President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” When you’re running a business or organization, it can be difficult to find the time to step back and look at your operations, goals and opportunities. In fact, it’s easy to fall into doing the same thing over and over without realizing it. Yet taking a moment to reassess your long-term vision can be very meaningful, especially at the beginning of a new year. Personally, I like to take the time to reflect on what’s driving our sales and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). I’ve also found there are a few other things to stay on top of.

When it comes to cash flow, timing is everything.

Cash is king, but it can also be elusive. The Small Business Administration (SBA) reports that 25% of small businesses fail due to cash flow challenges. Many times the problem isn’t a lack of money, but a disconnect in timing. You may need to lay out money before sales happen, and that can create a significant financial challenge. How do you pay suppliers before you have cash in hand? Do you raise equity? Get a loan? Bring in other investors? You may find you have capital gaps you’ll need to bridge and loans can take months to process.   It’s important to be well prepared to determine what, when and how — what you need, when you need it and how you will pay it back.

Be vigilant, watch these three cash-flow metrics.

Entrepreneur.com outlines three of the most important cash flow considerations. “Inventory turnover” measures how long your inventory sits and occupies your cash flow. “Payment days” measures how long it takes for you to pay your vendors. “Collection Days” measures how long your business is waiting to get paid. Projecting for these metrics 12 months ahead and reassessing over time will keep you prepared and safe from cash-flow gaps.

Remember your resources.

Another thing to consider is your resources.  It’s easy to get caught up in the “if something has to get done, do it yourself” mentality. That can wear you out (physically and emotionally), and deny yourself valuable information and ideas. Your lawyers, advisors, bankers, family and friends are all leverage points. Have them work for you to get more done and provide input into progress or shortcomings. Often people in your network have helped others or experienced themselves some of the challenges you may be facing and will have time-saving insight.

Assess your Progress.

Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to try different timelines to ensure I’m reaching my goals. I have found that a 60-day cycle is best for reassessing goals and operations. Sixty days is enough to show progress (or not) and enable reflection before tweaking the plan or changing course. Longer than 60 days can allow inefficiencies to continue too long.

When reassessing goals, I’ve found it best to start with a review of your projections and estimations, then compare the plan versus the actual numbers.  Always look to identify what changes you should make in your projections and assumptions, and whether it’s valuable to change the plan you’ve built around them. Remember where you started and where you want to end. A lot can happen during that time, which can be ok, as long are you’re prepared.

Bridge your gaps.

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that not everything will go right. So when thinking ahead, expect obstacles. But with solid planning in place, you can ensure you stay on the road that you always intended.

With the advent of the digital age, one-on-one conversation is becoming a thing of the past. With it has gone the fine art of listening — one of the most valuable tools for any relationship, both business and personal, using emails as a substitute for really listening and gathering feedback. In fact, if you fail to listen to your clients, you fall short in understanding their needs. That, in turn, can put you out of business — fast.

Why the deaf ear to clients? When you’re running a business, you’re busy — you have inventory, your books, and your employees, with product development always top of mind. You can become execution-minded and forget to take a step back and ask if you’re fulfilling the needs of your clients. What’s working and what isn’t, and why? What can make their jobs easier and their business more profitable?

Consultative Approach

Every client is unique with different needs. What works with one may not work well with another. Yet there’s no way to discern the differences without spending time listening — and learning. What you uncover may be enlightening to both you and the client.

Perhaps you can solve a challenge they didn’t recognize they had. Often, they are using your products on a day-to-day basis and can provide valuable insight into obstacles and what’s “needed and wanted.” They may share their opinion regarding competing products. What better way to help you boost your product and service offerings? A consultative approach may even set the stage for a long-term partnership, uncovering solutions that can contribute to their success in future projects.

Fact is, if you make a customer happy, loyalty and retention can be the next natural step in your relationship. Equally important, they can become a valuable center of influence, sharing their exceptional experience with colleagues.

Consumer-Drive Innovation

How do many organizations “listen” today? They gather focus groups that may be limiting, as they often lead to “group agreement” versus individual input, leaving the organization without any real data. Some financial organizations are creating programs where customers can sign up to give feedback and participate in pilots of new products and services. While this gives the clients a say in product development, it doesn’t cater to their individual needs. Conversely, a consultative, one-on-one approach helps the business ascertain what is needed on an individual basis, and move forward to develop solutions that address those needs.

Case in point, at Capital Bank, we designed and implemented a solution that allowed a national charitable organization to remotely scan check payments along with corresponding invoices, enabling greater efficiency and reduction in disparate systems. The impetus was a conversation to unearth the need, with the solution developed over a two-week period. Another conversation with a not-for-profit customer led to a solution that leverages data collected from remote deposit capture, creating a database of donors that could be electronically parsed between entities and individuals.

How to Listen — Well

Just as the benefits to listening to clients are many, so are the many ways you can listen. Invite clients to your office to chat or pick up the phone. Consider a monthly “check-in” over coffee. Phone calls and in person meetings with an interactive dialogue offer so much more opportunity for real listening over simply sending out an email. Advisory boards can be another way to stay aware of what’s happening with the needs of your clients, though a bit less personal. At Capital Bank I’ve found our advisory boards have helped us keep a finger on the pulse of our local business markets.

With information in hand, try not to let the same challenge present itself to different clients. If you’ve found a solution for one client, others may be experiencing the same thing. Your clients will appreciate it and express it in long-term loyalty.

Bottom line — while building your business is paramount, there is no possible way to achieve your production and financial objectives without helping your clients reach theirs. That takes a good ear. While it may be challenging to promote listening within a corporate culture, it can be worth the time and can pay off in better service, improved solutions, and a stronger foothold in the market.

Just like individuals making significant purchases or investments such as homes, cars, and education, business owners need loans to start, run, and grow their businesses. But each business and business owner has a unique story and circumstances, and traditional loans are not always the best fit for those needs. That’s where the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) comes in.

The SBA provides a wide variety of loans, including loans that help businesses acquire working capital, buy real estate and equipment, expand inventory and staff, and build sales and distribution capability abroad. During fiscal year 2017, in its 7(a) and 504 programs, the SBA loaned over $30 billion through more than 68,000 loans. That same year, these two SBA programs helped women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned businesses get financing totaling over $8 billion, $9 billion, and $1 billion respectively. The SBA website describes the agency and its programs in detail.

SBA Loans: Not Just for Startups

Many business owners don’t consider SBA loans because of common misconceptions about them, for example, that SBA loans are only for new businesses. In fact, they are an important source of financing for established businesses.

For existing businesses, SBA loans can be a better option than traditional bank loans or other sources of financing, like family and friends, crowdsourcing, or venture capital. Some businesses use SBA loans to supplement other types of loans they already have. This is because a more flexible and customized underwriting approach can identify new ways to get business owners the loans they need for projects that traditional loans might not support, such as expansion into global import and export markets.

SBA Loans and Banks

Banks are valuable partners for the SBA because both take a nontraditional, nonstandard approach to evaluating business owners’ financing needs. For example, consider a borrower with cash-flow challenges, who normally wouldn’t qualify for a standard bank business loan. Through the SBA program, a bank might explore projection-based transactions, and ask about future revenue rather than historical revenue to assess a loan request. If a business has cash-flow challenges now, can a loan help the business grow cash flow by increasing its inventory, staff, production capacity, or customer base? Using SBA loans, banks look beyond traditional loan metrics to find creative ways to help businesses reach new levels of success.

Together, SBA loans and banks deliver benefits to all parties involved. Business owners get customized loans structured around their specific needs. Banks make good loans even better by sharing the risk through a partial government guarantee. And local economies benefit from successful and growing businesses creating jobs in the United States and providing goods and services both here and abroad.

SBA Loans in Action

Capital Bank is proud to be an SBA-approved lender, and we understand both the challenges and opportunities these loans present. We have worked with SBA loans for many years and have the expertise to identify new and relevant ways businesses can use SBA loans.

We apply a creative, flexible approach to the full spectrum of SBA loans, including 7a (Standard, Small, and Express), CAPLine, 504, and Export Working Capital Program loans. We work with business owners to craft customized loan solutions that help them grow based on their goals and visions.

Two examples of Capital Bank clients illustrate how lenders work with the SBA to make a difference for well-established businesses that want to take the next step.

An existing client returned to us for more SBA financing, so he could expand his successful fast food franchise by opening a third restaurant. The problem was, the client didn’t have tangible collateral or enough assets to meet our internal credit guidelines for a commercial loan. To make the client’s financing and business cash flow work, the term of the loan had to be lengthened to lower the payments. The SBA offered a 75% guarantee, giving us the security to help our client open his new locations.

In another case, the SBA helped us with a business acquisition. The aging owner of a small restaurant decided to sell the business and retire. His daughter had been working at the restaurant for years and wanted to take over the family business, but she didn’t have the assets needed to buy the business. Because the owner needed the cash from a sale to retire, he couldn’t take installment payments. With the help of the SBA, we secured a loan for the client’s daughter with a 75% guarantee, without tangible collateral or high assets. The owner’s daughter closed the transaction and moved the ownership, keeping the restaurant in the family for another generation.

Strong Partnerships

Working with the SBA, Capital Bank and other lenders act more as an advisor than a lender. This unique and powerful government-backed loan program to help make business owners’ dreams a reality.

With unemployment rates at a historic low in many sectors, it’s no surprise companies are looking for ways to retain their existing employees and position themselves competitively when recruiting new hires. Capital Bank is no exception. Based on our experience, we’ve found that a key factor in attracting and retaining employees is benefits — defined in a new way.

Look Past the Money

Although many people in professional-level jobs say they’re leaving their positions for higher salaries, the real reasons are often more subtle and personal. In this year’s Deloitte Millennial Survey, six in 10 respondents said “sense of purpose” is part of the reason they chose — and continued to stay with — their current employer. How do they fit into the organizational puzzle? How is their work relevant? Employees care about these things, so be transparent about how their personal goals are aligned to the “big picture” goals of the organization.

Long-term opportunities are equally important. Employees want to grow and develop in their jobs, and they want to work for companies positioned on upward trajectories over the long term. Employees are energized by companies with forward-thinking strategies and the organizational maturity to implement and follow through on those strategies — without the distractions of constant change or turnover of staff and ideas.

Rethink Benefits

Today, employee benefits go beyond health insurance plans and vacation days. They reflect a company’s personality and philosophy — its culture, environment, and opportunities — in addition to competitive pay and benefits packages.

According to Glassdoor’s 2015 Employment Confidence Survey, about 60 percent of people reported that benefits and perks are a major factor in considering whether to accept a job offer. The survey also found that 80 percent of employees would choose additional benefits in a broader context. At Capital Bank, we’ve had success with this, adopting more organizational flexibility around jobs, sometimes including work-from-home options, where they make sense.

We used to have general benefits policies covering all employees, but we found that more customized, people-centric benefits help our employees succeed and be their best selves at work every day. For example, we work hard to keep our health insurance coverage affordable, using a combination of high-deductible health plans and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). HSAs give employees the flexibility to use those dollars where and when they need them based on their circumstances.

Listening to Your Employees

To enable two-way communication about your company and your environment, you can survey your employees every couple of years to get their feedback and understand their needs. Recent survey results helped us revise and improve our paid time off (PTO) policy. While our existing policy was generous, it came with a lot of rules related to different types of PTO (sick time vs. vacation time) and how those hours could be used. By converting to a single comprehensive PTO policy based on years of service, we simplified this benefit and made it easier to manage for us and for our employees.

In the 2014 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 75 percent of respondents believed that their organizations could do more to develop future leaders — a response that fell in line with what we heard from our own employee surveys. Our employees told us that management development was an important area of focus for them, so we implemented a year-long program designed to help managers communicate with employees and handle difficult conversations. A well-rounded employee training program is an important differentiator for us. While development usually means job-specific skills training, it’s important to help your employees succeed in today’s economy — where communication, leadership, agility, and handling ambiguity are just as important as subject matter expertise.

Retaining Is Recruiting

Retaining employees and recruiting employees should be one and the same. This means that while you recruit externally, you should also be recruiting your own employees every day. In this spirit, Capital Bank has created an environment that challenges our employees to grow and succeed at work while supporting them in their personal lives with benefits that have specific, individualized value to them.

Even if you’re not a large business, re-evaluating the tangible and intangible benefits you offer to employees can help you retain your best talent. For example, consider no- or lower-cost benefits such as no dress code, flexible work hours, or built-in time off to volunteer. Evaluate the costs and benefits of healthy living coaching programs, pet insurance, on-site child care, or unlimited time off (vacation and sick days).

Investing broadly in people, benefits, and services helps us succeed in a highly competitive job market and helps our employees get the most out of their personal and professional lives. Employees who are happy at work and confident that their families are healthy and secure are the best and most valuable kinds of employees. Adapting your company culture and environment — and your benefits — can help you grow alongside your employees.

Capital Bank, N.A.

1 Church Street Suite 300 Rockville, MD 20850
Equal Housing Lender. Member FDIC.