How Business Owners can Deal with Bad Managers

You’ve just found out that your business partner has been hiding clients from you. Of course, this has a number of important implications including, but not limited to: revenue, reputation, day-to-day operation, and a variety of other issues. All of these, not to mention the breach of trust and value of the interpersonal relationship. It’s a very difficult set of circumstances to deal with, but obviously, you can’t just ignore it. You must take action, not only for your own sake but for the sake of your career and the business at large. Dealing with a Bad Business Partner Emotions Anger. Disbelief. Disappointment. Resentment. Shock. Sorrow. You could easily cite any one of these negative emotions because you’ll experience at least one or more of them. Before you do anything at all, it is essential that you understand your gut reaction and the long-term feelings you’ll probably encounter as time goes on. While you will get past this situation, you’ll probably never completely get over it. And, that’s okay. Not all partnerships or deals work out well. Some just can’t formalize because of extraneous factors affecting the agreement, while others can be impacted by poor communication skills or a lack of flexibility on goals or approaches. This means that it is essential for leaders to stay aware of the state of a pending deal or partnership, especially if there are quiet signs that things aren’t going as well as they’d like. —Small Business Trends You’ve no doubt experienced difficult circumstances in the past, and this is really no different. While it may be new, it most certainly won’t be the last time. The point being, do not allow pure, raw emotion to dictate your actions. If you give in to your negative feelings, you will make rash, poor decisions that will only make things worse. You need to approach this from a calm and rational perspective. So, give yourself a little time to vent and get those negative emotions out of the way. How to Deal with a Dishonest Business Partner Who is Hiding Secret Clients Once you feel calm and collected, you’ll need to methodically approach how you will deal with the situation. Here is a brief but effective guide for the steps you can take to deal with a business partner who has been hiding clients from you: Learn as much as possible about these clients. This probably won’t be easy or pleasant. If you are able, learn as much about these secret clients as possible. You might even go so far as to contact them yourself under the guise of following up with regular business. The whole idea is to try to get the best picture you can about these secret clients. Thoroughly examine all the business’ finances. The very next thing to do is look through your business’s financial documents. While these might not reveal anything at all — if your business partner was clever and deceitful enough — it could reveal an unseen pattern that you never detected before. At the very least, you might find some discrepancies, or this revelation will reveal past discrepancies you could not explain before. Formulate a couple or few separation scenarios. After you’ve done your detective work, it’s time to concentrate on how to best move forward. Since this is such a big betrayal of trust, it’s probably unrealistic to think that you can just patch things up and go on as if nothing has happened. So, you need to formulate at least a couple of ways that you can break up the relationship and do as little damage while causing as little disruption as possible. Talk to your business partner about ending your arrangement. This will most likely be the hardest part of resolving the situation. If you are able, don’t simply cut off communication and walk away. Instead, talk to your business partner in order to gain an understanding of his or her motivations. Although this certainly doesn’t excuse his or her behavior, it might help you in the future to detect when something’s awry when you otherwise wouldn’t. What other suggestions do you have for dealing with a dishonest business partner who is hiding something important? Please take a moment to share your thoughts and experiences so others can benefit from your unique perspective! Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.

One of your best employees just came in with some exciting news – she’s pregnant and it’s her first! Everyone congratulates her and during the excitement, you begin to realize that this is going to affect your business in a profound way. Panic begins to set in as you think about all the help you’re losing – at least for the short term. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be so nerve-racking. You can create a reliable plan of action to deal with this momentous occasion. How Small Businesses can Prepare for Employee Paternity Leave, Too Of course, the same could be true for a new father. Your right-hand guy will be out for an extended period of time. Although this is a wonderful occasion, it leaves you feeling quite anxious. After all, this is one of your go-to people and definitely among your top performers. So, where do small firms commonly go wrong when it comes to managing maternity? ‘Some delay unnecessarily, rather than starting to plan and act as soon as they’re told about the pregnancy,’ Cecily Lalloo, an HR expert, replies. ‘This can mean you end up recruiting the wrong person, meaning you’ll have to repeat the process, which wastes time and money.’ —The Guardian Small Business While he’s away with his wife and new baby, all of his work will still have to get done somehow. Even more worrisome, is how you’ll fill that gap, regardless of the amount of time. It’s enough to make anyone feel quite unsettled because this type of news generally comes out of the blue and you’re unprepared for it. However, if you follow the suggestions below, you’ll be able to get through it as smoothly as possible. How Small Businesses can Prepare for Employee Maternity Leave When you’re faced with a maternity leave situation or any type of parental leave, you’ll obviously need a plan to follow. Here are some steps that you can take when this type of situation arises: Create or review your maternity leave policy. If you already have a maternity leave policy, then great, simply review it to ensure that it is up to date and that it will work for your business in its current state of affairs. But, if you don’t have a maternity leave policy, you can create one and customize it to fit your needs. Speak with the mom-to-be one-on-one. The next thing you need to do is to speak with your employee about her plans. Don’t be afraid to ask specific questions, or inquire about her plans to return or leave her position. It’s far better to know than guess, leading to unnecessary confusion and worry. Have her document all her projects and tasks. Regardless if she’s coming back to her position or you need to hire someone else, you’ll need to know exactly what projects and tasks she’s currently working on. Either way, you’ll need somebody to come alongside her in order to be familiarized with her responsibilities so that person can assume her role. Assign one or more backups. If you don’t have someone already on your team who can take over, consider spreading her work among a few people. However, if this isn’t feasible, you should consider bringing in a temporary person. Create or review your transition plan. Lastly, you’ll need to develop a transition plan for her return if she is coming back. This will allow her to ease back into the swing of things without being overwhelmed. What other suggestions do you have for preparing for an employee’s maternity leave? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts and experiences so others can benefit from your perspective. Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates about one-third of new businesses fail in their first two years of operation. Approximately half go out of business within the first five years. Banking statistics reveal around 82 percent fail due to cash flow issues. Those are grim and stark figures. But, these unfortunate circumstances can be avoided by building up a business emergency fund in the form of retained earnings. Top Reasons to Save Retained Earnings There are several benefits to saving retained earnings in any business, no matter how small. (But more particularly, for medium to large sized organizations.) Obviously the most important is for emergency situations. It could be a natural disaster, a pandemic, a sizable dip in the economy. Regardless, emergencies do happen and your business will benefit from having savings in-place. Retained earnings reflect the amount of net income a business has left over after dividends have been paid to shareholders. Anything that affects net income, such as operating expenses, depreciation, and cost of goods sold, will affect the statement of retained earnings. —The Blueprint, a Motley Fool Service Another advantage of having retained earnings ready-to-go is for opportunity buys. Your business might have the good fortune of being able to purchase inventory and/or equipment in bulk at a substantial discount. Or, there might well be a circumstance where cash becomes temporarily tight. Retained earnings are an ideal source of capital that can later be replenished. Clever Ways to Save Retained Business Earnings It’s not always easy (or simple) to put aside money within a business that isn’t specifically for something like inventory, equipment, materials, et cetera. But, there are ways to save retained earnings for your business — it just takes a substantial amount of discipline and patience. Here are some effective ways to save retained business earnings: Make it simple. Rather than trying to save money in a business checking account and “pad” the balance, open a dedicated account, such as a money market (since it earns interest) and that will provide more incentive to set money aside. This way, you’ll largely avoid the temptation to spend what you’ve ostensibly saved. Automate savings. Once you have a money market account to save retained earnings, set up automatic deposits to go into that account on a regularly scheduled basis. After a time, it won’t be such a big deal and you’ll grow accustomed to it. Take advantage of discounts. If you’re planning on a big purchase and have a budget set for the expense, take some time to find the same item at a discount. Or, broaden your search to find something similar but less expensive. Then, take the difference you save and put it in retained earnings. Sell off old or unused items. You’ve probably bought one or more things in the past that you rarely use or have grown out-of-date. So, go through your assets and find prime candidates to sell off and then put the money into retained earnings. Take advantage of higher revenue. Whenever business is good, it’s a good idea to put some money aside for a rainy day. While many business owners do this, it’s only sporadic. But, making this a priority and a habit will help to beef up retained earnings. What other suggestions do you have for building up retained business earnings? Please take a brief moment to leave a comment and share your thoughts and experiences so others can benefit from your strategies. Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.