THE FAMILY BANK
Three years ago I helped a business owner rescue his succession plan from imminent failure. We restructured the plan to both enable him to withdraw from the business (with enough…
Read more »CONSULTING CFOS: THE POWER OF AFFILIATION
Serving as a trusted consultant financial professional is a deeply rewarding career. Working with a client is a special relationship built on trust, both for the value of work and…
Read more »IS THE ANNUAL BUDGET A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME?
In today’s world, it’s rare to find a topic that generates agreement across a broad cross-section of people, but it’s a reasonably safe bet that most finance and non-finance people…
Read more »MAKING THE FINANCE OPERATION THE BEST IT CAN BE
One reason to love business is because it is dynamic. Strategies change or pivot, organizations transform, regulations and new rules emerge. All of these require financial teams to be both…
Read more »TELLING A COMPELLING FINANCIAL STORY
Financial presentations are common to every business. Whether the audience is the board, investors, lenders or bankers, the ability to tell a credible and compelling financial story is critically important….
Read more »USING OLYMPIC TRAINING METHODS TO IMPROVE YOUR PLANNING & BUDGETING
Recently the Olympics dominated the airwaves for a couple of weeks. Everywhere you looked, the athletes used visualization to train, plan and improve their performance. Skiers, skaters and sliders swayed…
Read more »CYBERSECURITY IN A CHANGING WORLD
The Wall Street Journal Pro Report of December 19, 2017 was devoted to the issue of Cybersecurity. The chilling reality is that national governments, state and local governments, businesses and…
Read more »SMALL BUSINESS AND GROWTH PLATEAUS
As a small business grows, some changes made necessary by growth are obvious while more subtle but, no less important ones often go unattended. Take for example the need for…
Read more »Protecting Your NPO: Take A Deeper Look at Enterprise Risk Management
Recently, an HR colleague of mine mentioned “When I think about risk management, I think about insurance coverage.” My response was “Think again!” Enterprise risk management (ERM) is both broader…
Read more »“HELLO. WE WANT TO BUY YOUR COMPANY.” NOW WHAT DO YOU DO?
If you are the owner or CFO for a small to medium- sized business, it is likely closely- held or family- owned, and this may happen to you. If not,…
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