With hard work and some luck, your business may last forever. But so can a personal guarantee—which can pose serious problems.. That’s the lesson of my latest Legal Edge column in Washington’s SmartCEO magazine. I use my friend Bill as an example of how a personal guarantee can haunt you years later.
 
Bill started with one successful bicycle store—and in time, opened a chain of superstores in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions. He had a lot of love for that first store - a risky venture that turned into the breeding ground for a national company. But years later, it also came to cost him a fortune. During that time, the company struggled, investors took over and booted Bill. Then they walked away from the lease for that first store. But guess who got the bill ---and a threatened lawsuit when the landlord demanded his money? That’s right, Bill was on the hook for six figures, all thanks to that personal guarantee.
 
The name of the game is reducing your exposure from the start - limiting those obligations. How? It’s all in my article, titled Ball and Chain, in SmartCEO magazine. You can read the entire article here.