Should I take EIDL?
Business Planning

Should You Take the Loan Offer from the EIDL?

You may have opened your inbox in the last couple of weeks to discover an email from the Small Business Administration (SBA), finally offering you Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) money you applied for a couple of months ago.

Many business owners just like you jumped at the opportunity to get money from the EIDL once the CARES Act went into effect. There was such a rush of applications that funding was seriously backed up, and now the loan offers are coming in. 

So, what’s the offer? 

The EIDL is a 30-year loan at 3.75% interest (with non-profits qualifying for 2.75% interest). While some people are getting a smaller range of options ($1,000–15,000, for example), others have gotten options to choose within ranges up to $150,000.

If you’re one of the business owners who received an EIDL loan offer, you might be wondering what to do next. Should you take it? How can you use it? 

This video has a lot of great information for you to consider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqw9BAxt9Rg&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3jMQKvcUltLrcnKeC6z99XSkttZ12nGlK2qYXc3u6jXYee1KaRMnbCFg0

If you aren’t sure about taking the EIDL, it may be because you aren’t sure how to best use it. If that’s the case, reach out to us and let’s talk. We have resources to support you to use this EIDL money to shore up your business systems.

Most business owners who are ready to create a next level of success need to uplevel the systems that support them, including their legal, insurance, financial and tax (LIFT) systems. That’s where we come in.

We can work with you to evaluate where there are holes in your LIFT foundation that could have left you in a shaky position once COVID hit. Now, with your EIDL resources, you can strengthen your foundation and be ready to thrive, no matter what comes our way. 

If the risks and restrictions about EIDL worry you, remember these resources are here to help you, as are we, so you don’t have to go it alone.  With a low interest rate and 30 years to pay it back, your payment is likely to be under $600 a month. Consider what you can do with the loan over the next year to ensure you are earning at least the payment amount every month over the next 30 years. 

If you decide that you do want the EIDL loan, things will start moving fast. The paperwork comes to you within 48 hours, and once you fill that out, the money could hit your bank account as soon as the next day. That means you’ll be able to immediately use that money to get your business back on its feet, so you can focus on expanding your profits.

If you’d like to talk before you take the loan, give us a call. We’re here to support your wise decision-making process. 

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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Should I file bankruptcy for my business
Business Planning

Is It The Right Time For You To Consider Bankruptcy For Your Business?

Coronavirus has forced many business owners to face the tough decision of whether to persevere and keep their business going, or to close it all down and walk away. If you are asking yourself this question right now, here are some things to consider before going down the bankruptcy road.

First, bankruptcy is a valid option to consider. But, do know that each moment you spend considering bankruptcy is a moment not spent considering how to turn your business around. Use your energy wisely, get the information you need quickly, and then make your decision so you can move forward powerfully.

Before considering bankruptcy, you should talk with a business coach or advisor who can help you reorient your business model to see if additional capital could help you dig out of the hole you’ve found yourself in. We may be able to help you here. It may sound odd to be thinking about more capital when you are already in over your head with debt, but if you have a good business model, you may just need to look at your business differently, restructure and upgrade the way you are looking at your cash flow and budgeting process.

Often what we see is that a business owner may have a great offer and a strong customer base, but may not have learned how to manage their financial resources properly. If that’s you, bankruptcy may not be the best choice. It would just mean that now you’ve got the bankruptcy on your record (a big disadvantage), and you still have to learn how to manage your finances. If that’s your situation, we may be able to help you turn things around without filing for bankruptcy.

There are two major benefits of bankruptcy. One is you get a fresh start, which you can get without bankruptcy. The other is that any debts that are forgiven in bankruptcy do not result in taxable income to you. In contrast, if you negotiate down your debt, the forgiven debt will be considered taxable income.

But that’s only one small consideration when it comes to bankruptcy. The much bigger consideration is your recovery process after the bankruptcy—whether the bankruptcy will appear on your personal credit report (vs. a business-only bankruptcy), and what you can keep and what you will lose in the bankruptcy.

Most of all, it is very important that you seek legal counsel who will first work to understand your business and your personal goals, and then help you determine your best path forward. Making the wrong choice here could mean that you would lose more than you have to. Please reach out if you are considering bankruptcy, and we will help you review your options.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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Making good choices during the hard times
Business Planning

How To Make Better, Faster Decisions During Uncertain Times

When there’s a blow to your business, especially an unprecedented world event like the pandemic we are living through, you might feel paralyzed and unable to make a move. But when problems crop up, you as a business owner can’t afford to freeze. Or fight, or flee, for that matter. Freeze, fight, and flee are the three most common responses to trauma, and they are reactive states that can sneak up on us before we even know what’s happening.

So, step one to making it through every challenge is to start to get to know yourself, and how you respond to trauma—do you freeze, fight or flee? Make a note for yourself, so that you can see it when it happens.

Often there are ways out of a bad situation that can actually put you in a better position than the one you were in before. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to keep the damage to a minimum. Either way, the first thing you need to do when you are faced with challenges and uncertainty is to get your head on straight. 

Here are some suggestions of how to look at your problems in a way that will keep you moving forward rather than frozen with indecision, fighting for your life, or running for the hills.

Find Your Inner Calm

There are a lot of outside voices who claim to be experts, and who claim to know how you should conduct your business. Some of these voices could be helpful, and others could be harmful, but if they’re coming from many directions at once, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference. With every piece of bad news or new demand placed on you, your body reacts. Every demand on your attention, and every rush of adrenaline, is taking away from the energy you could be using to solve the problem that is in front of you.

Bruce Lee said, "There will be calmness, tranquility, when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.” If you are taking in negative voices and the 24-hour flow of news, notifications, and speculation, you will never have the mental space to consider your options. First and foremost, stop watching the news. Then, get the book The Art of Contemplation by Richard Rudd, read it and breathe. Finally, carve time out for yourself daily to breathe, pause, and remind yourself what really matters. Your inner peace is paramount, and must come before anything else.

There will be residual emotions and thoughts that remain once you’ve switched off your television and digital devices. Acknowledge them, don’t fight them. If you fight them, they’ll just fight you back, but if you just let them be, they’ll lose their power over you.

Once you’ve shut out those outer and inner voices, do something that relaxes you. When all else fails, you have the best relaxation tool built right into your body—breathing. Fill your lungs with oxygen with a nice, deep breath, and you'll clear your mind that much faster.

Get Support You Can Trust

Do not sit alone with your problems. Reach out and ask for help. Not all help is equal though. Reach out to a mentor, advisor, or guide who has possibly been where you are and made it through. If you don’t have anyone like that in your life, reach out to us. We serve as a trusted advisor and guide for many of our clients.

Whatever you do, do not reach out to people who will simply reinforce your freeze, flight, or fight response. Do not reach out to people who have not done what you want to do, or been where you want to go. They will not be able to help you.

You must reach out to objective advisors who can help you with logic, intelligence, foresight, wisdom, and experience.

Break Down Your Problems

Imagine you have a large, heavy bookcase that you need to move from one room to another. How would you get started? If you’re like most of us, you’d start by taking the books down from the shelf. Then you’d consider the size of the door or hallways you’ll need to pass through, and whether it means you’ll have to take the shelf apart as well. Is one person ok to carry it, or do you need to call a buddy? And once it’s in its new location, how will you re-shelve the books?

You have a lot of choices when you tackle this problem. The worst choice, however, is to just try to pick up the whole bookcase, full of books, and start trying to move it into the other room without a second thought. You could throw out your back, break your foot, or get knocked on the head by the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

That’s what you’re doing when you try to solve a big problem on your own before thinking it through.

When you are facing a problem, you need to consider every step that needs to be taken to solve it. That will help you figure out what resources you’ll need to reach your goal, and what small decisions you’ll need to make along the way.

Focus On What You Want, Not What You DON'T Want

Race Car drivers are taught to not let their eyes stray from the track. Looking at the wall around the track can end in a high-speed crash. Whatever picture you have in your head right now is what you’ll move toward.

Vision really does matter. 

Obsessing over your revenue, for example, is limiting your thinking to one short-term goal. Enriching the lives of your customers and employees with your products and company culture is a vision, which your short-term goals support (possibly including the one that you are fixated on). If you keep your eyes on the finish line, you’ll be able to more easily see all of the smaller maneuvers you have to make to get there.

Remember Your Resources

Lastly, remember that you have a network who is there to help and support you. Once you’ve taken some time to quiet your mind and collect your thoughts, you can choose who to listen to. Call on your mentor or mentors. Don’t wait to do this. You need help before you feel comfortable asking for it, so ask sooner rather than later. 

And of course, remember that we are here to be your advisor as well. If you are having trouble determining your path forward in the face of a challenge, we can help you lay out your options and define your goals, so you can make more agile and wise decisions. Don’t put off calling us when you need to. We’re here to help.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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Video

Estate Planning for Usernames and Passwords

Estate Planning for Usernames and Passwords

Doesn’t it blow your mind, just how many usernames and passwords we have for everything? Things on our computers, on our phones, all over the place, for a lot of us, for our homes even.

There are 2 things we need to think about...

There’s two things that we kind of need to think about. One, we want to make sure that the passwords and the securities we have are secure enough, especially in this day and age with so much cyber crime out there. But two, and a little bit more importantly, Estate Planning for usernames and passwords. We want to make sure that all of that information is captured somewhere and that the people who need them are going to have access to it if heaven forbid, something happens to you.

So with that, there’s a couple of things that I like to think of and advise people on to make sure they have in place. One, don’t use sticky notes and put your passwords all along your computer. I’ll be honest, I’m guilty of that myself sometimes, but obviously that’s not going to be secure.

Use a professional service to store passwords

Really, there are lots of really great websites that you can use to make sure that all of your passwords are logged in so that you don’t have to remember. And that’s especially important since so many websites, we have to change our passwords every 30 days, 60 days, 120 days and so on.

But two, they also make sure it’s an easy way to have everything located in the same place. That’s my number one tip. Definitely go ahead and use a great website, such as LastPass to keep control and to keep track of all of your usernames and your passwords.

What happens if you pass away?

But two, the reason why I’m talking to you about this as an estate planning lawyer, is that if something happens to you, your spouse, your partner, potentially your parents or your child, is going to need to have access to those passwords and to those accounts, to be able to handle any of the affairs that they need to do for you. Whether you’re incapacitated in the hospital, or if heaven forbid you’ve passed away. With that, it’s really important that people actually know what your password is and what your information is.

So I highly recommend, you can go very old school with this, get a sheet of paper out, along with a pen and go through and jot down what all of your accounts are. What all of that username is and make sure to include that with your estate planning, if you’ve done it already.

Or if you haven’t, if you have a, let’s say fireproof safe, that’s a great place to keep that information because obviously we don’t want it just sitting around on the coffee table. But we want to make sure it’s someplace that if someone needs it, they can easily find it.

It's not just passwords...

There’s also one other thing. Not only is it important to have the usernames and the passwords, but while you’re doing this, it’s also important to think about what the assets are that you have as well, keeping track of all of those bank accounts that you have, retirement accounts, different life insurance policies. I know it’s really easy to have some information spread out all over the place and in emails and you think, okay, one day I’ll get around to that. Unfortunately, one day might not come. And if that happens for you, then it’s going to be your loved ones who are going to be scrambling to find something and figure something out.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this number before, but there’s over $58 billion in our state, as well as federal departments of unclaimed property. And assets ended up in there because there was an asset or two that people owned, maybe a small bank account or a life insurance policy or a retirement account that beneficiary couldn’t be found for. And so that information, those assets ended up going to the state. It’s your assets, it’s your stuff. We want to make sure that goes to your loved ones, where it needs to go.

So my recommendations...

2 things to do for Estate Planning for usernames and passwords: Documenting, cataloging all of your important assets that you have so we can make sure that none of that ends up in the department of unclaimed property.

My name is Pantea Fozouni with Palm Desert Law Group, and I would be more than happy to walk you through the process, answer all of your questions, and make sure that we come up with a plan that’s going to work for you and your family when you need it. Regardless of where you are in your life, who you are, what’s going on, it’s my job to know the right questions to ask and I’m here and I’m ready to help you whenever you’re ready.

This article is a service of Pantea I. Fozouni, Family Business Lawyer®. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. Go online today to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session and find out how to get this $750 session at no charge.

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Video

How Do You Stop a Will Being Contested?

How do you stop a will being contested?

We’ve all seen TV shows and movies where someone passes away and there’s a large inheritance and all of a sudden, everyone comes out of the woodwork trying to get a piece of the action. When someone is unhappy with what they’ve gotten, what happens? People end up in court. Is there a way to prevent that from happening to make sure that no one ends up contesting your will? Absolutely, but you’re going to have to stay tuned to figure out what it is you need to do.

Who hasn’t seen a movie all about a family dispute after someone’s passed away and the whole family is fighting about it. Who hasn’t heard all of these different celebrity stories of just people coming out of the woodwork looking for inheritances? So how do you stop a will being contested?

Why you need proper planning for your Estate

Well, unfortunately if you don’t have proper planning in place, if you haven’t reviewed your documents, if you haven’t really carefully sat down and considered where you want your assets to go after you’ve passed away, unfortunately, your family is going to end up in court without any further planning on your part.

If that happens, if they’re in court, who’s going to end up deciding who’s going to get what? It’s not going to be you anymore. It’s going to be a judge.

Someone who doesn’t know you, who doesn’t know your family, who doesn’t know the assets.

Family conflict is one of the main reasons why cases, probate cases take so long, especially out here in California. Well, the best way to prevent that from happening is really by going through looking at exactly who the people are in your family.

Who needs to be in the Will?

Who you think is going to be okay with things, who’s going to be a little bit difficult, and figuring out exactly what plan you want for the people and the assets in your life to come up with a plan that’s really tailored for that. It’s important to think about things such as obviously, children and spouses.

Sometimes, siblings but it’s really important to consider your relationship with your stepchildren.

It’s important to consider your relationship with your step parents. It’s really important to consider potential relationship with ex-spouses who may end up coming back into the picture. Just a lot of different people where there’s potential for conflict.

Another thing to consider is not just about the assets, but what about the kids? Something happens to you and you have kids, there could be a fight in the family over who’s going to end up raising your kids.

The benefits of Planning

That’s one of the biggest fights that can really end up tearing people apart. Without doing any type of planning, then it’s going to be up to a judge who’s going to decide where your kids are going to go. Even if you do some planning, you’re not able to exclude anyone from being a potential guardian if you just have a will either.

It’s really, really important to really think through the people, the pieces, the money, the kids, just to make sure your family doesn’t end up in any type of court or conflict. It’s important to document those wishes that you have to make sure it’s super clear, to make sure that there’s no issues with that and there’s no question of that. If you have any questions about how to do that, I’d be more than happy to talk to you and walk you through that.

My name is Pantea Fozouni with Palm Desert Law Group, and I would be more than happy to walk you through the process, answer all of your questions, and make sure that we come up with a plan that’s going to work for you and your family when you need it. Regardless of where you are in your life, who you are, what’s going on, it’s my job to know the right questions to ask and I’m here and I’m ready to help you whenever you’re ready.

This article is a service of Pantea I. Fozouni, Family Business Lawyer®. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. Go online today to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session and find out how to get this $750 session at no charge.

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Video

What Questions Should I Ask When Doing My Estate Planning?

What questions should I ask when doing my Estate Planning?

What Questions Should I Ask When Doing My Estate Planning? The strange thing is that most people do not know what questions to ask… and the reality is that it should not be their responsibility to know either… we discuss the various questions that need to be asked.

A lot of times clients tell me when we’re about halfway through the process of their estate planning that they wish they’d come to me sooner. I was surprised when they started telling me the reason why they didn’t come to me sooner. You know what the funny part is? 

The funny thing is that they were so worried about coming in to speak with me because they didn’t know the right questions to ask before we started.

We have been trained to know the right questions to ask

But the thing is it’s not their responsibility to know. I have been trained as well as all of the other estate planning attorneys, we’ve been trained, or we should have been trained, to know the right questions to ask you. Why? Everyone is different. Everyone has different people in their lives, everyone has different circumstances, so it’s not your responsibility to know what questions you should be asking me or one of my colleagues.

Your responsibility is to show up and to be ready and to be prepared and open minded to find out what would happen to you and your loved ones and your assets when you end up in the hospital or when you die.

That’s the piece, a lot of people are really, really uncomfortable thinking about that. Death is scary, death is uncomfortable and it’s something that we spend so much time running away from and avoiding, but once we start addressing it, once we started looking at it head on, it loses a lot of that fear.

You are going to have different things to worry about

So, if you are a parent, you’re going to have different things that you’re worried about and concerned about. If you’re a business owner, you’re going to have different things that you’re worried about and you’re thinking about. If you are a college student who’s about to go to… You’re 18, you’re about to leave home for the first time and go to college, yes, you need estate planning to.

If you are going through a divorce, if you’re in a same sex marriage, everyone is going to have particular needs that are going to need to be addressed. It’s our job, the lawyers job, to walk you through, to hold your hand throughout the entire process.

Don’t worry, please don’t use that as an excuse not to see an attorney, not to start your estate planning. This is something we all need. That’s a good thing that if you show up to an attorney’s office and you’re just sitting there and the attorney is sitting there not asking you questions, that’s a bad sign.

Get out of that office because you’re going to want to work with someone who knows the right questions to be asking you.

My name is Pantea Fozouni with Palm Desert Law Group, and I would be more than happy to walk you through the process, answer all of your questions, and make sure that we come up with a plan that’s going to work for you and your family when you need it. Regardless of where you are in your life, who you are, what’s going on, it’s my job to know the right questions to ask and I’m here and I’m ready to help you whenever you’re ready.

This article is a service of Pantea I. Fozouni, Family Business Lawyer®. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. Go online today to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session and find out how to get this $750 session at no charge.

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