I am often asked about business grants for women and minorities. In my experience these grants can be difficult to come by but they do exist. Here is an article from Entrepreneur discussing grants for women-owned businesses and also a link to the Targeted Small Business site with the Iowa Department of Economic Development.
Business Ownership Isn’t For Everyone
My social media news feed is full of articles and stories about business ownership. I am a business lawyer. I represent business people. So it benefits me if I promote business ownership and in general I try to do just that. However, I am here to tell you that despite the mountains of articles talking
Success in Business: Strategies for Inheritance
Many small family businesses become quite successful and the owners manage to accumulate significant wealth. I ran across a good post discussing the ways the upper class manages their abundance through a mix of different strategies for inheritance.
See the post from Stites on Estates here.
Unlimited Vacation, Free Beer and Kids at Work. Is this the Future Workplace?
CEOs and leaders of all organizations covet the creative culture of companies like Google or Zappos — it feels out of reach, but it may be right under their finger tips. The Iowa Creativity Summit is featuring Nancy Lyons of Clockwork in Minneapolis on May 28. Free beer, unlimited vacation and other fun perks are
Looking to Buy a Franchise? Don’t Make These Mistakes
Inc.Magazine has a great article on the 5 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Buying a Franchise.
The one I want to touch on in this post is #4 – Not learning how to implement the franchise system. All too often, would be franchise owners think they are “buying their own business.” This is
Franchiseless in Seattle?
I had to share an excellent blog post on Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage: Not Unconstitutionally Discriminatory? by Shannon McCarthy of the ZorBlog. My tongue-in-cheek title unfortunately rings some truth. If you read Shannon’s post you will see that the Seattle mayor and city council members are, shall we say, less than welcoming to franchisors
BIZ Luncheon Features Casey Niemann of AgriSync
If you are fresh off your spring break and looking for a great networking event I recommend attending the BIZ Luncheon this Wednesday, March 25th at the Ruan II Building, 601 Locust, Conference Room 101 in Downtown Des Moines. Casey will share the tale of his leap from the corporate world with Microsoft to the
Agricultural Lawyers Join Brick Gentry Law Firm
The Brick Gentry Law Firm is pleased to announce that three distinguished agricultural attorneys have joined the law firm effective February 2, 2015.
Those attorneys include (click for bios):
All three bring a breadth of experience particularly in Ag law including trials and business work. We are very excited
Business Owners: Don’t Neglect Succession Planning
All too often business owners neglect succession planning. In fact, according to a recent Inc Magazine article and Deloitte survey on the topic, 90 percent of business leaders recognize the success of their company depends on effective leadership succession but only 13 percent are confident about the succession plans they have made. And those are
20 Franchise Trends from Industry News Source
Franchise Times has an interesting article on 20 to Watch: franchise trendsetters in 2015.
One of the more interesting items to me was No. 18 – So Sue Me. Apparently one enterprising insurance executive has set up a suite of insurance products specifically designed for franchisors and franchisees to limit their risk against lawsuits.