Rising interest rates have clipped the bloom from the rose in terms of sky-high sales multiples for many agency sales transactions. Despite continued strong demand for acquisitions, buyers are simply constrained by prime rates above 8%. Unfortunately, after two decades …
I remember watching Michael Crighton’s “Westworld” in 1973. Two vivid impressions from that experience remain. The first was my date breaking my glasses when she screamed and threw her arms open during a startling scene. The second was the completely …
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, socialist and one-time presidential candidate, has been making headlines recently suggesting that government should mandate 32-hour work weeks for the same pay as the traditional 40-hour week. Naturally, this has been roundly criticized by many, …
With technology relentlessly simplifying many parts of our business, and consolidations changing the competitive landscape as well, personal service businesses will continue to be challenged to rethink their business models in the coming years. Typically, when an industry sees change …
For the last decade and a half, business leaders have struggled to comprehend, motivate and manage the millennial generation. Recently, I read an online article where business owners discussed the “new” generation of workers and it was both amusing and …
We are obviously in one of the most intense hard markets of the last several decades. While much has been said and written about how to navigate the challenges the market is creating for agents, I’d like to take a …
You are going to sell your interest in your agency at some point. Whether the sale is internal, external, to a family member, employees, or to a large national organization, there are steps you can take in advance to make …
As a young professional I was very interested in becoming active in my community. Of course, I knew that this would help my business career but I also had the philosophy, from an early age, that we all stand on …
One of my favorite sayings is “failure is tuition for something else.” I adopted this phrase during a conversation with another senior leader one day on the consequences of some mistakes we’d made organizationally. I think that failure is a …
Life has never held more opportunities for our attention to be pulled away from what is most important. We have all seen the statistics about the number of messages the average American has bombarding them every day. While these distractions …
