Financial Poise™ has one mission: to provide reliable plain English business, financial and legal education to individual investors and private business owners.

Good Character and Cash Flow Improve Banking Relationships Typically, there is significant triage to be done before determining if you can improve banking relationships. Most often, the problems come back to cash flow and misunderstanding what banks do. While Boards[...]

Consumer Sales and Marketing Challenges That May Challenge You Too Consumer-focused businesses have three key challenges: Understanding what the customer/market wants Targeting the right segments Differentiating what they offer from what their competitors offer In all my years creating marketing[...]

Understand the Stakes of Collecting Personal Information Cybersecurity law has been called many things in recent years—evolving, complex, varied, cutting-edge, even hilarious. Ok, maybe not the last one. But I would offer another phrase that can serve as a key[...]

Preserve Wealth by Recognizing Tipping Points Families that have worked extremely hard to build wealth find it even more difficult to preserve that wealth over time. Often, the concern is that a wealthy family could go from shirtsleeves to shirtless in[...]

Tribal Knowledge: Be in the Know America is getting older. Not just in terms of it having a birthday every year, but in terms of the percentage of people closing in on retirement. You can thank the aging Baby Boomer[...]

Consuming More Protein Is Consuming Us Walk down a grocery aisle, or do a quick Google search on weight loss, and you will be inundated with low carb, high protein diets, articles and products. Low Carb, Paleo, Keto, Eco-Atkins, Zero[...]

Millennials in the Workplace Want to be Understood The Leading With Courage Academy recently led a panel discussion on millennials in the workplace, and how to better incorporate this unique demographic into your culture for greater success. During that discussion,[...]

It’s not Selfish to Reap the Benefits of Organized Philanthropy Bringing family members together to invest philanthropically is a game changer, but organized giving can challenge even the strongest families. Yes, philanthropy is about generosity, but it can also feel[...]

Midwest Is Best When It Comes to Venture Capital Value Readers of my earlier Financial Poise articles may remember this: I am a rare breed, a value investor who also loves to talk venture capital value. Seems strange? I’ll explain.[...]

Using a Travel Agent to Plan a Trip is a Necessity Not a Luxury You know taking a vacation is great for your long-term job performance, stress levels, and overall health, and you finally got your spouse to agree to[...]

Everyone Who's Anyone Is Developing a Branding Strategy “Branding” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. From individuals developing personal brands to professionals tasked with complete makeovers for iconic brands like FedEx, UPS, and KFC (notably[...]

What Qualifies as Qualified Business Income? In the six months following the passage of the landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the business community has been anxiously awaiting clarifications on certain aspects of the legislation. Specifically, the area that defines[...]

Medical Identity Theft is a High Cost Crime Norah said she thought it was odd when she received a letter from her insurance company denying a $7,000 insulin pump. She wasn’t a diabetic. That letter should have been an alert[...]

The Financial Market is Reaping the Benefits of New Blockchain Technology Technological advancement is accelerating at an extraordinary rate. Yet, finance and capital markets, which operate within a restrictive regulatory environment, have been resistant to adapt to this phenomenon. The[...]

Lessons in Structuring Family Office Structures The number and sophistication of family offices has grown substantially over the past several decades. In fact, some estimates suggest that there are more than 3,000 family offices managing trillions in private wealth. This[...]

Death and the Distribution of a Descendant’s Dough A trustee manages the assets, distributions and other obligations under a trust agreement. A corporate trustee is an entity, such as a bank-owned or independent trust company. There are many types of[...]

Family Owned Business: The Other Side of the Coin This article was guest authored by Barry S. Cain, experienced corporate director of both private and public companies targeting improved organizational growth and performance. Barry is a valued contributor to several[...]

Driving Future Hedge Fund Returns, Performance With so many articles about “hedge fund performance” popping up recently, investors are right to wonder what is driving this increase in returns and renewed investor interest. With thousands of funds spread across multiple[...]

Many Paths, Much Resistance for Families in Business I’m old enough to remember maps. Yes, physical, paper maps that you bought at gas stations or got for free from the AAA office. Once unfolded, they never went back to the[...]

The New Rules of Data Privacy and Protection You’ve probably heard the letters GDPR everywhere lately. “What do they mean and why do I have to care?” is probably your common response. This article seeks to provide you with an[...]