Posts by Bill Wortman
Consultant’s Corner: Motivating Salespeople
Question: We are a base pay + commission compensation company that has been in business 5 years. What is an effective way of motivating employees to understand that they are not cost effective until they generate 5 times their pay? While it is important for workers to experience transparency in their company and understand where…
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Consultant’s Corner: Filing a Patent
Question: I’d like to file a patent. How do I perform a patent search and complete the process of filing a patent? Patent Basics A patent for a product or business process invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor. Patent protection prevents others from using a product or business process invention…
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Consultant’s Corner: Terminating an At-Will Employee
Question: If we hire an at-will employee and have to let them go is there any law(s) that we need to be aware of? Is this all based on our company policy? Are we supposed to keep the employee for a certain period of time? We do not know the details of your company’s formal…
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Consultant’s Corner: Business Succession Agreements
Q: What do I need to know about Business Succession Agreements? Business succession planning refers to the planning for changing ownership of business interests. There is no one document that does effective business succession planning. You can research succession planning considerations through articles and information like the following examples, which explain that several coordinated documents are often required to…
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Consultant’s Corner: Forming a General Partnership
Question: I am ready to start a business with a partner. What steps should I take? You can review information for forming a General Partnership at state and legal websites; however, these are the general steps required for formation of this entity type: Choose a business name File a trade name Draft and sign a…
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Consultant’s Corner: Setting a Price for Consulting Services
Question: I want to start a consulting company. How do I bill my clients for my consulting services? We do not know the type of consulting services you plan to offer, however, business consultants and other service businesses have standard billing rates by staff position. Also, these billing rates are often adjusted based on the…
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Consultant’s Corner: Home-Based Business Insurance
Question: Would our homeowner’s insurance cover the entire inventory of our home-based business, or do we need additional insurance? In our experience, it is unlikely that your existing homeowner’s insurance policy covers any of your business assets or liabilities, particularly significant amounts. You would have to speak with your homeowner’s insurance agent to determine if…
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Consultant’s Corner: Adding a Member to an LLC
I have a Single Member LLC. What are the issues and process to add a partner and how does it affect the closing out of the original Single Member LLC and setting up a new entity? It is common for members or owners of single member LLCs to take on partners by converting their LLCs…
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Consultant’s Corner: Creating an Internship Program
Question: I want to begin working with student interns, giving them course credit and real-world experience before entering the actual work place. Where should I start? Workers engaged as interns can be paid or unpaid, but our response assumes that your question refers to engaging workers as unpaid interns. In order to engage workers as…
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Consultant’s Corner: Preparing to Sell a Business
Q. I am looking at selling my business within the next 5 years. What should I take, and how do I value the business? Are there tax implications I should know about? While revenues and profits (historical and recent trend) and asset market values are the basic considerations for valuing a business, customer contracts, management…
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