It's never good news when your business adviser calls out of the blue and says, "Wes, we need to talk."
That's what happened to me one spring morning not long after I'd arrived at my office. I own a small agency that handles speaking engagements and literary rights for Christian entertainers, authors and leaders. I started the business in my 20s and it grew to about a dozen employees, earning me enough to provide a comfortable living for my family and to send my kids to college.
That year, though, the company hit a rough patch, so I'd hired a business consultant to give me some ideas for improvement. He's the one who called that April morning.
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"Wes," he said, "your company is in more trouble than you know. We need to get together. Soon."
Before I could ask what was wrong he told me he had already been in touch with my banker and my accountant. "How about we meet at your house tonight?" I stammered out an okay and spent the rest of the day in a knot.
That evening, Ken, the consultant, Ed, my banker, and Tom, my CPA, sat down in my living room. Normally they were laid-back Southern guys. Tonight they looked deadly serious. Tom pulled out some spreadsheets and other documents. "Wes," he said, "do you realize how deeply your company's in debt?"
My eyes widened. A while back I'd transferred much of the day-to-day running of the company to two people I trusted. One was my chief operating officer. The other was Tim, my vice president. Tim had joined the business eight years earlier soon after graduating college. The COO had been with me 14 years. We were a team and close friends besides. Most weeks we spent far more time with each other than we did with our families.
Ed, the banker, said, "Wes, I've been getting these phone calls from Tim asking questions about the company's accounts I didn't think were proper."
"Did you know about this line of credit?" Ed continued, pointing to a paper with my signature authorizing the loan for a substantial sum of money. I didn't remember agreeing to borrow that much.