Electing Directors

The third segment of an annual meeting is to elect Directors for the coming year term. The term would be one year from the date of the Shareholders meeting. Directors are just that. They direct the company. They have skills that many Officers do not have, due to the Officers are doing the daily grind of the business. Directors are taking a birds eye view of the company, its industry, its competition, and its ability to merge with another company if the situation becomes apparent. Directors of a company can be compared to directors of movie films. They are there watching what is going on, from a third party perspective, so they are able to see the results differently than the Officers and employees.

Directors are the Captain of the ship. They are looking ahead of the front of the ship to beyond the horizon. They keep up with the industry and what is happening globally, so they can change the way the company is running, if it is not in its best interest. Officers may or may not be directors. In a non public company, they can assume the duty of both, an Officer and a Director. Unfortunately, this does not give the company leverage with its shareholders. It is more of the same mentality. It is very difficult for an Officer to be able to see past the problems at hand, and forecast and plan for the future.

You will need to appoint Directors that are not in a conflict of interest to the company. You will not be able to pick your accountant, your spouse, your lawyer. You will need to find people who can be objective when it comes to how the business should direct itself. People you work closely with, may not have the company’s best interest at heart.

Directors will direct the business during the next year, checking corporate state and federal tax returns, monthly financials, stock issuance, loans, pension or profit sharing plans, bonus’, acquisitions, or purchases. As a Shareholder you do not have control over that unless you give up your Shareholder status and request a buyout.

Resolutions

The second segment of the annual meeting is to ratify resolutions adopted by the directors during the year. I found this to be quite interesting from the Shareholders perspective. When the year is complete, the Shareholders get to find out what resolutions were adopted during the past year. The Shareholders are not voting on these resolutions during the year. If you are a director you know what they are, but if you are not, this could be a very stick situation.

Say, you are a Shareholder, and you find out at the annual meeting that a resolution was adopted by the directors during the past calendar or fiscal year, that they approved receiving a loan from a bank. This should make you upset that you are only a Shareholder. Your investment has just taken a step back in a return on your investment. The bank will now have to be paid back first, and what if the company is not making any money? What happens when they do not know how to spend money wisely, or do not use a budget?

Directors of a company, public or private have a lot of power. If they are able to get a loan from a bank, without the vote of the shareholders, then you as a shareholder are left holding the bag. If it is a public held company, then the price per share will drop, when they have more debt. If the public company can have a press release to say it is for materials for a contract they just received and the money is going to be paid back once the contract billing starts getting paid, then you at least know what the revenue outlook is like.

If you are a shareholder of a private company, then you do not have to be told what the Directors and Officers are doing at the company. You will find out at a shareholders meeting, if one is called for. An annual meeting is a requirement to continue status of a corporation. If the Directors or Officers do not have an annual meeting, the Shareholders can protest that the company is being run like a sole proprietorship and that any debt incurred should not be taken out of the Shareholders investment. The Shareholder should request that they receive the fair market value for their shares and remove themselves as a shareholder.

5 Important responsibilities to have a Successful Annual Meeting

In order to have a successful annual meeting at your company, you will need to be aware of the 5 important responsibilities that are needed. You started your company in the hopes to provide a service, product, or both and receive a profit. When you started your company you were looking forward to seeing money in your checking account, a good customer list, and easy to work with vendors. At times it didn’t seem like that was happening. Other times, it was smooth sailing. You were able to get the answers you wanted just by asking the bookkeeper, the service manager, or installation manager, or salesman. If you are the sole owner of the business, you can do it that way. If you have other shareholders, or creditors to answer to, it is not that easy.

You need to be able to answer questions about your business and how it is operating. You will need to know where you spent the money, and how much of it was spent on Cost of Goods, and Overhead. You will need to explain why the % profit is where it is. Whether it is within industry standards, or not, and why not. You will need to review all of your departments and breakdown their budgets versus actual sales and spending.

In a corporate annual meeting, there is a board of directors who were voted in by the Shareholders to oversee the running of the company. If you are a Director, then you will be presenting it to the Shareholders. If you are a Shareholder also, then you will be approving the company’s revenue and expenses for the prior fiscal or calendar year.

A Shareholders position with the company is to receive study and approve the company’s balance sheet and other financial statements submitted by the directors. Some firms provide an auditor’s report showing that they have been checked for accuracy. If you are a Director, then it is your fiduciary duty to make sure that the financial statements being presented are accurate and reflect the actual business of the company. No forward looking statements are to be included in this segment. Shareholders need to know where they stand in regards to receiving a premium on their investment. This is not the time to create fluff in accounting to provide a better looking statement. It is what it is.

As a Shareholder it is your duty to be sure you understand how the company is making its money, and if it is just on paper or do they have cash. As a Shareholder, the company may want you to invest more money in order to continue doing business. You want to be sure you understand just what is behind the numbers.

Unfortunately, for the publicly traded companies, Shareholders in them do not get to ask the tough questions and find out what how the accounting is being done to produce the financial statements they receive in their annual report. Although it may have an auditor’s report with it, there have been companies that have failed doing the very same thing.

Be sure to take this responsibility serious if you want to be a Shareholder.

Is Your Company Having Yearly Meetings?

If your company is a Corporation, Limited Partnership, or LLC, you should be having yearly meetings. Do you know what goes on in a yearly meeting? Next Week we will be discussing what needs to be said and how to record those meetings to protect your company and its' officers.

Advertising - Self Promotion

Self-promotion is similar to spreading the word by any other means but with an artistic approach. If the artistic part were taken out of the equation advertising would look more like barging rather than self-promotion. There are many steps involved in this process. The first step is to collect and create useful content relating to the topic, which is a not an easy job.
In today’s fast paced world owning a website for your business is a must which is not a big deal anymore with so many people available who excel in web designing and also offer a competitive rate. There are many types of technologies involved in the creation of a website, a one page flash website wouldn’t take you places. Intense graphics should be incorporated to catch the eye of the customer. After the creation of website, the website content should be emphasized upon. Writers who expertise in search engine optimization should be raked in so that the page ranks amongst the top pages on Google, Yahoo and Msn. Search engines have become popular universally and your website doing good on them plays a more vital role than getting other kind of references. Hence, efforts should be made on making remarkable progress to bring your website in the hit list. Also, material on the website should be updated frequently to meet the changing needs of the people. Get someone to design a logo for the company and website which is catchy and delivers the right message to the customers.
Other than website content, articles should also be published in newspapers, magazines and online publications especially business oriented emphasizing on ten strong points which describes the best about the business or the product. Online publication will facilitate in providing successful searches to the targeted audience.
The next target method of advertising should be television. Putting a commercial during the prime time will spread the message to a larger crowd. The content of the advertising should be akin to the value of the product. Famous personalities can be roped in to endorse the product, which will not only attract common people but also their fans in buying the product.
From time to time it is essential to review the past work and improving on the mistakes previously committed. Once the previous mistakes are tackled, it wouldn’t hurt to analyze previous milestones, awards, and acquisitions. This increases the chances of running into something that really deserves to be highlighted to the public. The more accomplishments you display to the public the more fan-following your product will get.
Reviewing competitor’s work on a regular basis would prove fruitful. This would also help identify loopholes in your product that have been overlooked before and would provide the key reasons to improve on.
Although this is an old approach, snail mails are also one of the best advertising methods. As it’s a more energy consuming approach, it’s important that you have the addresses of the customers who are really in need of the product. Regular mails containing details about the new development will keep people informed about your company’s products. A more modern approach to this method is collecting e-mail ids of the targeted customers and posting them ads and latest deals. This is a cheaper and less time consuming approach compared to snail mails as you can mass email as many people as you want at any time.
Before releasing any product in the market, product testing should be done by giving out samples among the targeted customers. The feedbacks makes it more clear whether the product is ready to be released in the market or whether changes should be made to make it more appealing to the public. It is recommended to approach sincere friends, acquaintances, partners and clients at first to test your product and then go to the public, as expert advice is more useful.
To make more brownie points, address the customers and clients and appreciate them for their contribution in making the product popular. Send a token of thanks on special occasions like festivals or on accomplishing an important task. Customers can also be thanked by offering special discounts and free gifts. After gaining popularity focus should be on retaining the reputation rather than taking things for granted.

How Your Health Insurance Plan should Work for You

No matter how avidly you take care of your health, there are unexpected circumstances that can land you a day or two in the hospital. If you are not prepared and you do not have enough health insurance coverage, this can cut a great deal with your savings. Thus, it is very important that you choose the best health insurance plan that can help you in case of an emergency.

First, check out all the health insurance options that you have. Consider your family’s health needs as well when signing-up for an insurance plan. There are two types of health insurance plan that you can sign-up for: private and government health insurance options. The private health insurance is personally signed-up for by an individual. You will also have a health insurance plan when you are employed. The company will provide you with coverage as part of your employee benefits.

The health insurance coverage provided by the government may be offered on a local, state or national level. Medicare is an example of a health insurance plan offered on a national level. Medicare benefits are available for people who are over 65 years of age, and to persons with disabilities. Other government-initiated health insurance programs include: Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, health care benefits for the veterans and military, as well as eligible American Indians.

If you want to sign-up for a private health insurance plan, learn everything that you need to know about the coverage stipulated on your contract. Read the coverage information and check the sections stating the exclusions. Avoid signing up for one which has a long list of exclusions that would not cover much of anything. More importantly, make sure that you have a copy of every contract that you will sign. See to it that your personal information is correct and make a note of the coverage period. All in all, make sure that you have ample health insurance coverage for you to use whenever you need it.

Why should we work together?

Can we accomplish more if we work as a team, than apart? How can we work together and feel that we are making our community a better place? One idea is to join your local Chamber of Commerce.

Do you need to reinvent yourself in this changing economy? How about your business? Does it need a facelift? Where can you go to let others know what you do? Maybe you just want to get out and meet new people.

The Local Chamber of Commerce is there is Share and Care ideas and business. How frustrated are you with your business and its operations? You can get many ideas from others who have been in your shoes before.

In this fast paced world with the internet, email, texting, twittering, social networking, how much time do you really have to tell someone else what you do? You can learn how to express what you do in 30 seconds or less.

Are you in the minds of a lot of people? Do you have celebrity status? If not, the Local Chamber of Commerce has programs on how the media can help put a spotlight on your business. Go out and shine in 2009!

Are you a trusted advisor in your company? Do you have the boss’s ear? If you want that, you can join the local Chamber of Commerce to help you learn what businesses are looking for today. There are a lot of books on the subject, and they are good to study the ways companies have been doing things. Now is the time to find out what is working or not working today.

Do you want clarity in your business? Do you need an updated Business Plan? The local Chamber of Commerce is a good place to help you strategize your business plan. If you don’t have a business plan, start thinking about creating one. It is a good document to have to bring clarity to what you want to achieve. SCORE is an organization that is part of the local Chamber of Commerce and is available to help you with your plans.




Check out the song lyrics by Canned Heat “Let’s Work Together”

Together we’ll stand
Divided we’ll fall
Come on now people
Let’s get on the ball
And work together
(Now now people)
Because together we will stand
Every boy, every girl and man
People, when things go wrong
As they sometimes will
And the road you travel
It stays all uphill
Let's work together
Come on, come on
Let's work together
You know together we will stand
Every boy, girl, woman and man
Oh well now, two or three minutes
Two or three hours
What does it matter now
In this life of ours
Let's work together\ Come on, come on
Let's work together
(Now now people)
Because together we will stand
Every boy, every woman and man
Ahhh, come on now...
Ahhh, come on, let's work together...
Well now, make someone happy
Make someone smile
Let's all work together
And make life worthwhile
Let's work together
Come on, come on
Let's work together
(Now now people)
Because together we will stand
Every boy, girl, woman and man
Oh well now, come on you people
Walk hand in hand
Let's make this world of ours
A good place to stand
And work together
Come on, come on
Let's work together
(Now now people)
Because together we will stand
Every boy, girl, woman and man
Well now together we will stand
Every boy, girl, woman and man



Join Your Local Chamber of Commerce Today and Work Together!