Building Your Outside Team: Attorney, Banker, Insurance Adviser and Tax Professional

Part C: Prepare the Business to Launch

When is the worst time to introduce yourself to an attorney? After a dispute has already started. To a banker? When you need money and cannot wait. To an insurance professional? After a loss. To an accountant? After a deadline has passed.

Every one of those meetings has the same problem. The professional knows nothing about you, you are under pressure, and the first hour goes to catching them up instead of solving the problem. You pay for that hour, or you lose it.

In Picking Professionals to Work With we covered how to choose your attorney, banker and accountant. Use the same process for an insurance agent. This lesson is about what comes next: how to keep the relationship alive so it is useful on the day you need it.

You do not need to be in touch with everyone all the time. You need each of them to understand your business well enough that the first call in a problem is not an introduction.

Your business attorney

This section is about the relationship, not about the law. What your attorney tells you about your situation is theirs to say, not mine.

• Look for someone who regularly works with small businesses like yours, not someone who is brilliant at something unrelated.
• Ask what they handle themselves and when they bring in a specialist. A good attorney will tell you where their work ends.
• Ask how they bill and what communication costs. Some charge for calls, some for emails, some by the project.
• Call before you sign something important, not only after trouble starts. A short conversation before is almost always cheaper than a long one after.
• Bring organized documents and explain the business outcome you want. “I want to be able to end this arrangement in 30 days” is more useful than a stack of paper with no explanation.
• Ask for the likely scope and cost before work begins.

Questions to ask

• What kinds of decisions should I call you about before acting?
• Do you regularly work with businesses like mine?
• Who will actually handle my work?
• How quickly do you normally respond?
• How do you charge for calls, document reviews and projects?

Your banker

A banker is far more useful when the relationship exists before the business needs financing. Meeting one for the first time during a cash emergency puts you in the weakest position you will ever be in. I am not telling you whether to borrow. I am telling you not to meet your banker for the first time on the day you have to.

• Introduce the business and its goals. A short conversation is enough.
• Learn who handles small-business accounts and lending, and get a direct contact.
• Ask what records the bank would expect to see if you ever sought financing, and what collateral (something the bank can claim if a loan is not repaid) or personal guarantee (your own promise to repay if the business cannot) it would usually ask for. Then you can keep those records ready as you go.
• Keep the banker informed of meaningful growth, not every monthly fluctuation.
• Ask about fees, payment services, fraud procedures and who can access the account.
• Know whom to call when a transaction or an account problem occurs, before it occurs.

If you have read When Borrowing Helps, and When It Hides a Broken Model, you know the decision to borrow is its own question. This is only about not being a stranger when you have to ask.

Your insurance professional

Buying a policy and understanding your coverage are two different things. It is easy to accept whatever is quoted. It is harder, and more useful, to ask questions until you can say back what is and is not covered. Say a contractor adds a second crew and a truck and never mentions it to the agent. The first time anyone checks whether that truck and those workers are covered could be the day of a claim.

• Ask your agent or broker to explain coverage, limits, deductibles (what you pay before the policy pays), premiums (what you pay to keep the policy in force) and important exclusions in plain language.
• Ask which common risks for a business like yours are not covered.
• Understand the procedure for reporting a claim before you ever have one.
• Tell them when the business changes.
• Review your risks and coverage at least once a year.
• Keep certificates, policy information and claims contacts somewhere you can get to quickly.

Changes worth reporting

• New employees
• Vehicles or major equipment
• New locations
• New services
• Significant revenue growth
• Use of subcontractors
• Changes in how or where work is performed

I am deliberately not telling you which policies to carry. That is a judgment the professional should make after they understand your business, and it is exactly why keeping them informed matters.

Your tax and accounting professional

People use “my accountant” to mean three different jobs, and it helps to separate them.

• A bookkeeper organizes your transactions and keeps the records.
• A tax preparer prepares and files your returns.
• A proactive tax professional helps you think about decisions before the deadlines, not after.
• One person or firm may do more than one of these. Verify exactly what is included so nobody assumes someone else has it.

Then build a rhythm. Ask what information they need and when. If you only talk once a year, you are using them as a filing service. Tell them before major purchases, hiring, borrowing, ownership changes or large shifts in revenue, so the decision is made with them rather than explained to them afterward.

Questions to ask

• Do you provide year-round planning or only return preparation?
• How often should we talk?
• What reports do you need from my bookkeeper?
• What business decisions should I discuss with you beforehand?
• How should I prepare for upcoming payments?
• What credentials and small-business experience do you have?

The lesson on owner pay sends you to your accountant, and the lesson on payment terms sends you to your attorney, so it is worth having both relationships in place first.

Help the team work together

These people should not live in separate boxes. You are the only one who sees the whole business, so you are the one who keeps everyone informed. A few examples of how it connects:

• Your attorney and your insurance professional may both need to understand an important contract.
• Your banker may need reliable statements from your accountant.
• Your accountant should hear about new financing before it shows up unexpectedly in the books.
• Your insurance professional should know when your operation, staff or equipment changes.

A simple relationship rhythm

• An introductory meeting when you select each professional.
• Current contact details kept in one place.
• A clear understanding of scope, fees and response times.
• Periodic conversations with your tax and accounting professional.
• An annual insurance review.
• A banker check-in when the business meaningfully changes.
• Attorney contact before major commitments.
• Immediate communication when a serious issue occurs.

This week: your Outside Team Roster

Take one page and make a table with these columns: Professional, Contact, What they handle, When I should call, Information they need, and Next review. Make one row each for your attorney, banker, insurance professional, and tax and accounting professional, and fill in what you know. Whichever relationship is missing, or exists only on paper, is the gap to close first.

Pick the first missing one and ask three people you trust, other owners in your area if you can, for a referral, and do it this week. You are not hiring anyone yet. You want a name and a first conversation on the calendar before you need it. The table takes about an hour and costs nothing. A first conversation with a professional may be free or billed, so ask when you book it.