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5 Economic Headwinds, 5 LivePlan Solutions for Business Advisors

Elon Glucklich

3 min. read

Updated October 10, 2024

Business advisors today must counsel owners and entrepreneurs through a wave of economic headwinds: inflation concerns, rising interest rates, recession fears, and pandemic work shifts, just to name a few.

No one can predict where the economy is headed, but your job as a business advisor is to help your clients understand their position in the market, and how changing conditions could affect their business.

Fortunately, LivePlan features numerous financial forecasting and business planning tools you can leverage in your business advisory work to help clients make informed decisions in uncertain times. From scenario planning to milestone tracking, accounting software integration, financial dashboard monitoring, and online training, here are just a few of the ways LivePlan can help you set your advisory service apart from competitors.

1. Managing inflation

Issue: Inflation has been high for nearly two years now, and a recent survey found 45% of U.S. small business owners struggled to fill job openings. What does an effective advisor offer clients in this climate?

Solution: With businesses struggling to predict future expenses, business advisors need to present their clients with financial information that covers the worst cases, best cases, and everything in between. LivePlan’s Scenario feature lets advisors create up to 10 separate scenarios within one client’s business plan. Import their financials from QuickBooks or Xero, make detailed cash flow projections, and explore adjustments so they can see how strategic shifts affect their bottom line.

2. Starting in uncertain times

Issue: While a majority of small business owners are pessimistic about the economy, new business applications are near all-time highs. How can you stay on top of new and existing clients’ needs?

Solution: LivePlan partner accounts let advisors create tasks and milestones for each of their clients. Get an email when a client adds to their plan, and give feedback directly in the plan or forecast. Each business profile is organized separately in a partner account that you control, making it easy to track the progress of new and long-time businesses, whether you’re advising five, 50, or 500 clients.

3. Navigating the credit crunch

Issue: High interest rates have squeezed many business owners out of financing streams they’ve relied on for years. How do business advisors help clients see all the possibilities to move forward confidently?

Solution: With the LiveForecast feature, business advisors can import their clients’ actual financial results from QuickBooks or Xero into LivePlan’s forecasting platform. Combine your real-time data with LivePlan Scenarios, and you can help your clients identify new revenue streams, generate alternative funding sources, and manage those funds to make the best business decisions for the long term.

4. Advising through volatility

Issue: In a time of unprecedented near-term anxiety for business owners, your clients are still looking for you to provide calm, intelligent guidance so they can plan for the future.

Solution: LivePlan financial forecasting lets you take a long view of your client’s business performance. Develop a detailed working forecast that extends up to 5 years out, revisit and adjust on a monthly basis, and explore scenarios that inform internal contingency plans to keep them on track. With LivePlan’s financial dashboard, you can monitor all of your clients’ key performance indicators for as long as they need your services, and quickly plug in new clients as your business grows.

5. Competition in the outsourced advising space

Issue: Technological changes accelerated by the pandemic have opened up new opportunities for Business Coaching and Fractional CFO services. But competition is fierce. 

Solution: LivePlan’s advising services give you access to a wide range of client resources that help you master the advisory process. Take part in virtual training sessions hosted by the LivePlan team, attend master classes, and unlock advanced forecasting and business planning tools to help your clients identify new revenue streams, generate alternative funding sources, and manage those funds to make the best business decisions for the long term.

Elon Glucklich

Elon is a marketing specialist at Palo Alto Software, working with consultants, accountants, business instructors and others who use LivePlan at scale. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oregon.