Author Archives: Isabella McPeak
Advisory Board for Family Business: Top 10 Tips
Here are my top 1o personal tips for assembling an advisory board for a family business: 1. An advisory board makes a CEO or family business successor answerable and accountable to a third party. 2. Unlike a board of directors, advisory board … Continue reading
2011 Washington Family Business Award Winners
Seattle Business Magazine hosted a fabulous awards dinner and ceremony on November 3, 2011 to honor the recipients of the 2011 Washington Family Business Awards at the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle. This was the 2nd annual awards ceremony to … Continue reading
Family Business Statistics in the US
Here are some interesting facts about family business in the US: Approximately 90% of U.S. businesses are family owned. They range in size from small “mom-n-pop” businesses to the likes of Walmart, Ford, Mars and Marriott. Family businesses employ 62% … Continue reading
Precision Iron Works Celebrates 20 Years of Success
Steve Leighton, the president and general manager of Precision Iron Works, still has the first invoice from 1991 on his office wall. This July, the company celebrates its 20th business anniversary. Over the course of 20 years, Precision Iron Works … Continue reading
Solving the Family Business Owner’s Retirement Dilemma
There’s a fatal flaw in the retirement of many small business owners: After pouring a lifetime of sweat, time and capital into building the business, their rough-sketch strategy is to sell out someday for a ton of money… then settle … Continue reading
The 3 Fundamental Drivers of Achieving Excellence
Excellence is one of my top values and I tend to attract family businesses that strive for and are aligned with that same value of excellence. Many business leaders tell me they are perfectionists. The problem with perfection is that … Continue reading
The Boss’s Daughter
Women have made enormous progress in the workforce since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, but the stubborn fact remains that four-and-a-half decades later the basic goal of the act has not been realized. The wage gap has narrowed, but … Continue reading
Why Succession and Transition Planning is Critical
According to several national studies, 50 percent of all business owners and leaders are within five to ten years of retirement. If you are part of the vast majority of business owners who have not identified a successor to manage … Continue reading
Protecting your Business and your Family with a Buy-Sell Agreement
The successful business you and your partners built together took years of hard work and a great deal of capital. You certainly want your business to remain prosperous long into the future. Preoccupied with the day-to-day details of running the … Continue reading
5 New Tax Law Changes Made Simple
Here is an update from our December Lunch & Learn session regarding possible yearend tax implications for owners of closely held businesses. Since a number of tax issues were settled at the last minute by extending the Bush tax cuts, … Continue reading