As Jack Stack wrote in a recent blog post, it’s hard to know what to think about the economy these days with so many contradictory headlines vying for our attention. In times like these, I seek out the industry veterans to add some much needed perspective to what continues to be a difficult conversation.

Tom West, founder of the Business Brokerage Press and author of several books on the business brokerage industry, is one such voice. His many publications include a monthly newsletter that features a popular opinion column authored by “The Old Pro.” A fictional business broker based on Mr. West’s late father-in-law, The Old Pro dispenses pearls of pithy wisdom about buyers, sellers, brokers and getting deals done.

I decided I needed to hear what the Old Pro has to say.

How has the current economic climate affected business valuations?

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Good salespeople can make very good livings. In some cases they can make as much or more than the owner of the business they work for. I was told a story of one such company — and a problem that it created.

A successful company had four salespeople who sold contract furniture. The contract furniture business is relationship-driven, and it requires a steady flow of new customers because most sales come from companies that are moving or expanding. Having a well-connected professional sales force is critical.

Things were going well. The four salespeople were bringing in millions of dollars in sales, and everyone was making money. The salespeople were working on a commission basis that was tied to the percentage of gross profit on each sale. The top sales guy had a particularly good year and bought a new house. He threw a big party and invited the owner of the company. The boss and the boss’s spouse came and ended up touring the beautiful new home, on the lake, with all of the accoutrements. Guess what they talked about on the way home.

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In their last week of summer legislating, Republicans and Democrats alike — on both ends of Capitol Hill — made gestures toward repealing a new tax-reporting requirement, raising hopes among small-business advocates who have lobbied fiercely against the measure. But with each side claiming the other’s maneuvers are just feints, the prospects for repealing, or softening, the new law are uncertain at best.

The reporting provision at issue is Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which adds “amounts in consideration for property” to the types of payments over $600 for which a business must file an information return with the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, the provision also closes a loophole that made payments to corporations exempt from the filing requirement. Under the new law, a company will have to file a Form 1099 with the I.R.S. for every vendor from whom it buys more than $600 in goods.

The section was intended to be a fund-raiser for the rest of the health care bill; it was projected to deliver $19 billion over the course of 10 years by making it more difficult for businesses to keep income unreported. But business groups assailed the new provisions. “This is absolutely unmanageable,” said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, which is leading the effort to overturn the law. “It’s not just the amount of time and money businesses will have to spend, but all that goes with collecting this information. Who do you send it to? What do you do with employees who travel and are making purchases on the road?”

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Susan Meisel Juan Saldaña and Javier Galarza finishing the second-floor deck.

Every so often, we like to reply to comments. Sorry if I can’t get to all of them, but these seem representative of the response to recent posts on 100 haters, delayed openings and the joys of one wonderful workday. Thank you for following the journey and adding your priceless 2 cents. (I can use all the spare change I can find.)

Anything you do or say can come back and bite you many, many times over… Other than the occasional generic interview with the local press, I make sure not to let anybody know my personal opinions on just about anything. — Frank, USA

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The New Center for Advanced Psychotherapy Studies is a training institute for psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. It offers supervision and consultation and study groups by telephone — and tries to help therapists succeed financially in their practices.

The center, which is based in Key Biscayne, Fla., opened near the end of 2007 with high hopes that it would succeed if it could attract only a tiny percentage of the approximately 130,000 mental health professionals in the United States.

It invested thousands of dollars in a sophisticated Web site with billing software and credit card capacity, and it produced an advertising campaign. But after two months, it had attracted precisely two customers. It decided to shut down the Web site and opted instead for a decidedly old-school approach to finding customers. Please watch the video below to see how the company turned things around.

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I know I raised some eyebrows a few months ago when I wrote that the economy was turning around (“Here Comes the Recovery!“). While lots of folks commented that they, too, were experiencing a resurgence in their business over the past few quarters, there seemed to be just as many naysayers who saw only dark clouds ahead. With the recent news that gross domestic product grew at a less-than-expected 2.4 percent in the second quarter (down from a revised 3.7 percent in the first quarter), the naysayers (including economists) who are predicting a double-dip recession are getting louder than ever.

I can tell you that I remain bullish on the recovery, especially as it applies to our company, SRC Holdings. For example, Guildmaster, our home furnishings division, closed out a record-setting July, which is historically the industry’s toughest month for sales. Last year, the company lost $110,000 for the month. This July, it turned a profit for the month for the first time in company history. And given the response it received at the recent industry trade show in Atlanta, we expect those results to continue for the rest of the year.

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Watching the Tour de France this summer, I found myself yearning for the single-minded focus of having one thing to do and doing it really well.

In the ad business, as with many others, we are always learning about new businesses and industries and deciding which of the many constantly evolving media and technology tools are the best fit for each client’s challenges. That diversity is what draws many of us to the business, but it’s also a challenge. It’s like studying for an exam and never knowing when you’ve studied enough. All you know is that tomorrow the cycle will start over again.

My day usually begins with digital triage. Before I get out of bed, I reach for my iPhone and check e-mail, news feeds and social media sites. We subscribe to dozens of e-mail bulletins, must-reads about branding, media, social media, search-engine optimization, search-engine marketing, e-mail marketing and new-business acquisition. And then there are the business and ad industry trade publications — not to mention trade publications for our clients.

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We’ve just published a small-business guide to crowdsourcing that explains how to tap the wisdom of the crowd to help you complete tasks like designing new products or managing an AdWords campaign. That’s what Lee Rosen, president of the Rosen Law Firm, used it for — with some success. “Really,” he said, “it’s magical.”

Have you tried crowdsourcing? If so, please tell us what worked and what didn’t. What tasks have you tried?

Courtesy Goltz Group Curb appeal: 85,000 square feet, 23-foot ceilings, three loading docks.

In a recent post, I mentioned that as part of my plans to lower my costs, I had bought a building. A commenter named Kris asked a good question: Why did I buy instead of rent? There are numerous reasons, many of which do not necessarily apply to every business.

What I bought is an 85,000-square-foot industrial building with 23-foot ceilings and three loading docks. With this economy and the shrinking of the manufacturing base in Chicago, there are not many companies looking for a building like this. From what I am told by people in real estate, there are still a good amount of companies looking for 5,000-square-foot or 10,000-square-foot spaces, but it is especially hard to rent or sell a building with more than 50,000 square feet. The 36,000-square-foot space I moved out of, for example, has been divided and is now being rented by five different companies.

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The Wall Street Journal ran an article last week titled “When the Folks Give You the Business” about parents who buy their freshly minted college graduates a business to run. Evidently, the job market it so tight these days that some parents believe setting their children up in a business is the best path to success.

I am sympathetic to the young people who came out of college in June to face a very difficult economy. The day I graduated back in 1990, a headline in The Seattle Times read, “College Graduates Face Worst Job Market Since WWII.” To add insult to injury, I was an English major. I have a feeling my prospects back then were about as bleak as those of today’s college grads, so I certainly feel their pain.

But I have a hard time believing that giving your child a business after graduation is a formula for success — either for them or the enterprise itself. The most obvious missing ingredient in this situation  would seem to be experience. As many of us know firsthand, even decades of work and life experience are no guarantee that a business will succeed.

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