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!

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.

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.    

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