How to Protect Your Business’s Most Valuable Assets

As a business owner, you've invested significant time, effort, and resources into building a successful enterprise. Unfortunately, your most valuable assets, including physical and intellectual property and even employees, may be at risk.

This article explores key steps businesses can take to protect their most valuable assets and ensure long-term resilience.

Identify Your Business’s Most Valuable Assets

It’s impossible to protect the things that make your company valuable if you don’t know what they are. Every organization is unique, but here are a few assets to consider:

• Trade secrets (e.g., pricing algorithms, sourcing methods, operating systems)
• Intellectual property (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, patents)
• Key employees (e.g., team members who impact strategy or product development)

You may already have some understanding of your company's most valuable assets. However, collaborating with an unbiased professional may offer a fresh perspective, enabling you to make more informed decisions about resource allocation and protection strategies.

Protect Trade Secrets and Intellectual Property

Once you've identified your company's most valuable assets, taking steps to protect them is essential. One effective strategy is to create legal documents that outline the appropriate use of trade secrets or intellectual property.

Many successful businesses approach this by developing a company handbook that outlines best practices and policies employees must follow. Regular internal training programs can also be implemented to highlight the significance of intellectual property and trade secrets.

Protect Key Employees

It is equally important to protect your key employees—those who significantly impact company performance and often influence others.

To protect these individuals:

1. Incentivize performance and retention: Create strategies to keep key employees engaged. Consider offering incentive plans that provide monetary bonuses or ownership stakes for achieving specific goals. You can also introduce a "vesting schedule" that encourages long-term commitment.
2. Prevent harm after employees leave: Consider implementing measures such as non-compete agreements and non-poaching agreements. Keep in mind that these restrictions should be tailored to your business, employees, and applicable laws.

Find the Right Partner and Expert

Protecting your assets, creating effective incentives, and preventing harm from former employees can be daunting tasks. But you don't have to tackle them alone. With the support of knowledgeable experts, you can confidently protect and grow your business.

True North specializes in helping business owners identify and prioritize their goals for their business, employees, and family goals. If you're ready to discuss your future objectives and explore strategies to achieve them, we're here to provide valuable insights. Contact us today!