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

The “This is Spinal Tap” Lawsuit If you’ve never seen This is Spinal Tap, close your browser immediately and watch. The 1984 “mockumentary” about a fictitious British rock band touring America belongs on the Mount Rushmore of movie comedies. It birthed[...]

How Do I Love Thee Advantages of a Buy-Sell Agreement? Let Me Count the Ways... Businesses with more than one owner face unique challenges in planning for the future. A buy-sell agreement is an arrangement between business partners to govern[...]

Reasonable Cybersecurity Measures for Protection After collecting personal information, businesses must take “reasonable measures” to safeguard it. Some states, such as Florida and Alabama, have this standard (or a similar one) in their cybersecurity statutes. On the federal level, the[...]

Like Life Itself, Your Wealth is Entropic The hard truth about life is that the moment we are born a process begins that leads to our death. While some days are better than others, our cells and our bodies are[...]

Let's Talk Litigation Funding A July 30, 2018, legal ethics opinion from the New York City Bar Association (“NYCBA”) raises concerns about a common structure used for funding of litigation. In particular, the NYCBA Professional Ethics Committee concludes: “Under Rule[...]

What is the Business Valuation Tax Act of 2017 Anyway? The Business Valuation Tax Act of 2017 (Tax Act) has introduced changes to the financial and regulatory landscape that specifically affect business valuation in the context of C-Corporations. This article[...]

Show Business to Business Sales and Marketing Who’s Boss Businesses that focus on selling products and services to other businesses are very similar to those that sell to consumers. The differences between the two lie in their sales and marketing[...]

Parenting the Whole Child for Successful Living Raising children is a lot of things. It’s exhilarating, exhausting, loving, caring, difficult, rewarding, and can be really scary. The vulnerability of a parent can be overwhelming and truly a kind of vulnerability[...]

Editor's Note: This is an updated version of a similar article published in November of 2015. To view the original, click here. Americans take great pride in saying that ours is a nation of laws, not people. But resting on[...]

For the Threat of Cybercrime, Get a Cyber Liability Policy If cybercrime were a nation state, it would be the world’s 13th-largest by GDP, just ahead of Australia. The threat of cybercrime can take many forms – from hijacking sensitive[...]

Editor's Note: This is an updated version of a similar article published in March of 2015. To view the original, click here. Creative Capital is Driving Economic Recovery As small business owners get creative in raising capital, the economy is[...]

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.[...]