I was pretty darned excited when I received an unsolicited email from a Dow Jones Newswire reporter requesting an interview. The publicity campaign for my first book, "Building Wealth in a Paycheck-to-Paycheck World"
(McGraw-Hill) was just winding down and I was already in talks with the publisher about a follow-up. But the chance to have the title mentioned in a national publication was enough to make any first time author down right giddy.
Scott Sterns turned out to be a very conversational fellow who writes a column titled "Broker's World". He was doing a piece, his follow-up email had explained, about typically blue-collar business owners and their reluctance to enlist the services of a planners/advisors/brokers to help them achieve good financial standing and a secure future.
After he explained the focus of his article, I had several days to mull the question over myself. I know many blue-collar type professionals and understand what drives them to their chosen professions. Many have apprenticed with craftsman or happened to discover that their ability to tinker could be profitable beyond charging friends a few bucks for their skill.
How they got to the point where they decided to enter into the business world and in the process take their talent and turn it entrepreneurial is a leap of faith made by thousands of individuals each year. It is often done with a great deal of encouragement, sacrifice and the humbling experience of convincing friends and relatives, and more importantly, their own immediate families, that the idea they has is solid and worth the investment. That investment, as every entrepreneur knows, is done with more than time and effort and sweat. It is done with equity as collateral or good old fashioned, cold hard cash.
Many people you know probably understand your talent but asking them to believe enough to help you with the financial backing necessary is probably the biggest request you will ask these folks to make. And that is not only difficult but carries an obligation of considerable weight for any new businessperson to carry with them when they finally open the doors for business. The inability to tap all of the resources available to many larger enterprises, the small businessperson will need to tap deeply into their own mettle.
And that can leave you drained and more than just a little cautious. Mr.
Sterns sent me a copy of the article in which he wrote, based on our conversation, "Of course, that leaves many businesses that are struggling or barely viable. All contractors, even successful ones, have "a tenuous connection to being broke," said Paul Petillo, author of "Building Wealth In A Paycheck-To-Paycheck World" and a forthcoming series of financial-planning guides, notes that many contractors are heavily indebted - often due to previous business failures - and face high fixed costs, sharp fluctuations in their earnings and the knowledge that a physical injury or economic downturn could ruin their livelihoods.
Petillo said this insecurity leads contractors to plow their money back into their businesses and see savings as "assets they may need to get by on, rather than money for a second home."
This fear is carried throughout an entrepreneur's business career to a much greater degree than you think. Because of this cautiousness, many entrepreneurs make some fatal financial mistakes despite being talented and energetic.
I tend to focus a great deal of my writing on how to get you to a safe and comfortable retirement. Entrepreneurs however, are a different breed. Many believe that they are creating a business that will endure the test of time, be absorbed by some greater entity or passed on as a legacy to their families. What these individuals fail to realize is the simple fact, they may not be as personally durable as the business they have created.
These individuals, and you know who they are, see a day-to-day goal that is affected by all of things I suggested to Scott for his article. Problem was, he was writing for planners/advisors/brokers and in doing so, was identifying a potential client that many of his readers may have overlooked.
Let's instead focus on two things that should be important to every
businessperson: saving money to help the business and saving money. There are a number of short cuts you can employ to your advantage that will help you skim dollars from your daily expenditures and help you run your business like the biggest players while creating a nest egg for yourself in the process. Let's take a look at some of the ways to find hidden cash in your business plan and then to direct the money to your future, when you walk away from your great idea and finally spend some time relaxing.
First and foremost, get yourself some legal help. You will, at some point need to fill out a description of your business for the taxman. How you determine what you are - a sole proprietorship, an S-corporation or a C-corporation can have serious implications on how your profits are taxed and your outlays are deducted.
That help can come from either an attorney or a Certified Public Accountant.
There is also a wide selection of rent-a-CFO for business owners who need someone with the financial savvy to help you make the right decisions, file the right forms, and keep what is yours. According to Jim Lozano and Danny Wheeler, principals of CFO for Hire, this is the perfect fit for companies whose budget are small but their accounting needs are large. Wheeler says that it would cost between $30,000 and $50,000 per year for an independent bookkeeper. It costs around $6,000 to $35,000 per year for CFO's services.
You should also begin to ask yourself, 'whom do you know'. Chances are you already have a wide list of contacts that you may have unwittingly gathered throughout the years. Don't hesitate to catalog these folks and tap their expertise whenever you can. Your rent-a-CFO might even suggest you form an advisory board of experts such as this, paying them a small stipend for their service to your enterprise.
Use your rent-a-CFO to help you negotiate loans, set up the right credit card account for your business needs, outsource payroll, keep an eye on cash flow, and otherwise free you to grow the business. As a word of warning, don't use your business as your personal piggy bank. Pay yourself a salary and stick to it.
As I told Scott, many of the very entrepreneurs you see working in successful businesses probably have several failed ones in their past. Often the costs of those failed attempts are still being paid for years later, if not with cash, psychologically. But in many cases, the lessons learned are incredibly valuable.
Once you have set up a good system to control your costs, it is time to set the business up to help you reach a goal that seems far off in the distant future. Saving for retirement may not be foremost on your mind when you are first starting out but having a good plan not only helps attract employees and retain them, but it offers both you and them some piece of mind that you intend the business to last for the long term.
The kind of plan you chose does not have to be the basic, bare bones variety of 401(k). These types of plans are cheap to set-up and administrate but they are also short on quality. Using the most recent figures available, only 16% of the people working for a company of less than ten employees had access to some sort of retirement plan. This is compared to over 70% available at larger companies.
The Bush administration made some accommodations for the small business owner in their 2001 tax bill. It allows small business owners to squirrel away a considerably larger amount of money in retirement plans, exceeding the typical rank and file contribution. Often, these large contributions come in the form of catch-up payments.
Key to the success of your enterprise is the overall satisfaction of your employees. There are a number of ways to keep employees happy and willing to promote your vision at even the smallest companies. One, which is designed for businesses with les than a 100 employees, is a simple IRA. Employees can contribute up to a $10,000 as long as the employer chooses to do one of two
things: match up to 3% of contributions or pay a flat rate of 2% of their salary up to $4,200.
The key to the success of a simple IRA plan is due largely to the size of the company. It works best when the business employs less than twenty workers and with employees who are likely to stay long term. (Turnover becomes an additional expense when those contributions walk away with the
employee.) Because this a more employee-centric type of plan, it provides little or no tax break for the employer and even restricts the owner from making additional, catch-up type contributions for him or herself.
The Simplified Employee Pension or SEP, while being a simple type of plan, offers additional flexibility in contributions that the business owner can offer their employees. Contributions can used as an incentive and reformulated based on profits. In good years, the employer can contribute up to 25% of the employee's salary as long as that amount does not exceed $42,000. In bad years, the contribution can be readjusted down to zero if necessary.
This type of plan comes with two caveats the owner should be aware of when setting up such a plan. There is a huge tax advantage with a small amount of paper work but, on the flip side, the contributions made must be equal among all employees. If you take a 25% contribution, your employees are also entitled to the same. If your business is seasonal or experiences huge shifts in earnings, this plan might be best for you. It also helps if you have loyal workforce.
Ever since the creation of the 401(k), business has not been quite the same for both employees and owners. Since this line in the tax code was discovered in 1981, corporations large and small have jumped on the idea.
Gone were the costly pensions. With 401(k) plans, employers could offer their workers a way to save pre-tax, allow them to offer matching contributions as an incentive, and save countless millions on complicated paper work and reporting.
401(k) plans are relatively easy to set up and there are a seemingly innumerable amount of financial institutions looking for your business.
These plans are, for the entrepreneur especially, very flexible and can be created for a company of one. New in January of 2006 is the Roth 401(k), which, like its brethren in the world of IRAs, will allow contributions to be made after taxes from payroll deductions and be tax-free when you begin withdrawals.
Another attraction to the 401(k) is the flexibility it allows the business owner when creating the rules. If your business suffers from turnover, a
401(k) eligibility restriction based on time worked, say, a year of service, may harness the problem.
One of the best options for owners who are older and companies that are just starting out with questionable profits is a plan based on sharing the wealth. In good times, the contribution can be the added boost an older owner needs to get as much as they need saved faster. Many opt for adding this type of plan on top of an already existing 401(k).
In a younger company, this type of plan can be fixed with eligibility requirements and, even though it involves as much paper work as a 401(k), it may actually encourage loyalty to your business objectives.
And last but certainly not least, is the defined benefit pension. This is the type of pension huge companies try to jettison when times get tough. It seems that these plans, based n promises made when companies were small and growing, become burdensome and expensive if they failed to estimate the age of their workforce or simply made some poor investment decisions.
Defined pension plans involve actuarial estimates for your employees, contributions based on age, salary and years of service. This can be quite profitable for owners who have spent years building the business instead of saving for their golden years allowing them to make huge contributions at a time when they are close to their retirement .
Hands down, these types of pensions made some of the best ideas into some of the largest companies in the country. Employees understand that the longer they stay, the more their retirement will be worth. Nothing promotes your vision like employees who remain loyal to your company.
Taking your idea from a workshop in the garage or from a drawing on a cocktail napkin and turning it into a business is no easy feat. It requires drive and stamina in endless quantities. It forces oneself to tap into all of the talents you might have and all of the resources that are available to you from friends and family. And it requires foresight.
Don't approach the need for money as a necessary evil. It is the lifeblood of your idea. The more you can save to grow your business, the way the big players in the economy do, the greater your chances are of building a legacy.
The more you can save for your future while you pursue that dream, will make your legacy just that much more rewarding after you retire.
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