When selecting a turnaround professional to assist you with your company turnaround, there are certain features you should require.

First and foremost, this professional should be a person you feel comfortable with. You should like this person in a way that you can only assess personally.

Some people are likeable and others not. I can’t explain exactly how to determine this, but if you feel comfortable with them, that is usually the very good indicator.

As a business leader and entrepreneur, I think you know what I mean. This feature may also have something to do with leadership qualities or charisma or trust, but it is probably the most important characteristic because the last thing you want to do is bring in someone that your employees don’t like and have this person irritate the situation worse than it needs to be.

Advanced education degrees are nice, but they are hardly the most important credential. Someone who has an MBA or a CPA will certainly be a benefit, but if they have no experience, those degrees will not add up to much.

The turnaround professional you select should therefore have a fair amount of experience with turnarounds (successful ones), and if possible with turnarounds in your business sector. Ideally, this person should be a self-started and a leader. They should be able to deliver an honest opinion even if it is one you may not want to hear.

C-level experience is necessary, and a good understanding of accounting issues would be a huge benefit. This person must also confirm to you that they believe they can turn your company around if you hire them. They should also have a solid grounding in negotiations, and if possible in debt negotiation. Debt negotiation plays a key role in freeing up capital for the turnaround, so these skills are critical.

Ideally, here are the credentials you are seeking in a turnaround expert:

* Personable, likeable, and trustworthy
* Honest and forthright, even when presenting unpopular opinions
* Multiple first-hand experience leading successful turnarounds
* Experience with turnarounds in your business sector
* Solid C-level experience with leadership qualities
* Accounting experience and understanding
* A positive expectation on the outcome of your turnaround
* Negotiation background, preferably debt negotiation

In addition to these qualifications, a turnaround professional may also be a member of, and certified as a Certified Turnaround Professional (CTP) by, the Turnaround Management Association (TMA). Here again, education plays a key role, but hands-on experience trumps it by a mile when it comes to a successful turnaround expert.

To learn more about business turnaround and other related topics, order Andre’s books directly from Amazon.com, or get details here: www.AndreLarabie.com

An experienced manager or business owner is usually wary of those sings that indicate a downturn in the company. Usually, these signs come in the form of larger economic indicators that begin to go bad long before the bottom line of the business is impacted.

A good example of this is the current economic downturn. A faltering real estate market was a glaring sign to many people that there was trouble brewing. Basically, prices became so inflated, and the criteria for approving loans became so loose that the bottom finally fell out of the real estate market. Too many people defaulted on their property loans. Banks ended up with too much toxic inventory on their books.

This eventually led to a complete and severe economic downturn, the severity of which has not been witnessed probably since the great depression. But there were clear indicators of the downturn, and these indicators were in the larger economy.

Business owners can also look within their business for signs of coming problems. Below are several signs that may indicate trouble is brewing on your business horizon.

Employee Morale
If your employees are suffering from a morale problem, it is a safe bet that you will have some problems in the future. Unhappy workers create lower quality products and services, and this in turn leads to lower revenues when customers get angry and take their business elsewhere, or just fail to buy more products.

A bad boss, or leadership problems can lead to a lower moral in the workers. This in turn eventually leads to employees leaving the company for better opportunities. The quality of a job is not entirely defined by the pay. Some workers would sacrifice some amount of salary before working in an adverse work environment. The reason is simple: being happy is worth a lot more than money to most people.

One way to keep your hand on the pulse of employee morale is to have an evaluation system. Every six months, each employee is evaluated and in turn has the chance to evaluate those in their chain of management.

Another way is to have an anonymous survey or suggestion box. This can help to identify if trouble is developing with employee morale in your company.

Ballooning Debt
Another sign that trouble is brewing is ballooning debt, especially when this debt is short-term. When the overall debt burden increases in a manner that is out of character for the season, it usually means that the business is relying on this debt instead of revenues. Something is wrong with the revenue stream, and many things can be causing this problem.

If you notice a sharp increase in short-term debt, you can usually follow the trail to an evolving problem. This problem could be a loss of customers (due to reduced employee morale or to some other problem), or it could be something else.

In any case, if you see an increase in short-term debt, you can usually find an underlying problem if you investigate further.

To learn more about business downturns and business turnaround, order Andre’s books directly from Amazon.com.

Andre Larabie is a published writer and successful business coach. Get a free excerpt from his book on commercial debt reduction at: www.AndreLarabie.com

In recent years, more businesses have quit focusing on growth and diversification and are finding it difficult just making ends meet. Many business owners are falling victim to the drastic downturn in the economy and failing-and these failures happen extremely fast under the severe economic conditions we have witnessed. In essence, the recent economic downturn-unprecedented in our lifetime-is catching even the most astute business owners off guard.

While the private sector adjusts to this severe recession (some are calling it a depression) by downsizing, the bureaucrats in the public sector generally remain ignorant and unresponsive to the problem within their own bloated organizations.

While the small to medium-sized businesses frantically cut their operations back, reducing benefits and salaries, the bureaucracies in the public sector reduce nothing; instead, they continue demanding their tax revenues. They refuse to cut budgets and reduce staff. Drunk and euphoric with years of excessive spending-most of it funded by hard-working taxpayers-these public-sector bureaucrats demand even more resources from the shrinking private sector.

In the private sector, entrepreneurs are struggling with these unprecedented economic pressures; revenues are drying up and profits decreasing. In this hostile business climate, surviving gets even tougher. Things worsen, and more businesses fail. This is the vicious cycle that leads a country into the spiral of a depression.

Many intelligent people would define the current economic conditions as a depression, although no government official will admit it. They are in denial and they just keep spending.

In this terrible economic scenario, many business owners are finding themselves facing bankruptcy and failure. They are realizing that action must be taken to save their business. They are literally on the brink of disaster and about to fall into the bottomless pit of no return, and once they cross this precipice and enter into a business freefall, they may never be able to recover.

If on the other hand, a business leader recognizes this situation before it is not too late, they can take actions to turn around their business. These actions can be divided into 4 critical stages.

Self-Protection Period
During this phase of a business turnaround, the business owners or leaders take every action necessary to first preserve their own interests and salvage and protect those personal assets that are associated with the business, and second protect those business assets that are critical for the survival of the company.

Identification Period
During this period, the core problems within the business are identified. All uncritical functions are scaled back. People lose their jobs and entire departments are phased out. The key goal during this period is to identify and remove all things that are not necessary to the core functions of the business. The output of this activity is a viable turnaround plan that will be executed in the next stage of the overall turnaround process.

Turnaround Period
If all the work has been completed properly in the Identification Period, the activities in this period will involve mostly following the turnaround plan that was created in the previous period. This plan should be as detailed as a project plan and formal project management procedures should be employed to implement the plan.

Restructuring Period
During this phase of the turnaround process, the business is restructured for stability and strength in the future. These are the action items that will make the business viable in the long-term future.

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com

Website: www.andrelarabie.com