News
Time is the one consistent element that affects all business planning. It’s also something that business owners can harness with proper planning. When harnessed properly, time can be your best planning friend. When ignored, it can turn the best intentions into a planning nightmare. Let’s look at how time— and how each owner used it—affected the futures of two separate business owners in different ways.
Hurry Up and Wait vs. Wait and Hurry Up
If it weren’t for their last names, you’d never know that Tim and Jim Slim were brothers. They had both built extremely successful last-mile delivery services, well-known for their exceptional service in their highly competitive region... Read More
Preparing your business for a successful future often goes hand in hand with preparing your business for a successful sale. No matter whom you sell to—and even if you believe you’ll never sell your business—you should focus on catching Deal Killers. Deal Killers are things that can affect your business’ value and future. Let’s look at an example of the difference between addressing Deal Killers early and ignoring them until it’s too late.
Bud and Bess Bush always had a sibling rivalry. Bud’s manufacturing business had grown and provided for his family for 35 years. Bess’s data analytics firm had done similarly well over the last 28 years. Though they never worked together, Bud and... Read More
Setting goals is a catalyst for success, especially if you’re planning for the future of your ownership and the success of your business. The strongest goals tend to have five aspects that help you guide the process for achieving them. In other words, when you set goals, you want to set SMART goals:
Specific Measurable Accurate Realistic Time-limited
Let’s look at how each of these aspects can help you create goals that let you plan for the future of your ownership more successfully.
Specific Goals Inspire ActionThough it can be challenging, setting specific goals allows you to act on them. Consider the difference between a vague goal and a specific goal.... Read More
Cedar Graphics Inc., of Hiawatha, has acquired select business assets of J & A Printing Inc., currently under the ownership of Scott Cadwallader, according to a news release from Cedar Graphics.
Printing, finishing and mailing services for J & A customers will transition immediately to the Cedar Graphics plant in Hiawatha. J & A’s production facility in Hiawatha is not part of this acquisition.
Cedar Graphics is a family and Iowa-owned business focusing on offset and digital printing, packaging, and direct mail for the education, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and banking industries.
Cedar Graphics’ unique mix of advanced UV offset presses, digital... Read More
by Gary Nesteby, Facilitator
In December 2020 several of the CEO members completed a survey designed to provide a Success Score for their organization through their eyes. The survey asked the CEO to assess their perception of how systematic they were in the areas of: Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer Focus, Workforce Engagement, Operations and their use of Data to make decisions. The results of those surveys produced discussions about how we could use the roundtables to learn more about what they could do to increase their effectiveness in these areas.
Leaders that are attending the CEO roundtables realize that they have very useful resources among all of the mem... Read More
By Michael Crumb | Senior Staff Writer
As a parent of a high school student I, like many of you, have been watching and listening closely as our daughter’s school adjusts and tweaks the start to its school year, trying to find that balance between virtual and in-person learning. It’s a continuation of the uncertainty that struck in March when schools announced they would not return from spring break and remain closed for two weeks as confirmed cases of coronavirus began spreading across Iowa. We then watched as it became clear students would not return to the classroom to finish the year, and districts quickly threw together online learning plans. And we’ve... Read More
By Gary Nesteby, Facilitator for the Advance Iowa CEO Roundtables
As expected the Corona Virus and the impact that it has had on CEOs across the state is the top subject of the CEO groups. Although many of the meetings initially have been dealing with the funds that have been available to the businesses and the impact on the workforce; we have transitioned to how we are going to handle the future and what we have learned this far into the pandemic.
Each meeting we b... Read More
The University of Northern Iowa’s efforts to help rural Midwestern small businesses recently got a boost thanks to grant funding through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s 2020 Heartland Challenge. The grant is intended to support small business’ transition programming by providing education about employee stock ownership plans.
UNI’s Center for Business Growth and Innovation (CBGI) plans to use the grant to help launch the Center for Business Ownership Transition, which will be an expanded element of CBGI’s proven succession planning work for small businesses where, since 2016, over 90 Iowa companies have successfully transitioned ownership of their busine... Read More
Business owners have a lot of information at their fingertips. There are calculators and assessments available for just about every aspect of your business and personal situation. As a result, many business owners think they have an accurate idea about the value of their business. They may even think they have an idea of where the business value should be at their departure from the business. And retirement needs calculators are abundant, claiming they’ll give business owners a good idea about what they’ll need if or when they step away from their businesses. It can be difficult and somewhat complex to accurately measure the value of a company today, and then what it needs to be worth whe... Read More
Realistic Timelines Global economic disruption uniquely affects each business. Whether you are being hit with a hammer or expect to suffer a slow burn, your reaction to changes and proactive planning will play a major role in how your future unfolds. Signals indicate that once we start to get COVID-19 under control, the world economy will begin to recover, business will rebuild, and business owners will need to ask themselves if they want to go through another major disruption, or transition out of their business while they can. This is the most crucial time to plan so that your business has the best chance of supporting your personal and financial goals, even if those goals are... Read More