PBES Conference: The impact of today’s trends on your business

Jan. 1, 2020
The reality is that today’s trends may have a very real effect on your business tomorrow.

PHOENIX — What's trending may be on your radar, or the farthest thing from your mind. But the reality is that today’s trends may have a very real effect on your business tomorrow.

PBES Conference Keynote Speaker Gene Marks, The Marks Group, presented “Your Business, Your Future: Economic, Political and Other Key Trends — What’s Happening Today that will Affect Your Business Tomorrow,” at the event Wednesday, May 15, 2013, in Phoenix.

Trend 1: Financial crisis
Marks suggests watching C-Span. In the U.S., manufacturing is stalled, consumer sentiment is down, business confidence is low and household income is down 7.5 percent from 2008. What is holding our country back from positive change?

U.S. debt is at 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product.  Multiple options have been proposed to tackle this problem, including looking at the Canadian model implemented in the 90s, but no agreements have been made. As business owners or employees in the collision repair industry, “why should we care?” Marks asks.

The overall impacts to businesses could be great. If the spending crisis continues, it could result in higher taxes, a contracting economy because of less government spending; higher inflation; higher interest rates; stock market impacts; and an overall weak dollar, making overseas purchases more expensive.

Trend 2: Tax changes
Marks' second recommendation — “Have dinner with your accountants,” he says. And bring the Pepto Bismol — you may need it, he jokes.

To determine your best tax strategy for 2013, you need to understand the multitude of tax filing changes, including new regulations in capital gains, social security tax, individual Medicare taxes, dividends taxes and many others.

Trend 3: Consider selling
More business owners are interested in selling. The aging baby boomer generation will make this a more challenging venture down the road, Marks says. In the next 5-7 years, 20 percent of the population will be over the age of 50, and there will be an abundance of businesses available to buy.

The benefits for those looking to buy are the current tax rates, interest rates and inflation.

For those looking to sell before the baby boomer bubble, you need to maximize the value of your business through a hard look at financials, people and systems.

Marks suggests looking diligently at company financials, including monthly balance sheets and profit and loss, both going forward and backward. Have your business financials reviewed by an outside CPA.

“They are not cheap, but you have an outside guy coming into your company, and he will be asking you questions about your financial statements and challenging you about why things went up, down or held steady in the same way a prospective buyer may as well,” Marks says.

Reading your general ledger is also important.

You also need to have the best team in your business. A strong management team and HR policies are factors a potential buyer will evaluate.

Systems — financial/MRP/ERP, CRM and infrastructure — will also have a great effect on the value of your business.

Trend 4: Decide on healthcare
Understanding the healthcare mandate is a challenge on its own, never mind decided what coverage to provide. Getting familiar with the mandates, fees, penalties and options as a business owner is important in order to best decide how to move your business forward.

Marks says you have three healthcare strategy options: stay the course and continue to offer what you have been; discontinue healthcare and pay the penalties; or take a hybrid approach to providing or helping provide healthcare to employees. One example is Wal-Mart — they will discontinue their health care plan and pay the government fees, but give an flat-rate increase to employees in their paycheck so they can go out on the federal exchange and purchase healthcare on their own.

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