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Maybe your cigar business is the culmination of a lifelong dream. Or perhaps you saw a business opportunity and made the most of it. Either way, you’ve probably invested more time or money than you’d like to admit and made sacrifices you hope never to have to make again. Your cigar business matters, and protecting it is important.
Because cigar businesses are unique, and almost always the product of a tremendous investment of heart and hard work, we’re launching a series aimed at all the different ways owners can ensure their business remains healthy and thriving for years to come. First up: protecting your assets.
Cigar Business Risks
If you’re running a small or medium-sized cigar business, you’re shouldering a number of different kinds of risk:
- Financial: During an economic downturn, you could see a higher cost of doing business or, given that cigars are sometimes seen as an indulgence or even a luxury, a loss of sales.
- Regulatory: Tobacco products are forever under scrutiny. New laws or ordinances could make cigars harder to sell, manufacture, or import.
- “Acts of God”: Quality cigars need clean, climate-controlled environments. Floods, hurricanes, and fires at your farm, warehouse, or retail establishment can wipe out your entire inventory.
- Liability: Your workers and customers are devoted, but someone getting hurt while they’re working in your factory or browsing your cigar selection could expose you to devasting legal action.
- Interpersonal: Internal conflict between two or more key individuals in your cigar business could result in the whole operation being torn apart or run into the ground.
Because of these risks, you need to protect your business by protecting its most valuable assets.
Types of Assets for a Cigar Business
What are these valuable assets? Your cigar business has assets both tangible and intangible, and they’re all worth protecting:
- Your intellectual property: The secret process for rolling a particular cigar, say, or a trademark or client list.
- Your real estate: This could be your farm, factory, or cigar lounge.
- Your people: Everyone on your staff contributes skill, experience, and expertise to your cigar business, particularly (usually) a small handful of key individuals it would be hard to replace.
- Your tangible property: This includes your product inventory, supplies, vehicles, and cigar rolling equipment—presumably none of which came cheap.
Why These Assets Must Be Protected
Without sufficient protection, anything that impacts these assets could do irreparable harm to your cigar business.
You could lose a key person in your operation, the one who always knows exactly what to say to land a new client or who can coax out the most vibrant crops, year after year. Your cigar store or warehouse could flood, wiping out all the inventory. A competitor could steal your innovations right out from under you. How long would it take your cigar business to recover? Could it recover?
You can prepare for every kind of eventuality but, sooner or later, something’s bound to breach your defenses. Setting yourself up beforehand with the right kind of asset protection strategies can ensure your cigar business survives—and continues to thrive. To learn more, call Venerable Law at 813-680-4530 for a free consultation.
