A HUGE Business Problem: Owners Unaware of and Unprepared for Impending Financial Perils

Recent announcements by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan may have gone unnoticed by hundreds of thousands of American business owners, ultimately threatening their financial well-being. While business owners work hard in their day-to-day operations, subtle warnings can easily be missed. These warnings are "a call to action" for the financially astute.

FINDLAY, OH (PRWEB) September 21, 2004 -- This progressive community in Northwest Ohio continues to experience growth in the number of companies that are privately owned. For years, Findlay has been an economic bastion while larger cities in the region have struggled.

Findlay's community leaders have long recognized the importance of promoting private enterprise for the economic good of the community. Soon, other communities may also experience growth in the number of privately held businesses as manufacturing jobs leave our nation's shores. The number of closely held businesses will very likely increase as more and more workers enter the ranks of the "self employed" rather than choosing to be in the ranks of the "unemployed."

While this would seem to be good economic news, certain hidden dangers and opportunities will boldly present themselves to existing business owners.

Recently, Alan Greenspan announced that unless significant changes are made to the United States Social Security System, baby-boomers who retire within the next several years are in for a significant economic shock. The Social Security System may be unable to provide promised payments and benefits! Also consider the sputtering nature of the stock market. Many people once had nice nest eggs built up until the bubble burst in 2000. How many retirees lost significant value in their retirement stock portfolios, and had to go out and find jobs as greeters at places such as Wal-Mart?

A Findlay, Ohio publisher, Straight Talk Business Publications has just made an initial internet release of a new business guide entitled: Your Business IS Your Goldmine! (Learn How to Get the MOST out of Your Business.) Interested persons can find it at http://www.Lulu.com/businessadvisor (You may also refer to www.gruttercpas.com for other business information on this subject.)

This guide is not a gloom and doom prognosticator of a future filled with despair. Instead, it is a guide that will teach business owners how to gain a better financial foothold on their futures by enhancing an asset they already own. That asset is one to which many business owners pay far too little attention; their business.

Even though business owners go to the shop or office every day, they may be ignoring the most important business duty of all. Not because they WANT to ignore the duty. Rather, because they do not know HOW to perform that duty. This new easy-to-understand guide tells business owners what their CPAs and attorneys don't have time to tell them.

Business owners do not usually consider the worth of their businesses unless they are applying for a loan (and plugging in a large value for the business). Or maybe they are doing gift and estate planning (plugging in a small value to beat the tax man). Possibly a divorce is in progress (where one side plugs in a high value and the other side plugs in a very low value).

In all of these situations, the business owner is trying to reflect their own perceptions of the businesss value. But are the owners perceptions correct? What REALLY makes the business valuable-or not valuable? What can be done to improve and protect the value of your business? (This is more important than most owners think!)

Author Grover Rutter CPA/ABV, CVA, BVAL says in this new book, "In my profession I commonly see situations where the years have subtly melted away and business owners wake up one day and realize that the time has come to sell their business. Then they are devastated to find that the business is not worth what they had hoped. I also see business owners wanting to find investment and operating partners-only to learn that their businesses are not worth what they thought. And then there are those unfortunate individuals who have become disabled and can no longer operate their business-and find that it has little or no value."

The last of the baby-boomers will be selling their businesses between now and the year 2015. And most of them do not have a clue about making their businesses more valuable or preparing for the ultimate sale or transition of the business.

"These people have invested their lives striving to make a living, but they do not know how to convert their pre-retirement livelihood into retirement income," explains Rutter.

In order to inform business owners what they must do to enhance their businesses, the initial release of Your Business IS Your Goldmine is available in soft cover or as a digital download at http://www.Lulu.com/businessadvisor (By late October 2004 it will also be available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.com under ISBN 1-4116-1118-7.)

As a vast number of business owners are nearing the end of their business journey, it cannot be business as usual. How many of those owners will have valuable and salable businesses when the time comes? "It really is up to the business owners whether their businesses are worth a lot, a little, or nothing at all," Rutter states in the guide. "I want them all to know there is something they can do to improve their financial outcomes."

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