The biggest obstacle
to change in the family business is the fear of hurting family members'
feelings.
Five Steps to Uncommon Success
·
First, champion
business owning families have singleness of purpose that penetrates every
activity of their lives. Second, they
have formed habits in their lives that have helped achieve their goals.
·
When you have
singleness of purpose or a vision statement supported by a mission, strategy
and tactics, everything else is embraced or discarded according to whether it
moves management in the direction of the goals.
·
Successful
business owners have good habits that create good character and that becomes
their destiny. If you can tell me the
habits of your business-owning family members, I can tell you what sort of
person they are, what type of business they run, and the level of success they
are accomplishing.
·
We find the
business owners who plan for the futures of their companies, personal lives, future
of their marriage and family lives are most successful. These are the same group of successful
business owners whose habits were helping them to become the very best person
they could be, and they were acquired intentionally by the effort of
discipline.
·
Lastly, we suggest
that discipline is the key to freedom.
Freedom to experience life to the fullest. Freedom to enjoy the business life and to
intellectually learn how to conduct and lead a successful business, to
emotionally learn more about people who are the heart and soul of business and
finally that talking with your God can give you the focus, direction and
strength to elevate your business to produce uncommon success over the
long-term.
Guessing the Current European Tax Ratesfor:
United Kingdom,
Germany, France, Greece,
Spain, Sweden, Norway
and the Netherlands. The answer is near the end of this edition of
News & Insights. I remember back in
the President Jimmy Carter years my father-in-law used to gripe about the high
taxes he had to pay. This would have
been during my high school years, thus I was not really sure what he was
talking about. Today my understanding
goes much deeper than I care to know. In
that era my father-in-law paid $.70 cents out of every dollar he earned. Carter was a one-term president and in many
forums rated as the worst president we ever had in the U.S. Many democrats fear President Obama is
heading in the same direction as Carter.
Soon business owners and top management will be hit with 40% plus income
taxes and the company itself with group health insurance assessments. Banks are extremely slow to lend much needed
cash to businesses for expansion and growth, primarily because both do not feel
confident they will even be in existence in the near future. Both groups are hunkered down for the
long-term and that translates to a continued 9.6% unemployment rate for years
to come unless the current administration changes their policies. Let us know what you think about this serious
matter.
It is surprising how many people go through life
without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely
determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortablewith yourself,
you can't be comfortable with others. Sydney
J. Harris
When You Subsidize Something, You Get More of It
We thought you might be as
surprised as we were to discover several facts about extended unemployment
benefits shared by Michael Tanner of the CATO Institute.
· The extension of
unemployment benefits lengthens the average stretch of unemployment by three
weeks plus.
· Roughly a third
of those unemployed in the United
States find work within one week of their
benefits expiring.
· Government
benefits crowd out private charity such as the hundreds of mutual aid societies
and private charities, yet neighbors
know who needs a helping hand versus those who need a kick in the pants.
· A 2005 study in
the Journal of Public Economics found that: Church spending fell by 30% in
response to the New Deal.
· Singapore and Hong Kong, offer
no unemployment insurance, yet they are great places to find work. Singapore's unemployment rate is
just 2.2%.
Seems to me like the current
administration's policies dealing with medium and small banks and businesses
has a direct link to the 9.6% unemployment rate in our country.
One of the many myths about family business is, "what
happens to family members outside the business does not influence what happens
inside the business."
Some Markets That Remain Solid in Tough Economic
Times...
· The auto parts
aftermarket companies typically do well in poor economic times. People tend to repair cars and trucks versus
looking to buy new ones.
· Companies who
address the needs of the elderly such as assisted living, Alzheimer's units,
nursing homes, etc.
· Medical supply
companies that include distribution, research, manufacturing and sales.
· Hospitals and
other health care organizations associated with the medical field.
· Banks and other
financial institutions always seem to have available cash for growth and
expansion.
· People need the
support of insurance company products to reimburse their care givers,
hospitals, etc.
· All areas that
are funded primarily by our local, state and federal government can be a good
source for your service or products. Of
course, the challenges are many. For example, bidding, paperwork galore, rules
to follow that don't make sense, begging to get paid, and working with people
who don't have a clue as to what you do (or offer) and how it will be an asset
to the government agency or entity you are trying to help.
· Naturally, all
the manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, sales organizations, repair
networks in the various industries represented above make good customers in
tough economic times.
I'm sure many other great
markets exist for the private economic sector, so please email us with your
ideas and we will forward them on to other business owners.
Following are the current tax
rates for some European countries:
United Kingdom - Income tax:
50%, VAT: 17% = 67.5%
Germany - Income tax: 45%, VAT: 19% = 64% France- Income
tax: 40%, VAT: 19.6% = 59.6% Spain - Income tax: 45%, VAT: 16% = 61% Sweden -
Income tax: 55%, VAT: 25% = 80% Norway - Income Tax: 54.3%, VAT: 25% = 79.3% Denmark - Income tax: 58%, VAT: 25% = 83%.
Thank you for reading the
August, 2010 issue of Mike Henning's Family Business News & Insights
e-newsletter.
The biggest obstacle to change in the family business is the fear of hurting family members’ feelings. Five Steps to Uncommon Success in addressing that obstacle are in this newsletter.
