July - August 2009
Issue: 3
Advocate Newsletter
Advocate Newsletter graphic
 
In This Issue ...
 
Meet the Team
Interesting Businesses
Jim's Gems
 
 
 
Tax Filing Dates
 
 
COMPANY NEWS

Jim Sherman named to Advisory Board
Jim Sherman has been named to the West Suburban Advisory Board of the Illinois Care Planning Council, the local unit of a national organization that helps folks understand the issues and access the resources involved in long term and elder care.   We see our membership in this council as a way to give back to the community, but also as a source of insight that facilitates our helping you with the planning issues that every family and every family business confronts.  Learn more about ICPC at www.careillinois.net

Care Planning Council

 


 

Watch for new
Advocate Web Site
Watch for the announcement of our brand new web site, coming soon.  It  shares its URL with its predecessor, but not much else.  In reviewing our original site, it seemed to do  a pretty good job of telling folks about Advocate – but talking about ourselves on the web, we realized, is so last year.  The new site isn’t about us, it’s about you – with news feeds to bring you up to the minute financial news, a private “back room” section where you can have 24/7 access to your records, and upload your data with complete security so we can be as current on your information as you are.  A library of articles, a variety of calculators, and responses to the questions folks ask about accounting in general are further ways that the new site will help you grow your business to the next level.  Watch for the announcement of the formal launch of the new
www.advocateaccounting.com

 

 

 

Past Issues ...
 
 
MAY 2009
JUNE 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advocate

Advocate Accounting
& Business Services
280 Shuman Blvd. #145
Naperville IL 60563
630-778-7333
Jim Sherman Extension 3656
Lynda Sherman, Extension 3610
www.advocateaccounting.com
info@advocateaccounting.com

 

July - August Issue

It's been a busy summer here at Advocate, but we wouldn't want it any other way. We hope you can say the same about your business. But busy as you are, we're glad that so many of you are finding the time to read our News and Views, and we especially appreciate it when you take the time to let us know.  As you’ve noticed, we profile one of the companies we work with in each issue.  If you’d like this kind of publicity exposure, just call 630-778-7333, and we’ll try to work you into the schedule.  Also, when you scroll down to Jim’s Gems, you’ll read Jim’s thoughts on the importance of knowing what your business is worth.  What other subjects would you like to see Jim cover in this regular feature?  Call or email; your ideas are always welcome.

Meet the Team
Lynda Sherman
When we get formal, as we do on our web site or our business cards, we put two sets of initials after Lynda Sherman’s name, CAO and CMO.  For those who aren’t familiar with the alphabet soup, those stand for Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Marketing Officer.

  Lynda Sherman

In more everyday language, CAO means Lynda runs the company’s day-to-day operations, supervises the staff, oversees billing, purchasing, payables, and whatever else it takes, so Jim can concentrate on advising clients on the financial aspects of their businesses.  CMO means Lynda’s in charge of the web site, our brochures, this newsletter, and all the things we do to brand ourselves in the minds of current and future clients.  She’s also a member of PRO, Presidents Resource Organization, a peer advisory group whose participants keep one another on their toes by sharing ideas and been-there-done-that experiences.   

Lynda has had business in her blood since childhood; and her blood was tinged with printer’s ink, from helping her dad in his offset printing business.  When he died three weeks after Lynda’s high school graduation, she helped her mom liquidate the company and went into the work force, taking courses along the way to further her education.  Then she met Jim – they’ve been married for 26 years – and added wife and mother to her portfolio of responsibilities.  Right now, Lynda is back in the classroom, working towards a degree in technical management at DeVry.

Actually the classroom has been a familiar environment for Lynda, from another perspective – as a teacher, who has overseen her three children’s education through home schooling.  Jacob, now 23, went on to North Central College, graduating with a degree in global studies, and has become a key part of the Advocate staff.  Joshua, 18, just completed high school) and is pondering what comes next.  Lydia, 14, divides her study time between Lynda’s tutelage and a more formal classroom.  Lynda recently chaired the annual silent auction to benefit Joshua and Lydia’s school, and is proud to have raised more money than any previous auction in the school’s history.  With a household that also includes two dogs and a cat, the pet who stands out is Quilleran, the macaw, who served as the inspiration for the feathered quill portion of the Advocate logo.   Given this menagerie,  plus her work at Advocate and her courses at DeVry, you wouldn’t .think Lynda would have time for anything else, but the teen-age girls at Calvary Church will tell you about the camping trip she planned and  took with seventy of them, or the Fifties party she helped them organize. 

Everyone knows the old saying that if you want something done well, get a busy person to do it.  That saying must have been invented for Lynda Sherman!

Interesting Businesses ...
PIANO PLAY MUSIC SYSTEMS

Several things set Piano Play Music Systems apart from other companies we work with, but none more dramatic than its location.  This unique school has three “campuses,” and they’re all in Southern California! 

Dutchman Heating and Cooling
Owners (and sisters) Phoebe Simpson and Sharon Shaheed offer classroom and individual piano instruction to children and adults, from studios in Pasadena, Woodland Hills, and Sherman Oaks. Sharon actually started the enterprise as a Yamaha franchisee, and Phoebe joined her after college graduation. Their trademarked Layered Learning Systems develop more than piano skills, but focus on the complex role music plays in all aspects of a child’s development.

Piano Play got its start when Sharon noticed that the younger siblings of her very young students were coming along to their big brother’s or big sister’s piano lessons, and learning right alongside them.  We’re talking here about 4-year old “enrolled” students, and 19-month old “accidental” learners! 

Sharon began developing learning materials for these toddlers, and the business was on its way.  With the help of a staff psychologist, the sisters have traced the impact of early music lessons on other aspects of children’s development and retention skills, and, as just one example, have found a correlation with enhanced math scores as the kids get older!

Two questions invariably come up when we talk about our work with Piano Play Music: How did you happen to hook up with an organization so far away from your Naperville headquarters, and how do your companies work together across the miles? 

We were actually introduced to Sharon and Phoebe when they were chosen as winners in a national competition sponsored by CountMeIn.org, aimed at woman-owned businesses showing potential to achieve $1 million in sales within five years.  The prize was coaching designed to help them get there.  Their coach, who happened to come from this part of the world,  made an early diagnosis that Sharon and Phoebe were better at teaching piano than they were at keeping books, and that they needed support on the financial aspects of running their company, like forecasting and long-range planning.  Phoebe credits Advocate with “educating us, so we know what to look for.”  That’s a nice compliment, coming from an educator!

In this connected world, telephone and email make it easy to share questions and answers, data and documents, reports and analysis.  The toughest part is to remember the two-hour time difference, but even that tends to get erased because we’re so often here “after hours,” even for clients in our own back yard and our own time zone, who like being able to reach us during the quieter time after their doors are officially closed.  And now, with the new capabilities that will be offered by the “back room” on our new web site (see side bar), two-way information exchange will be even easier.

Helping businesses grow is what we’re all about at Advocate, but when we hear that we’re contributing to the success of a unique organization like Piano Play Music Systems, it’s really music to our ears!

Jim's Gems

WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS WORTH?

Knowing what your business is worth is important for lots of reasons, but none more important than those that relate to your exit strategy.  Selling to a stranger? Passing the company along to your children?  Entering a buy-sell agreement with a partner or offering a partnership to a key employee?  These are just a few of the contingencies that should drive you to generating an objective analysis of what your business is worth to you, or might be worth to someone else.  

But an accurate valuation of your business is critical even to those owners who are not ready to get out.  You always need an over-all understanding of where you are today in order to move the business to where you want to be tomorrow. 

  jim

The conventional wisdom seems to offer two alternatives on business valuations to the business owner – either to retain a specialized consultant, on the one hand, or to choose  "do it yourself" methods using on-line tools.  As an accounting firm working closely with exactly the kind of firms your article addresses, we offer a number of caveats relating to both approaches. 

  1. Business owners are always better advised to spend their time using their own core competencies to enhance the business rather than spending time learning a procedure  they will use at best infrequently.  The cost of outsourcing always needs to be balanced against the opportunity cost, whenever you do something yourself that someone else could do, and do better.
  2. Do it yourself tools are doubly dangerous, because the entrepreneur may not be basing his or her calculations on sound numbers, and is not likely  to be as objective an analyst of the numbers as the circumstances demand.

  3. In seeking a valuation as prelude to selling or transferring the business, the buyer is not likely to be impressed by numbers that were not neutrally developed by an. independent analyst.

  4. Just because a software solution is on line doesn’t mean it is on the level.  For example, we have seen situations where the software provider may have self-serving interests other than selling software – such as searching for a certain type of business and/or working for a prospective buyer to the detriment of the seller. 

  5. Business valuations fluctuate based on economic conditions, which are not reflected in most software application.  Even if you use a packaged solution, it’s wise to bring in an expert eye to review the results.

  6. That expert eye needs to look not only at the visible assets but also at the invisible.  Your business is worth more than its inventory and real estate.    
In choosing an outside consultant, find somebody that can empathize with your needs.  As a small business owner, you want to work with someone who lives in the small business world , rather than an account exec in a giant consulting firm that usually works with much larger clients (as referenced in the article).  Since accounting terminology can be tricky, you really need someone who “speaks your language.”

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