Visitor, your AUGUST 2017 FocalPoint Newsletter is here

Real Estate Leases

The typical business owner doesn’t worry about a real estate lease except when it is created or when it is time to renew. In some cases the renewal process consists of a one-page addendum signed by both parties agreeing to a new monthly rent and an extended term with other provisions carrying over from the existing lease. This quick renewal can have unintended consequences during the late stage of the business sale transaction.

The biggest challenge is the length of time remaining on the lease when the transaction closes.

It can be a benefit (long term lease of strategically located space) or a liability (more than five years remaining on a lease when the buyer is planning to consolidate the company into an existing operation). In the years leading up to sale be careful to negotiate as much flexibility as possible into a real estate lease.

Buyers will include a satisfactory review of all real estate leases as part of the due diligence process. [quotesright]Below is a partial list of issues with a real estate lease/[quotesright] that can impact a deal:

The lease cannot be transferred to another party or can only be transferred with the sole approval of the landlord. This gives the landlord the power to renegotiate a new lease on more favorable terms.

The lease calls for a personal guaranty of the business owner. The provision was reasonable when the business started but may be objectionable to the new private equity firm owner.

The landlord is willing to transfer the lease, but not willing to release the personal guaranty of the seller.

The lease does not contain clear language about how common expenses are shared. There has always been a friendly understanding of who pays for what.

In an extreme example, a client had a provision in his lease stating that in order to transfer the lease, the assuming party’s (buyer’s) net worth had to be equal to or greater than the releasing party’s (seller’s). A logical provision from the landlord’s perspective, he wanted a new tenant at least as financially stable as the current tenant. But dig deeper. This provision was written twenty years earlier when the seller/tenant had a very low net worth. Now, 20 years later, the seller’s net worth includes two houses paid in full, a business he is being paid nearly five million dollars for, plus cash, savings, stocks, etc.

This clause created a nearly impossible hurdle. While the deal closed, a lot of money was spent by the seller for his attorney to clear up the provision.

The moral is

before you renew your lease again, review it from a buyer’s perspective and from the landlord’s perspective. Note what provisions are triggered in a transfer. Work with your attorney at renewal time to draft a lease that is favorable or at least flexible in a transaction.

KNOW what is in your lease before putting the company on the market.

Coming next month: “Enhance the Presentation and Curb Appeal”

-         by Greg DeSimone - Beacon Equity Advisors, Inc.

Picture a 14-person, low-volume, specialty manufacturing company. Two employees, in two different roles, who are both capable and intelligent, appear to consistently do the wrong things.

For example, they commit to having a task completed in two hours, using a proven and agreed-to method. A day later, the task is still not done because they decided to research another, unproven method.

This is an issue that raises its ugly head frequently. There is a classic failure at work here. The solution is very straightforward although not easy.

The cause is due to the lack of skills and commitment by the delegating party. Once these skills are in place by the delegator, the rest of the team will rarely, if ever, slip up. Yes, other things come into play, but the first place to start is with delegation skills.

Lastly, it is a common misunderstanding that having the right people, doing the right jobs is the solution. Actually, you must have the right people, doing the right jobs, and doing the jobs right.

If this third element isn't in place, the first two rarely maximize success.

Today, employees are lucky to get three to six weeks of training. How can you compensate for such short training?

There are three big differences between average and successful sales training programs:

The structure of the training,

The psychology they're structured with, and

The employee mood.

Structure of Training

First, assess. Create a list of employees who are at different levels of success. What do less successful employees not do that the most successful ones do? Train on those skills. You don't need to start from scratch – add things in as needed.

Psychology of structure

Limit each training session to a few topics. Spend an entire training talking about what makes your company unique and valuable so your team can communicate that to customers. Be engaging.

Employee mood

Employees need to feel like they can benefit personally from your sales training program. How do you make this happen? Use inspiring workshop titles or fun themes. Concentrate on what the employees will get out of it, such as making more money and faster promotions.

Finally, don’t forget to review. Researchers believe that we forget 50-80 percent of what we learn by the next day!

Consider these wise old sayings:

Faint heart ne’er won fair maid, and

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Giving in to fear makes you timid, while acting boldly makes you courageous.

Most salespeople are underperforming and earning much less than their potential. For salespeople faced with the need to develop new prospects, fear can – and often does – freeze them in their tracks.

One of the very best ways to develop the ability to take intelligent risks is to consciously and deliberately do the things you fear, one step at a time. Take any fear that you are experiencing and look at it as a challenge or as an opportunity to grow and to increase your efficacy. In other words, consider your fear a causative power and live your life on purpose rather than on regret.

Face your fear by moving toward it, control the fear thoughts, the self-talk that’s going on, master the fear, and continue to move forward regardless of the fear. This is the mark of the superior person.

You will find that many of your fears of taking risk are false: F.E.A.R. = False Expectations Appearing Real!

- by Coach Phil Gilkes

The Law of Priorities says: Your ability to set clear and accurate priorities on your time determines the entire quality of your life.

The very worst use of your time is to do very well what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of 10 items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether.

To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work.

The value of anything in your order of priorities can be measured by assessing the potential consequences of doing it or not doing it. The mark of the superior thinker is the ability to consider possible consequences before beginning.

Continually ask yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?” And whatever it is, work on that.

- from "THE 100 ABSOLUTELY UNBREAKABLE LAWS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS" – Brian Tracy

Fishermen are masters at three things: marketing, selling, and maintaining a positive outlook. Among expert fishermen, there are no pessimists, even after 400 casts with no results. If you want to be an expert salesperson, you can learn from a pro angler:

• They know exactly what type of fish they want to catch and where to find the hungry ones. They gain a thorough understanding of the behavior of their quarry, where they are concentrated, and when is the best time to catch them. In marketing speak, this is the buyer persona and for salespeople it's how they know they are talking with the right kind of prospect.
• Anglers know they must give the fish the "information" needed to make a “buying” decision by demonstrating their offering is the best choice with a seductive presentation of their lure and so easy to catch the fish reflexively goes for it. They made the offer easy to act on.
• Successful fisherman know their baits (marketers call these ads) must be varied, presented in different locations and retrieved differently depending on where the fish, the weather, the time of day and time of year.

These are just a few of the parallels between fishing and sales. Another one is that smart fishermen work with others at seminars and even hire their own guides to turbocharge their learning; in sales it’s a business coach, and smart salespeople learn from experienced coaches.

For all the things you can learn about marketing and selling from a fisherman, check out the full article online.