Professional Services

Your Lawyer, Accountant, and Insurance guy…
Reasons to Keep Your Professional Services Team Around as Your Business Grows

If you are working to grow your business you need a team around you to help grow your business.  Who is your team?  For a lot of business owners, the first thing they think about as to who is on their team is their key staff.  Perhaps it is your supervisor, managers, or those super star employees that get more done than just one person.  Yes, they are a part of your team, but they may not be a part of your management team.

Your management team should extend beyond just yourself.  You are an expert in your business; be it a store, restaurant, fast food, or other business.  You’re good at what you do, but you may not be good a legal advice, accounting or bookkeeping, investment, savings, and insurance.  These are functions that you will need if you want to grow your business.

For example, how well do you know your employment laws?  Do you need to file a patent to protect your inventions or ideas?  How can you reduce your taxes so that you can put more money back into your business?  Do you keep your bookkeeping up-to-date, so that you can predict your financial picture in the coming weeks, months, or even for the year?  These are just some of the questions that you should have answers to … with the help of your management team.

So who do you need to add to your management team?  

Let’s name a few and see what they can do for you.

You should have a lawyer on your management team.  If you are a growing business you will be working with your lawyer regularly.  Of course you should use a lawyer to help set up your business with the right structure.  Perhaps you need to setup your business as a partnership, a corporation, or other structure.  You also need to keep corporate minutes and resolutions, and a lawyer can help ensure that this type of paperwork is drafted and maintained.  They also can help you write a privacy policy so that when you solicit customer information you not only have a policy that you can communicate with your customers, but also to ensure that you are meeting all your legal obligations so that you are protected in the event of a problematic customer.  Your lawyer also can help you with responses when or if a problem customer or employee arises, and in worse case situations they will help you with ligation as necessary.  For employee issues, you may need your lawyer to help you better understand employment law.  But the best service a lawyer can help you with is with agreements that are designed to help your grow your business, such as with patents, partnerships, mergers, and/or acquisitions.  In the case of a patent you may even need a specialist patent attorney.  You have the ideas, and your lawyer can help make it happen in the right way.

You also should have an accountant on your management team.  

Also referred to as a CPA, your accountant can help you from the very beginning of your business to ensure that it is set up correctly for your anticipated tax situation.  You may also want to consult a tax attorney after you get your business started to see if you are achieving the optimal tax situation.  Getting the right tax structure will get you more cash in the bank.  They also can help with bookkeeping services, setup for your business, so that reports can be delivered to you that will help with your business decisions.  And when you start to expand, your accountant can advise you are changes you may need in order to ensure that your expansion goes according to plan.

Lastly, you should also have someone who will help you with insurance.  Getting the small business insurance mix can help ensure that you are appropriately protecting your business in the event a problem occurs.  This includes general liability, errors and omissions (or E&O,) property and asset coverage, and other areas that they can recommend.

Your lawyer, accountant, and insurance guys – for small and medium businesses these are the guys you need to include on your management team.  So get to know them, work with them, and get them to support you in your growing business.