The 5 Things Keeping Business Owners Awake At Night

INTRODUCTION:

The 2015 Small Business Research Report by advisory support group Bstar goes through some interesting findings about small business owners and their biggest concerns in the coming months.

Let's have a look at these and ask yourself how you compare?

Concern #1 Declining sales, profit and cash flow concerns

• Only 26% felt sales growth was excellent, 53% said ok;
• 47% felt profit from sales not so good;
• 16% felt profitability was excellent;
• 58% regularly review their business performance;
• Biggest concern was cash flow;

Concern #2 Succession Planning

• 58% believe that the business cannot survive without them;
• 74% had no succession or buy/sell agreement in place; and
• 60% had no business or key person insurance in place.

Concern #3 Protecting Business and Family Assets

• While 60% of business owners had wills in place, fewer than one in three had taken broader estate planning steps, such as estate plans (30%), enduring powers of attorney (30%), or succession agreements (18%) and linked life insurance (6%).
• 53% had no understanding of the benefits of estate planning.

Concern #4 Business Planning

• only 23% had business plans;
• only 26% allocated time in their regular working week to any type of strategic or business planning;
• only 18% had a plan to improve their business value.

Concern #5 Stress and lifestyle

• Less than half spend as much time as they would like with their family (not surprisingly);
• 79% growing their business for 2015/16 as being an important focus;
• 61% paid attention to their health;

CONCLUSION:

Accountants, business consultants and business valuers as trusted advisors should be on the lookout for these types of findings but more importantly confirm what is concerning their clients and either equip themselves with the skills needed or refer on as required. These days the business owner is much more savvy as to the type of advice they need and the days of having an accountant to just do tax and year end financial statements are over. Acquiring knowledge in the areas of business advisory, estate planning, cash flow forecast, succession planning and business valuations will not only assist their clients but enhance the relationship dramatically.