Don’t skimp on your roof. Get a Quality Roof.

Preliminary estimates say that the June Hail storm cause over 18 million dollars in damages in North Austin.  Over 500,000 homes were affected.  Where you one of them?

Whether you know it or not, hail damage can creep up on you and eat away at your roof and electric bills.  So it is strongly advised to get a roofer and your adjuster out to look at your roof and assess the damage (preferably at the same time).  Once your insurance company agrees to pay for a new roof installation, you should get your roof replaced by a professional roofer as soon as possible.

A few things though that you should know about your roof.

Tear-off: The price of your roof replacement should include tearing off the old roof down to the decking and replacing rot-damaged deck areas and carrying off the debris.

Home insurance policies cover at least one layer of shingles. If you let your roofer skip the tear-off and your two-layer roof is damaged by hail, you wind up responsible for the expense of tearing off both of them.

Decking: Rotted roof decking should be replaced with decking of its same thickness. In new construction, builders are using seven-sixteenths inch OSB (oriented strand board: glue and wood shavings). Older construction usually has three-quarter inch solid lumber decking.

Tuttle Roofing sells Pabco Premier Shingles in four quality grades, starting with “basic:” 25-year limited warranty, 110 mph wind resistance, on up to “best:” lifetime warranty, 110 mph wind resistance. The heavier the better, the more years warranted the best.

“Good” grade has a 30-year warranty and “better” has a 40-year warranty. Price? You get what you pay for.

It is not wise to skimp on quality and performance of the main components protecting you and your most valuable assets from harsh conditions.

Roofing felt: Roofing felt comes in 15-, 30- and 43-pound weights. The 30-pound is better than 15 because it’s thicker and provides more of a vapor barrier. Felt should be lapped 19 inches for double coverage if the roof pitch is less than 3-12, meaning a 3-inch rise for every 12 horizontal inches.

Valleys and vents are prone to leaks from water and/or ice damage and products such as Ice and Water Shield create a membrane material that seals tightly around the nails to prevent seepage.

Staples vs. nails: Use galvanized or zinc-plated shingling nails of sufficient length to penetrate shingles, felt and decking at a rate of 2 pounds per square. The nails usually must be 1 1/4 inches or longer.

Staples eventually “back out,” but nails don’t. Good roofing nails have a wire welded to their shanks that prevents their turning and working free.

To get a higher rated Wind-Storm Compliance, Tuttle uses 6 nails per shingle instead of the usual 4.

Flashing: Sometimes, “drip-edge” — L-shaped galvanized or painted steel flashing — is used on jobs where drip-edge was used originally or where shake or wood shingle roofs or two-layer composition roofs are being replaced. The drip edge hides the deck edge. The felt should be nailed over the flashing, and vent-stack flashings should be replaced.

Closed valleys: In the past, the “open valley” was made by flashing the junction of two roof plains, shingling down almost to the valley bottom and cutting the merging shingles off diagonally so the flashing showed. Now Tuttle uses a 6 layer valley. It consists of overlapping the valley with felt, then Ice & Water Shield, felt, Aluminum flashing, Felt again, then the shingle.

Build a good relationship with your roofer, and make sure that they are not trying to give you a lower quality roof to fit into your allocated price.

What to do if you want to sell your business at a later time.

It is important to sell your business when you are ready and the time is right. Every business owner should prepare an exit strategy. Unless you plan on passing your business onto a family member or liquidate the business, there will be a time when you will want to sell your business. The following items will get your business will increase market value and marketability of your business.

Increase your sales

Sales, sales, sales to a business are like location, location, location is to real estate. Sales are the key elements that a buyer is looking for in a business that is for sale. Buyers are hesitant on purchasing a business with declining sales and will offer rock bottom price for the business. Once a business owner decides to sell they need to keep focusing on running the business.

 Develop a strong management team

Besides removing yourself from the business, develop a strong management team. The expression “People are the most important thing in a business” could not be truer when it comes to selling your business. A buyer can analyze the financials and the equipment and inventory to determine the economic value. One of the major factors that will move the value up or down is the quality of the employees.

Replace family members working in the business with other employees

It might be great having family members working with you and build your family relationship. But it is a huge detriment when it comes to selling your business. Even if the family members agree to stay on after the sale the buyer has concerns such as the perceptions that he family members is not always the most qualified employees, and that they are paid more then the non-family member employee. A buyer might not feel like they are getting the most qualified person for the job.

 Reduce the amount of personal perks in the business.

Most small business owner “live” out of their business. If they hire a good accountant their net income from the business is usually quite modest for purposes of their tax liability. By no means does this mean the cash flow to the owner could not be much higher. So what are we talking about here. Personal perks. These personal perks can include: health insurance, auto insurance, meals, entertainment, travel, etc.

EBITDA (Net income + Interest + Depreciation + Amortization) is the most common form of cash flow to a buyer. In small business, personal perks can often be a large percentage of the cash flow. Since lenders and buyers focus on EBITDA, it would be wise to reduce or eliminate personal perk, for a year or two before selling your business.

Sell off all unnecessary assets

Every business over time accumulates obsolete, duplicate or unnecessary assets over time. It is hard to sell a business with a high amount of assets that are not necessary to operate the business. By selling the assets the business owner gains from the sale of the asset and a better purchase price value that will make the business more marketable.

 Develop a strong sales team (if applicable)

Most businesses sell a product or service and each of those businesses can improve their sales with additional sales people. When selling your business the prospective buyer will be very interested in seeing what method you use to increase sales. If you, as the owner are the only sales person, some red flags are bound to come up.

Diversify your customer base

A buyer does not want the risk of buying a business with a customer data base of only a few concentrated customers. By diversifying you customer base, you will not only increase your chance of selling you business, it will reduce the effect of losing a customer. A good rule of thumb is to not have a customer with more then 20% of your business sales.

Self Sabotage – The law of internal resistance

Have you ever had a deal fall through and just couldn’t figure out why it didn’t happen? Or maybe you just couldn’t get yourself to do something that you knew had to be done yet something inside of you posed a force of resistance. You know deep down that something has to change in order for life to be more fulfilling. Once you try to change though, that force of resistance keeps springing back up. There are new technologies out there to help like visualization and positive thinking. These are great tools and work well but only under one condition… these tools work best only when that underlying force of resistance has been eliminated.This force of resistance is what helps us forget important documents on the way to a meeting, places road blocks in our way when we are trying to accomplish something, encourages us to eat more fattening foods soon after we break a diet, encourages people to drink more alcohol than ever after they have decreed they would never drink again.

Every person you know of has had to deal with this force of resistance. We developed this force of resistance over time by taking on certain beliefs that were instilled within us during childhood. When we become adults with responsibilities and ambitions our underlying beliefs set in even stronger making it harder for us to achieve what ever it is that our underlying belief says won’t happen.

After working with more and more clients I have found that the older we get the stronger this resistance becomes sometimes leading people to think there is no hope for change, but there is. After a decade of working with people helping them eliminate their force of resistance it never seizes to amaze me that no matter what age someone is, the technique I show them still works fast and the effects last. There is typically no need to keep coming back for the same issue. Goals in life become clear in our minds eye and progression works its way toward finding us instead of us seeking it. Once these blocks known as internal resistance are removed life becomes more fulfilling, exciting and adventurous.

If you are at a milestone in your life and the time for change is now, contact me for more information.

Nick Taylor

Business & Personal Breakthrough Consultant

Advanced Insight Consulting

www.advancedinsightconsulting.com

Vacations and Jewelry

Vacations and Jewelry

On more than one occasion I have been asked to do an appraisal for a purchase made while a client was on vacation. I have seen many different styles of jewelry and many different priced ranges purchased on a cruise or in a resort area. Some have been beautiful and well made pieces but the vast majority were misrepresented. The hardest part of my profession is telling someone that a piece that they have purchased, been given or inherited is not what they believed.
Many years ago, prior to the internet and the ever expanding global economy, it was possible to find truly good prices on many fine jewelry items including fine watches. But times have changed. Manufacturers now balance the pricing of the products they manufacture and you will find that one item in Europe for example costs the same at home. Moreover, the jewelry stores that have sprouted up in resort areas are there for a reason. They have a captive audience on holiday with money to burn and people are usually celebrating an event that they would like to commemorate with a beautiful piece of jewelry. The temptation is GREAT I know I have been there myself. I was actually offered the management position for several stores in Alaska that opened when the cruise ships arrived. I simply could not take the position. It not only required me to be away from my family for 6 months at a time but the pricing policies and types of merchandise I was required to carry I deemed below my standards.
Please remember one simple rule when purchasing ANY piece of Fine Jewelry. It is always a good idea to purchase from someone you can always get your hands on. This is not to say that if you find a modest piece that you like, it will remind you of your trip and it is something you will wear for a while and enjoy you shouldn’t purchase it. But be smart about a major purchase. The idea of spending over $300-$400 in another country from someone you do not know and will never see again should cause you to think twice.
Remember!!!! You should know your Jeweler as well as you do your doctor, lawyer and accountant.

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