People put together teams for purpose of winning football games, building automobiles, and traveling into space, among other things. 

One value of the team is that all team members have different roles, which when brought together provides the organization with a sum greater than its parts.

As an Oklahoma business owner, you need a team as well.  The team brings skills and experience that you likely do not have.  Who are the critical team members for the Oklahoma small business that wants to maximize its efficiency and effectiveness?

Accountant
For a business to be a long-term success, it must properly manage its money and ensure that it complies with all tax laws from the Oklahoma Tax Commission and Internal Revenue Service.  An accountant (a/k/a “CPA”) brings tax knowledge and experience helping businesses comply with all tax laws.

Insurance Agent
No business expects things to go wrong.  However, a prudent business owner knows that things sometimes go wrong anyway, often through no fault of the business owner.  For these situations, insurance is critical.  Not just any “insurance” but insurance coverage that meets your specific business’s liability needs.  This is where an insurance agent comes in:  You can draw on the experience of the insurance agent as to what type of insurance you need and how much coverage you need.

Attorney
Considering who authored this Blog Post, you are probably not surprised that an attorney made the team.  Nonetheless, an Oklahoma attorney is a valuable team member because the attorney brings legal knowledge combined with experience.  The attorney has seen many of the issues small businesses run into, knows the type of documents the business needs and can counsel the business on best practices to avoid legal issues.  The attorney has answers to questions like: What type of legal organization should I be?  How do I protect my business when employees leave?

Have you assembled your team?  If not, why not?

There is nothing like the excitement of starting a new business.  Even more so when you have a partner, someone to share the experience with. 

Things are probably never as good as when you are infused with the pure adrenaline of seeing your dreams become reality. 

–BUT–

things happen, businesses fail, and even worse sometimes businesses succeed.  When these events happen often the business is closing, an owner wants to leave, or an owner dies.  The time to sort out these situations and to plan for these situations is while things are good and calm, which means at the businesses’ inception.

Consider these questions when you are starting a business with another person:

• Are you, as an owner, protected from having the liability of the business seep into your personal assets?
• What if the business gets sued?
• What if someone quits or is fired?
• Do you have the proper type and amount of insurance?
• How do you buy out the person who has left?
• How much do you pay the heirs of an owner who has died?
• How do you determine the value of their interest in the entity?

I help people answer these questions and put processes in place to make these circumstances happen as smoothly as possible.  If you would like to talk about these things, please feel free to reach out to me.

An Oklahoma Stock Purchase Agreement is used when the buyer is going to purchase all of the owner’s interest in the company that owns the business.

For example, if you are buying a restaurant and the restaurant is owned by Smith Corporation, in a stock purchase you would buy all of the outstanding stock of Smith Corporation. By purchasing all of the outstanding stock, you end up stepping into the shoes of the previous owners. That means all assets and liabilities that the previous owners have, you now have except for anything that is expressly excluded in the asset purchase agreement.

Curious about the difference between an Oklahoma Stock Purchase Agreement and an Oklahoma Asset Purchase Agreement?  Check out this post that contains an explanation.

An Oklahoma Asset Purchase Agreement is used when a buyer wants to only purchase specific assets of a business rather than the entire business.

For example, purchasing the restaurant mentioned above through an asset purchase agreement would probably mean purchasing the physical location, the inventory and equipment, goodwill associated with the restaurant, and perhaps other information related to customers. In an asset purchase agreement, the buyer is only responsible for the assets he purchases and the liabilities that come with those assets.

Curious about the difference between an Oklahoma Asset Purchase Agreement and an Oklahoma Stock Purchase Agreement?  Check out this post that contains an explanation.