Business Solutions: Key Person Protection

During stressed markets there is a shift on employee retention and recruiting. Many companies are experiencing a great shift of new employees and trying to keep essential personnel to continue profitability. One issue is the Key employee retention or recruiting. A strategy called "Executive Bonus Plan"; the main question business owners should ask what would happen if a key person is no longer there to help drive your business, unfortunately many business owners don't consider the risks of losing a key person until it is too late.
This program can provide your business with the funds needed to help you withstand the financial shock and help sustain your business. By offering an enhanced retirement benefit for your key employees. These are some questions that may help you determine a key person:

1. Multiple of Salary
2. Loss of Value to the business
3. Cost to replace the key person's sales profits and training
4. Cost to replace the key person's contributions to Income

Case Study

Company X was a successful manufacturing firm. It had a long-term track record, loyal clients and widely regarded products. Company X was dependent on a key sales representative, Paul, who worked at the company for nearly 10 years and had a successful record. Paul passed away prematurely, he had recently signed on one of the company's largest accounts, Paul also worked with two additional accounts that brought in 15 percent of the company's revenue. Luckily Company X held a $1 million Key person policy on Paul's life. this policy provided Company X with the funds needed at a critical time, helping tide over and expand the business.

Cost of replacement

$125,000 was used to recruit, offer a sign-on bonus and relocate a new rep.

$50,000 was allocated to special training and marketing to help the new rep get up to speed more quickly than the average new recruit

Line of Credit

$200,000 was posted as collateral to help keep a creditor from raising the interest on a credit line

Retention Device

$250,000 was paid to Paul's widow. If Paul had survived to retirement, the policy values could have been used to fund a non-qualified retirement benefit to supplement the gap left after market crashes and during recession values.

Financial Planning is critical to prevent unforeseeable losses; preparation is essential to a healthy organization and without a proper device, a company can be lost in a blink of an eye.

Telephone Excise Tax Refund

Still time to get money back,

Telephone Excise Tax Refund (TETR) not claimed by most eligible companies
During a recession, it is advisable to review the old business plan, streamline expenses and take a second look at your business’s biggest liability: TAXES.
As many as 15.9 million businesses could be eligible to claim refunds under the TETR program. The government has earmarked $11 billion for it but only 5.6% of eligible businesses have requested a refund. To help determine why so few businesses filed for TETR, the Treasury Department surveyed business tax return professionals. The survey revealed 35% of the preparers surveyed stated that their clients did not qualify for the TETR. 44% believed the amount of work and associated fees to compute the refund was not worth the refund. 20% either forgot to claim TETR for their clients or were unaware of the refund program.
TETRs could recoup much needed funds for companies feeling the pinch of the current economy. The deadline for the TETR program is April 15, 2010. Claims may be based on a formula or by performing a telephone bill audit. Some professional telecommunications auditing companies offer free audits, charging a percentage of refunds. Ask potential auditing firms, does your company:
offer local or long distance services? Steer clear unless you’re interested in changing carriers.
have expertise in auditing telecom bills specifically?
charge a fee for the audit if there is no refund due?
have ability to perform the audit and submit a report in time to meet the April deadline?
have references from telecom audit clients?
Knowledge is power as long as you do something with it.
Contact us to learn how to claim your excise credit.

Sign of the Times "Blackberry Etiquette"

Remember in college when you spent good dollars to get a good education and every day during class, there was always the forgetful student(s) who forgot to turn their cell phone(s) off. It was a distraction, the teachers would lose their pace and tried to regroup. Sometimes the ring would make everyone laugh. This etiquette or lack of is experienced in the business world with our new technologies. The next time you go out keep this in mind. Situation: business meeting, or board meeting, or just hanging out with friends and see what happens when a phone rings. In a business setting, there are several options and indicators to look for; If you are making a sales call with a prospective client you can get a wealth of feedback during the meeting, chances are the phone will go off, either yours or theirs. Observe what happens if their phone rings, and also think what do you do when your phone rings. Most often people forget to turn their phones off, including you. Most often people just say excuse me and take the call. Wow, I usually try to end the meeting quickly and excuse myself; why?, because this person does not fit the criteria of a good client; yes that is harsh, but believe me it will save you lots of time later on. Have you ever had a client, friend or colleague that you always want it to fired. Yes, everyone has one or two of them. If, in a blink of an eye you say, this persons values a phone call more that concentrating on the business at hand, then most likely this will be a person you will want to fire eventually. Save yourself a lot of grief and just do it then. If you get that gut feeling, just do it. Now, let's say your phone went off, what do you do? do you think they will hire you or do business with you, if you excuse yourself and take a call? this sends a message that the caller is more important than they are. Now with blackberries you get to take a look when someone calls, texts or leaves a message. I always have mine on the vibrating mode. I tend to ignore it until the meeting is over; sometimes they ask you? aren't you going to answer that? I respond, not now, you are more important to me at the present time. Additionally to increase effectiveness, get to the important calls right away after the meeting and leave less critical messages for later. My favorite is the meetings when you see the praying mode, yes the one that you see people on a praying posture, usually texting someone back. Wow that is also a no no. With technologies comes a new way of doing business. Go to your favorite Starbucks and observe, it is rewarding.

5 tips for optimizing your FB footprint

In the new Social media arena, the very low inexpensive way to market yourself or business is FB (Facebook) more than 200 million people worldwide provides a very large audience. Below are the 5 options or tips to maximize your footprint to create leads from a B2C prospective. Advertising budgets are being impact by the current economy. So here they are:

1. Provide a strong presence, remember 99% of small businesses have a website, so if you do not have one, get one. Create a facebook page so you can be found though friend's profiles, searches, the main key here is grow your fan base "virally". Ensure you keep your SEO in the mix.

2. Spend some budget money on advertising, it is very affordable to promote events or meetings. You can segregate markets from demographics, industries by placing two types of ads, that work like banners, with cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand (CPM) I personally prefer the CPC that enables you to select how much you want to spend per click. Usually from .25 to over $1 per click.

3. Create your customize application, so you can send your ads to a specific location. this will enable you to engage your target audience.

4. Syndicate your message or content, i.e. blogging, Notes etc.

5. Provide an event that your audience can engage, for example: webinars, conference calls, podcasting, video and the usual best face to face events. Select your best quality prospecting activity, if you are better on the phone than in person then the option should be conferencing. If you are a good face to face person, provide events that you can engage your audience face to face. I prefer the latter. The true cost can be found in the creation of your content. The ROI all depends on your strategies and follow ups.

Once you get leads then you should consider how this lead generation strategy will play out and you will nurture them. Good luck

Hannibal Chinchilla
Principal
Barca Financial Group
"Creating Financial Synergy"

B2B marketing using Social Media

We heard lots of chatter on what social media is, it depends who you ask. For starters, we know that it has a powerful reach and it is the fastest growing marketing tool for B2B and B2C platforms. Shrinking budgets, the economy are shifting former media to this newer media and are now valued by marketing teams. I have been experimenting on a couple of the most popular social media sites: LinkedIn and Facebook and have used Twitter. The best social media for professionals is LinkedIn by far and for B2B. Here you can reach decision makers and get to the point and start dialogue for a business contact which may turn to a sale. LinkedIn is overwhelmingly used at 81% of B2B marketers and Facebook coming at a close second. ROI is quite different from these two. A colleague and I experimented on Facebook to see what results you get. For a social event or a meeting or party Facebook proved to provide better ROI. Now the ROI is a question of who you ask. With budget restraints the web provides the fastest and less expensive ROI, which in this case is almost free. As an economist I was taught that there is no free lunch on anything. I guess the investment here is time and market segments, who you are trying to market to. Facebook is better at B2C and LinkedIn is better at B2B. I have gotten great contacts on the latter reaching as far as China and India for my Export/Import business. Going back to the brief experiment, my colleague and I made changes on our Facebook profile to see what effect. I opted on the marital status and he opted on the job status; he received several emails expressing concern and help for his lost of job and provided a quick synopsis of who is reading. My experiment provided me with a funny insight as my sister and family quickly contacted me to see what was going on with my "is complicated" status. I deemed it a mistake but it provided me with the knowledge that whatever you write or post on these sites, whether you get an email response or not, people are reading it. Someone told me that before you post something on the web is open to all eyes. I enjoyed the experiment and it proved that the marketability of this new social media is powerful and is here to stay. So I recommend to do some research, try new marketing for your business or personal development and see what happens.
Happy chatting

Hanniba Chinchilla
Principal at Barca Financial Group.

Business Planning during a recession

Business owners are faced with unusual circumstances and decision making during a recession. Survival, growth and opportunities come with a price. We have witnessed the fall of the auto industry once viewed as ever lasting, we have witnessed the fall of great Wall Street brokerages. Five years ago these events could not be conceived. But they happened. So, what do business owners ought to do during these times? One safe approach is to rethink budgets, liabilities and new market opportunities. Your gate keepers should be open to opportunities instead of shutting the door as if business was usual. As an owner, one must contemplate these opportunities. Think of new market segments in a vertical strategy; revisit your optimal prospect; many companies are receiving stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. These companies, and possible customers will weather this recession. Markets will come back, production will increase. The main question is when? business owners should be placing themselves as the survivors and position themselves as solution providers. Dust off that business plan when you first started and rethink strategies. The old way of doing business is out. Think outside the box and review your customers core needs, research new market segments, use vertical approach strategies.