BUSINESS OWNERS

BUSINESS OWNERS            By Lisa A. Ditkowsky
(and Pllush Capital Management)

 
Image© Raf Winterpacht

Pllush Capital Management founder, Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP®, decided more than a decade ago to make Business Owners her Financial Planning focus.

Lisa’s passion for seeing Small Business owners succeed came from watching her entrepreneurial father as a young girl. From her toddler years, she remembers her Dad in big management roles for large companies, taking ownership of his jobs.

In the 1980s, Lisa's Dad went into business as the owner in the then nascent Video Dating Industry. He owned two businesses in two states. Lisa and her sister would go to work with Dad when he checked in on his employees on weekends and would assist with direct mail campaigns.

Lisa remembers the excitement of seeing a bustling small business in downtown Chicago with happy customers (one of whom became her stepmom) in an economy flush with cash and an exciting stock market. She even remembers Dad's business thriving through "Black Monday" (the global stock market crash of 10/19/87. In the early 1990s, Dad and his small business was featured on the cover of "Chicago Magazine". That was a BIG deal in the pre-Internet days. The Business of Video Dating Services was long before the advent of the Internet, Smart Phones or online dating. Dad was a business visionary and a pioneer.

When Lisa's dad realized a newly created subsidiary was not working out, he quickly regrouped and bought a Digital Services franchise. As a young teen, Lisa and her sister would go to Computer Conventions such as MacWorld and "man" dad's trade booth teaching attendees what a CD-ROM is. Lisa remembers standing in a white dress from the mall store Express and holding a CD-ROM in one hand and eleven floppy disks in the other hand and telling attendees that they could fit eleven floppy disks worth of information onto one CD-ROM.

Despite all of Lisa's Dad's successes in owning and running businesses, looking back, it does not seem that Dad ever had a Financial Planner to focus on growing his wealth and multiplying it for future riches. 

This is the most common mistake that Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP® sees small business owners make - not utilizing a Financial Planner to plan for future wealth and success. It is surprising how many small business owners put most of their profit back into the business. They say, "The business is my retirement," "Do you know how much 'equity' I have in my business?" "I own the building the business is in," and "Our real estate is our retirement." THESE ARE ALL SMALL BUSINESS OWNER MYTHS.

Small Business in America is our passion. We not only want your business to succeed, we want you to succeed long past your working years in your business! Your rich legacy is our goal. 

Lisa's dad inspired her to ultimately decide on founding a unique Financial Planning firm that caters to Baby Boomers and their Aging Parents. Since she was a teenager, Lisa has always read and watched daily business news and is always keeping her finger on the pulse of business in America. Lisa's attention to detail and obsession with business news benefits you, the business owner.

A sampling of the services we provide to business owners --

• Employer-sponsored Retirement Plans
• Employee Benefits
• Tax Planning
• Tax Minimization and Payroll (via our network of Accounting and Payroll partners)
• Cash Flow Management
• Income Strategy Planning
• Turnaround Services (via our network of Legal and Business Consultants)
• Insurance Planning
• Investment Planning
• Estate Planning (the Business and its stock as an Estate Asset)
• Buy Sell Agreement Analysis