Direct Talk

This month I have been writing about risk management. Last week I wrote about liability waivers, which protect your business from claims by the customers and participants you serve. This week I want to look at the risk you take on in contracts with other businesses, where these two clauses decide who pays when something goes wrong

f you run a fitness studio, offer adventure activities, or provide any service where customers might get hurt, someone has probably told you that you need a liability waiver. And they are right. But here is the thing most business owners miss: a liability waiver is only as good as the paper it is written on. A poorly drafted waiver, or one used in the wrong situation, can leave you completely exposed. So let's talk about when these documents actually protect you and when they

. If you want to sell your business five years from now, the decisions you make today will have more impact on the sale price and the smoothness of the process than anything you do in the final year before you list it. Most small business owners do not think about selling until they are ready to exit. By then, several years of avoidable problems may have accumulated, and the best time to fix them has passed. This post is for the business owner who is not ready to sell yet bu