you move forward with doing business in the coming year.
Planning for Transition
If you’re planning on, or even considering, selling your business or buying a business in 2015, this will require some serious forward planning and will have a significant impact financially as well. Just as it is important to have a qualified, experienced agent when buying and selling real estate, the same principle applies to selling a business. Utilizing a professional who does this for a living has numerous benefits for the business owner who is selling as well as any potential buyers.
Transworld Business Advisors now has an office here in Lincoln, and their team of professionals takes great pride in successfully putting buyers and sellers of businesses together as well as providing franchise consulting and development services. “Transworld Business Advisors are extremely skilled in marketing businesses,” stresses Mary Jo Cassner, owner of Transworld Business Advisors in Lincoln. “We assist with selling businesses for clients as well as helping clients find businesses they are interested in buying. We also have access to hundreds of available franchises if a person wanted to start his or her own. Additionally, we help successful business owners turn their businesses into franchises, which is known as franchise development. Because of this, we are always helping our clients plan for the future. Retirement, health issues, or simply wanting to go in a different direction are common reasons that bring our clients to us for assistance with moving on to their next stage in life. Currently, the trend among baby boomers especially is selling to retire and on the other end, those in the Generation X designation are buying franchises in Lincoln at record rates. The economy is strong, and it is a good time to buy or sell.”
She continues, “I definitely advise against trying to sell a business yourself—the process is far too arduous. Rather, let us advertise and get the right person in to buy your business. Also, if you are interested in looking at franchises, our services are complimentary to the buyer. Our firm is owned and operated by Lincolnites and we love our community. We are the first business brokerage established with an office in Lincoln; we are here to serve our community, we love business owners, and we love Lincoln! Let us find the perfect match for you!”
For those who will be in transition at any point during the coming year, planning to utilize a storage facility will make life a lot easier for everyone. Strong Box Storage is Lincoln and Omaha’s premier storage facility, offering a secure, state-of-the-art facility complete with extra amenities such as climate controlled units, 24/7 digital surveillance, and drive-up storage rooms. They are also a U-Haul dealer so in addition to providing many sizes of moving vehicles they also offer a wide variety of moving supplies to help you tackle the project.
“We have a lot of clients who store items from their businesses, as we are generally the most economical option available,” explains Thomas Friedman, owner of Strong Box Storage. “Some businesses use our facility as overflow, some for seasonal storage, and some companies use our facility as their main point of storage. For example, we see a lot of construction companies store valuable equipment in our larger units as opposed to keeping it on-site to risk being damaged or stolen. In fact, quite a few of our units are utilized by businesses, both short and long term. We offer a range of sizes from 5×5 to 10×40, and we always try to find the right size that fits the customer’s needs. We also provide unique keypad codes so our customers have access to their unit 365 days a year. A different code can also be given to each person with access so you can track exactly who is coming and going. While we can get walk-in clients right into a unit, often times we like to meet with people to show them a few different sizes and strategize as to which one will best accommodate the space and features they require. We are glad to offer our time and expertise in this way, and I highly recommend briefly touring the facility when planning for offsite storage to see the full extent of options available at our facility.” He adds, “At Strong Box Storage, security and convenience for our clients is very important to us. While you don’t normally think of staff at a storage facility, we feel that it is important to have someone from our staff available on-site 24-7 to assist our customers with whatever their needs may be. As most of our customers are generally going through a time of transition when they require our services, our goal is to ensure that everyone and everything is safe, secure and well taken care of in addition to making sure things are convenient and go as smoothly as possible. We are set up to accommodate just about any requests you may have, and we also make it very easy to pay on time which helps businesses plan ahead to cover costs related to storage. You can pay whatever way you choose, including automatic withdrawal to eliminate fees associated with late payment, and you can also pay ahead for additional discounts. Whatever your needs or goals are, we can come up with a plan to make them happen.”
There’s no time like the present to plan for the future, and the beginning of the year offers that fresh start that makes the timing feel right to get everything in order. Strategically, it is also the best time to look at the entire year and in doing so, set up an effective timeline for implementing changes or anything new you will be incorporating. Planning ahead also allows you to look into everything that’s out there thoroughly so that you can make the best possible decisions for your business, and if you’re really ahead of the game, you’ll also find that it offers you the best selection of inventory, optimal scheduling and better pricing too. Local experts should always be used as a resource when planning because they’ve likely been through it all, and that experience as well as their industry expertise is an incredibly valuable asset to you and your business.
Following along the theme of business planning, this year we will be featuring a new series specifically geared towards buying a business, developing a business, and selling a business. If you are interested in getting involved, please call (402) 466-3330 or email Katie@strictlybusinessomaha.com.