“I can’t play golf every day.”
“My wife wants to see more of me — but not at every breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”
“What do other ex-owners do after they’ve sold out?”
Failing to answer these concerns can create vacillation, reluctance, and ultimately, an unwillingness on the part of many owners to proceed with planning for their business [...]

Franklin Taft was understandably a bit neurotic. He was increasingly anxious to begin planning for his eventual departure from his business but his concerns prevented him from proceeding. “I’m too busy working in my business to think about how to leave it. Besides, I don’t know what to do-and neither do my advisors.”
Sound familiar? In [...]

The last step in your Exit Plan is Wealth Preservation Planning. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until you are out of the business to begin actively preserving your wealth. In fact, if you wait until the value of your business is converted to cash, it may be too late to realize all of [...]

How do you successfully transfer your business to a child, key employee or co-owner? The most successful method is to follow a recipe that mixes, in equal measure, three key ingredients:

One part: the ability, experience and dedication of the prospective new owners;
One part: a company with strong, consistent cash flow and little debt; and
One part: [...]

Are you like many business owners?

A majority of closely held and family owned businesses will change hands within the next five years1; but
Many Business Owners may not have taken active steps to transition out of ownership.

Again, if you are like many of our readers, the reasons for failing to plan may be:

You may have simply been [...]

Business owners often ask, “How much is my business worth?” The question may be irrelevant and a much better question is: “What is the most I can get for my business under the most favorable terms and conditions?” Answering this question in a more practical manner requires following one of two approaches. The first is [...]

You, or someone very close to you, are part of 78 million Americans that make up the largest population segment in the United States: Baby Boomers. This generation is classified as anyone born between 1946 and 1964. According to a recent study by BIG Research, 9% of boomers with household incomes exceeding $50,000 are small [...]

 
A lot of business owners ask me, “When should I develop my business exit strategy? and how far in advance of my departure should I build my plan?” My answer is always immediately! A strong business exit plan is a dynamic document to be reviewed and updated frequently as conditions change. Change in your personal goals, [...]

 
Maximize what you get and minimize what the IRS takes.
We talked about setting your “end game” objectives as an important step in mapping your business Exit Plan. Remember, if you don’t know where you’re going, any map will do. Equally important is the starting point. If you don’t know where you are…a map won’t help. Valuing [...]

Someone once cleverly pointed out that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any map will do.” No one statement better underscores the importance of setting goals as the first step in building a successful business exit plan.
We’ve talked about the importance of owner-based business exit planning and establishing your objectives to create a road map [...]