If you took water, do this before you clean up

Hi everyone,

Indiana took a lot of water this month. If that is you, the most useful thing in this issue is the first item, and the single step almost nobody takes is reporting your losses to Indiana 211. That is what county damage numbers are built from, and those numbers decide whether federal aid ever opens.

The rest is the usual: a state contract you can actually win, a federal filing requirement that just disappeared, and what the SBA rewrote about buying and selling a business, effective Oct‌ 1.

Membership makes both of these free. Non-members can buy a ticket at the links below.

Wednesday, August‌ 26 · Indianapolis

Life After the Deal

4:‌30 to 7:‌30 p.m. · The District Tap, 82nd Street, Indianapolis

Andrew Wahl, Gabrielle Rubenstein and Max Wahl of Ace-Pak on what they inherited, what surprised them, and what broke in year one of owning the business.

Thursday, September‌ 17 · Fort Wayne

Build It or Buy It

4 to 7 p.m. · Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne

A conversation with Matt Truty, moderated by Nick Ladig. Whether to build the thing yourself or go buy one that already works.

October · Bloomington

Our next room after Fort Wayne. Date and venue coming soon.

This newsletter is free, all of it, and it stays that way. Membership is for the operators who want the room the rest of the year: every OWN event free, the private member directory, member-only roundtables and dinners, and curated peer introductions.

The storms that started Aug‌ 11 produced record flooding across much of Indiana. The White River crested at 24.93 feet at Anderson on Aug‌ 14, beating the record set in 1913. Seven people have died in these storms. What follows is only the business part of it.

Before you do anything else

The President approved an emergency declaration on Aug‌ 15 covering 54 counties. That pays for public response work, not private losses. It does not open FEMA Individual Assistance or SBA disaster loans, and as of this morning neither is open for this event.

So do not wait on an application that does not exist yet. Do this instead:

That last one is the one most owners skip, and it counts for more than your own file. County damage assessments are built from reported losses, and those assessments are what the state uses to request a major disaster declaration. If you do not report, your damage is not in the number.

The coverage gap worth knowing now, not later

The federal flood program pays nothing for business interruption: no lost income, no lost rents, no temporary relocation. Commercial limits are $500,000 building and $500,000 contents, with separate deductibles. Private policies can add business income coverage by endorsement, which for an operating business usually matters more than the building limit.

One date to put down: the National Flood Insurance Program’s authorization expires Sept‌ 30. A lapse does not void a policy you already have. What it stops is writing new ones and renewals. So if your flood policy renews near the end of September, move it up.

The people knocking on your door right now

The Attorney General has issued a consumer alert on post-storm contractor fraud, and officials in Griffith report crews falsely claiming FEMA will cover specific repairs. Two things before you sign anything:

Report it at indianaconsumer.com or 800-382-5516.

Also this cycle

The Indianapolis data center pause cleared the council 23 to 1 on Aug‌ 10 and could get final approval as early as Aug‌ 19. It runs through 2027. The opportunity is in the rules being drafted: sound caps, water management and electrical capacity plans. That is scope of work that did not exist in Marion County last month.

The hiring news of the cycle: Comlux America is adding up to 375 people at the Indianapolis airport on a $22 million investment, phased through 2030. Aircraft mechanics, avionics, cabinetry, engineering, quality. If you hire from that pool, see the Playbook below.

There were no new WARN notices in Indiana between Aug‌ 3 and Aug‌ 17. We checked the state’s list directly. So the tactic this month is not “go recruit from a layoff,” because there was not one.

The setup is this. Nationally, 36% of small business owners say they have open roles they cannot fill, up four points in a month. In Indianapolis, one employer just said it will pull up to 375 skilled technicians and engineers out of that same market by 2030. And no new layoffs means no new supply arriving to offset it.

So the move is retention, before somebody else prices your people for you.

One. Name the five people you cannot afford to lose. Not the org chart. The five whose exit costs you a customer, a certification, or a quarter.

Two. Find out what they are worth this month, not last year. DWD wage data by region and occupation, your trade association’s survey, and whatever your competitors have posted.

Three. Close the gap before someone else does. A 10% correction on five people is almost always cheaper than one replacement search plus ramp time plus the customer risk.

Four, and this is the part most owners do not know. Indiana will reimburse you $5,000 per employee trained, up to $50,000 a year, and the qualifying condition is that the employee gets at least a 10% raise. That is Power Up Indiana, through the Office of Commerce and your regional workforce board. Eligible training is broad: technical credentials, cross-training, leadership development, registered apprenticeships. The wage also has to land above your region’s median at training completion.

If you looked at the Employer Training Grant back in July and decided it did not fit, look again. This is a different program. It is open to any industry rather than six priority sectors, it has no retention requirement, and training you have already done since Jan‌ 1, 2025 can qualify.

One caution so you go in clear-eyed: the regional boards administer the money and allocations can get committed. Get in the queue early. Do not assume the money will still be there.

FinCEN’s final rule took effect Aug‌ 14, permanently removing the requirement for US companies and US persons to report beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act. Treasury put the number at more than 32 million exempted businesses.

What to do this week. If you are paying a filing service, a registered agent add-on, or a line on your CPA invoice for BOI filing or monitoring, cancel it and check whether it auto-renews. Then delete the reminder to file an updated report within 30 days of an ownership or address change. That obligation is gone.

And one warning. FinCEN is deleting what US persons already filed. You do not need to contact them, pay anyone, or file anything to make that happen. The same lists that got marketed BOI compliance for two years are about to get marketed BOI deletion. Nobody needs it.

Foreign entities registered to do business here still report, and only for foreign individuals.

Both events this cycle are sponsored by First Internet Bank.

Founded more than 25 years ago, it was the first state-chartered, FDIC-insured bank to operate entirely online. Headquartered just outside Indianapolis, it ranks among the nation’s top SBA 7(a) lenders and finances everything from equipment to business acquisitions. Member FDIC.

Jared W. Johnson, VP and Senior Business Development Officer, has done over $850 million in SBA lending and hosts the podcast “Before You Buy or Sell a Business.” He will be at both rooms. [email protected]

We tell you when something is sponsored.

Pat and Jamie East kept hearing people miss a Bloomington soup shop that had been closed for years, so Pat went and made the former owner a deal. He got the business and the chef’s 66 original recipes, shares a storefront with a ninety-year-old ice cream parlor, and reopened in late 2025.

The soup is not why he is in this issue. Before he bought anything, Pat and Jamie built and ran Hanapin Marketing for sixteen years and sold it to a competitor in 2020. He started preparing for that exit years ahead, and his description of how he did it is the most useful sentence we have run all year:

“We started doing things like making me redundant.”

His reasoning is blunt: a business that depends entirely on its owner is hard to sell, or hard to sell for a good price. The takeaway, whether or not you ever sell: every process that lives only in your head is both a vacation you cannot take and a discount at closing.

“A company that’s worth selling is a company worth running.”

Indiana businesses owned by people 55 and older account for roughly $206 billion in private sector revenue a year. A McKinsey study found 92% of small and midsize business exits in 2022 ended in closure instead of a sale or succession. The state’s entrepreneurship office attributes that to lack of preparation, which is the one variable an owner controls.

Reported by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Aug‌ 17, 2026.

We read the state’s live bid listing for this one. The best item on it does not show up in a Google search, because Indiana’s active solicitations sit behind a portal search engines do not index. That is the whole reason this block exists.

Update: SBA renewed the 0% fee for manufacturers for another year starting Oct‌ 1, 2026, as we reported on Sept‌ 29.

Other state work closing soon: Business Consulting Services (Aug‌ 26, 1:‌30 p.m.), Government Center daycare services (Aug‌ 27), FSSA Community Supports IT (Sept‌ 10), the DMHA case management system (Sept‌ 16), and Medicaid external quality reviews (Sept‌ 17). Full listings here.

This takes effect Oct‌ 1, and it only bites at $3 million and up. Most Indiana businesses trade well under that line, so if you are not buying or selling you can skip to the next section. If you might ever sell, it changes something you do not get to control. We read the actual document, and most of what is circulating gets at least one thing wrong.

Start with this one, because it takes a decision away from you. If you ever sell, you will not be allowed to commission the analysis that decides your price. The rule states it plainly: the report “may not be prepared by or for the borrower or seller.” It is done for the lender.

Update: SBA later revised this rule. A Quality of Earnings report already prepared for the buyer may now be used if it comes with a reliance letter or a secondary review by a different firm. We covered the change on Sept‌ 29.

And it is not a light review. A Quality of Earnings report is now required on any purchase at or above $3 million, and it has to reconcile your accountant-prepared statements, your tax returns, your internal statements and your IRS transcript data. It must include what the SBA calls a Cash Proof, which rebuilds cash receipts and disbursements against your bank statements, income statement and tax return, on a trailing twelve months plus the last two fiscal years. Its stated purpose is finding income that does not tie and expenses that were never disclosed.

So a firm you did not hire rebuilds three years of your cash, after you have signed. A number that does not reconcile shrinks the buyer’s loan, and that pressures your price. The work is bookkeeping, and it is worth doing now whether or not you ever sell.

Now the good news, which is getting almost no coverage. Owner buyouts and ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) or cooperative transactions are exempt from the Quality of Earnings requirement, because the existing owners keep operating knowledge and management does not change. Handing the business to a partner, to family, or to an employee trust just got structurally simpler than selling to a stranger.

Two more things worth having right

And the perspective that keeps this honest: the average SBA acquisition loan last year was around $1.18 million. If you have a deal moving, talk to your lender in September, not October.

Valuation expectations are now the number one deal killer. 57% of transaction professionals said price expectations were the main reason deals died in diligence in the first half of 2026, up from 28% a year ago. Buyers are bridging the gap with seller rollover equity, typically 10 to 30% of proceeds put back in. Translation: a premium in 2026 usually means staying in the risk.

Aug‌ 20 · Evansville · Building SOPs That Actually Get Used. Free, and the most immediately usable thing on this list. Details

Sept‌ 9 · Indianapolis or virtual · Indiana Chamber Childcare Summit. 8:‌00 a.m. to 3:‌15 p.m. $149 members, $179 non-members, same price to attend virtually. Employer-supported childcare models and the tax credits attached to them. If retention is your problem this year, this is the cheapest serious day on the calendar. Register

Sept‌ 10 · Fort Wayne · GFW Inc. Economic Development Summit. Growth, energy, automotive and workforce, plus a fireside with L3Harris. Registration closes Sept‌ 3. Register

Got feedback, an idea, or an intro? Just reply.

Or reach us anytime at [email protected].

See you in the next room.

Jared and the OWN Indiana team