Exit Planning Tools for Business Owners

business strategy

Will You Be Ready?

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Will you be ready when it is time to leave your company? A business owner needs to have a basic business strategy to monitor company financials regularly. Several owners consider this a strategy to prepare for exiting their businesses. However, monitoring company financials is like looking in the rearview mirror. What if you could incorporate a business strategy that looks forward and leads to accelerating profitability and increases business value? In addition, this strategy helps lead to less stress, more free time, and ultimately helps take control of a business exit?

The Active Strategy

The Business Strategy is called Exit Planning. John H. Brown, author of How to Run Your Business So You Can Leave it in Style, writes: “Exit Planning is a process that results in the creation and execution of a strategy allowing business owners to exit their businesses on their terms and conditions. It is an established process that creates a written road map, or Exit Plan, often involving efforts of several professionals, facilitated and led by an Exit Planning Advisor who ensures not only the plan creation but its timely execution.”

Unfortunately, most business owners do not employ this strategy. They are personally unprepared, and their business is not ready when it comes time for them to transition. Ultimately, there is less control over the timing of the exit and even less control over the value they receive when they do exit their business entirely.

What can you do?

Consider this when building an exit strategy:

1. Focus – Adhere to the niche the company serves. Buyers place a premium valuation on focused companies that do one thing very well, better than others. Do not stray from the niche because it destroys value.

2. Develop a Management Team & Reduce Owner Dependency – Ensure the management team can carry on without the business owner when the business sells. It is difficult for the business owner to disengage while they still actively manage. But this is precisely when the owner can create more value—because when the business is not exclusively dependent on the owner, it is worth more! Ask yourself, if I leave today for an extended length of time, will the success of my business be impaired? If your answer is yes, you have not created value. You have created a glorified job.

3. Assess Your Business – Prepare an objective assessment of the company’s current position and potential. A simple SWOT analysis is beneficial. Write down the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats of the company.

4. Ensure the Business Has Adequate Capital – The lending markets are often more willing to lend in good times than in bad times. Are you maxing out your credit lines, or do you have a comfortable margin of credit? Are you happy with your current lending relationship? Evaluate alternatives and review your loan covenants regularly.

5. Clean Up the Balance Sheet – Collect past due accounts or write them off if uncollectable. Review customer credit policies. Clean up inventory and take it off the books if obsolete or unsellable. Diligently track personal expenses run through the business. And lastly, call in loans to shareholders and employees.

6. Obtain Financial Audit of Business – Frequently, the company’s accounting has not grown at the speed of the company’s growth. An audit prepared by an objective third-party accounting firm provides a high level of credibility to the business performance.

7. Protect Key Personnel – Obtain employment and non-compete agreements from key employees. The last thing you want is someone leaving just before you decide to exit. The buyer is looking for continuity of Key Personnel. If you have not already tied your integral people to the business, it may be far more expensive to do so at the time of sale.

8. Identify & Mitigate Legal & Environmental Risks – Working with your liability insurance advisor is essential. Unfortunately, until the buyer brings up the subject, this is often left undone.

9. Review Customer Concentration & Overall Operations – Are your vendor contracts assumable/transferable upon sale? Do you derive more than 20% of your revenue from one customer or client?

10. Build Your Team of Advisors – Establish a strong team of qualified accounting, tax, legal, financial, and investment banking professionals. Invite them together at one meeting to establish your expectations of collaboration around your personal & financial goals. Establish recurring management meetings to monitor progress.

While there are many competing needs for a business owner’s time, working on an exit strategy can result in less stress and more time to do the things you want to do instead of need to do. In addition, an exit planning strategy can also enhance profitability and business value, resulting in a win-win for the owner, the owner’s family, and the employees of the business.

Securities and advisory services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network®, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser. Fixed insurance products and services offered through Legacy Planning Partners, LLC or CES Insurance Agency.

Jan Graybill is a Certified Financial Planner® (CFP), and holds the Certified Exit Planning Advisor® (CEPA), Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC) and Chartered Life Underwriter® (CLU) professional designations. He is a Managing Partner and CEO of Legacy Planning Partners. For more information about Jan, click here.

Thinking About the Future: What’s Your Plan?

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Thinking About the FutureWe’ve all heard the saying, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” This is extremely pertinent if you’re thinking about the future of your business. Many owners focus solely on the exit transaction itself without spending the time to properly prepare for it. Transitioning your business can take many forms, from passing to a family member to selling to a strategic partner. Here are some things to think about before you transition.

Are you ready to leave?

Many business owners fail to consider what they’ll do after a transaction. Do you plan to continue to work in the business? For how long? To whom will you report? If you’re no longer the owner, then you will NOT be in charge. If you’re not present, is existing management prepared to run the business? What will you do?

Have you mapped out your financial plan?

Before any transaction, you should evaluate your finances and create a personal balance sheet with a lifetime spending plan. How much wealth does it take to retire? What kind of lifestyle do you plan to have? Have you considered medical costs? Don’t forget to update your estate plan to take into account personal and charitable bequests.

What’s your business worth?

Sure, you may have an idea of the value of the business. How can you best position the business for maximum value extraction? What’s your best option? What about non-financial considerations?

The decision to turn over your business to someone else is a difficult one. Think about your goals before you proceed, then “Plan your work and work your plan!”

Invest 15 Minutes and take our FREE Exit Readiness Assessment. We do not request any confidential information.

Mary D. Richter is a tax shareholder who has been serving tax clients for more than 25 years. She has worked in both public accounting and private industry. Mary has a diverse tax background with experience in federal, state, and international tax and business issues and has provided dedicated client service to multinational manufacturing and service entities in all phases of the business cycle, from start-up to exit strategy.

Wealth Management for Business Owners

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Wealth Management Considerations for Business Owners

Small business owners are at times neglected by the wealth management community as the business is commonly (not always) the owner’s largest asset rather than a portfolio of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. You’d be well-advised as a business owner to engage a Financial Advisor who is proactive and experienced in factoring your future plans for the business, into your overall plan for managing your wealth.

 

Key Elements of Exit Planning

Impactful wealth management for you as a business owner would include at least these elements of exit planning:

  • Clarifying what “exit” means to you. For example, do you want to leave entirely at some point, or gradually over time?
  • Clarifying your financial, values-based, legacy goals, and what role the business needs to play in attaining your goals.
  • A financial needs and gap analysis with an accurate valuation (not back of the envelope – meaningful planning requires accurate data) of the business. How much $$$$ will you need to do everything you want to do after the business? Is there a financial gap? Will that gap need to be closed by increasing the value of the business?
  • Personal risk management including asset protection, insurance planning, tax planning.
  • A current estate plan — a business owner cannot do exit planning without doing estate planning.
  • A plan to preserve the value of the business (typically a small business owner’s largest asset), and a plan for it to survive during unexpected events of your permanent disability or death.
  • An appropriate plan for managing financial assets resulting from the successful sale or transfer of your business.

Exit planning is wealth management for business owners that requires assessing, preserving, and building the value of your largest and most complex asset…your business.

Invest 15 Minutes and take our FREE Exit Readiness Assessment. We do not request any confidential information.

Pat Ennis is the President of ENNIS Legacy Partners. The mission of ELP is to help business owners build value and exit on their own terms and conditions.

Business Succession Planning Is There Life After Death?

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Consider this scenario: You’re part owner of a thriving small- to medium-sized business. You handle certain key responsibilities and rely on your partner to handle others. While your partner is away on business, the phone rings. The shaky voice at the other end of the line informs you that your partner has been fatally injured in a car accident. You’re grief-stricken. At the same time, you realize many people—you, your family, your partner’s family, your employees, customers, and creditors—depend on the uninterrupted continuation of your business. You know you should have planned for this. . .but you just never found the time.

What If I Wait?

What if I wait? Is this a situation you secretly dread the possibility of facing because you’ve never “found time” for business succession planning? Once tragedy strikes, it can be the worst time to deal with these issues. Under some circumstances, it may be too late. Consider the following potential risks you could face without a proper business succession plan in place.

An owner’s unexpected death may jeopardize the long-term viability of a company, whether it is a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation. For instance, loans may be called, or work in progress may be put on hold until a replacement can be hired. In the meantime, customers may gravitate to your competition, making it difficult to win them back.

Moreover, once a business is in crisis, selling a deceased owner’s interest may result in the surviving spouse or family members settling for a price that is less than fair market value (FMV). Since stock or partnership interests in a closely-held business are not publicly traded, their value is not established without a business succession plan.

Finally, although a deceased owner’s estate plan may have made sense for his or her estate, it could spell disaster for the business. For example, if the company is an S corporation, and the trustees of a family trust become stockholders in the business, an inadvertent termination of the S corporation election may result if the trust does not qualify.

Secure Your Future

A business succession plan helps reassure all parties the business will continue to operate. It establishes a monetary value for each owner’s business interest before the need arises. It also helps prevent problems by coordinating each owner’s estate plan with the business. One of the key components of a business succession plan is a buy-sell agreement.

A buy-sell agreement is a contract that creates a market for a deceased owner’s business interest. It obligates the owner’s estate to sell his or her shares for a predetermined price to partners or shareholders (a cross-purchase agreement); to the business itself (an entity agreement); or to both (a hybrid, or “wait and see” agreement).

Life insurance is commonly used to help fund buy-sell agreements. It provides tax-free money at the owner’s death, and can also help fund a buyout at retirement or in the event of a disability. Points to consider in choosing a policy include the size of the death benefit; the flexibility to change the death benefit as the business’s valuation changes; and the size of the cash value component. Also of importance are the policy’s ownership, beneficiary designations, and endorsements.

Smart Moves Help Beat the Odds

Relatively few closely-held businesses pass to the next generation. A demanding schedule may lead to procrastination. However, with so much riding on a proper business succession plan, investing the time to prepare one now—and to review it periodically—may be one of the smartest business moves you’ll ever make.

Keep in mind you’ll need qualified legal, financial, and insurance assistance in establishing your buy-sell agreement.

Mark Hegstrom is Certified Exit Planning Advisor and helps business owners to plan for what may be their single largest lifetime transaction: the transfer of their business. Get started by completing an exit readiness Assessment for yourself. Mark is Managing Partner at Business Owner Succession Strategies (BOSS). He currently serves as President of the Exit Planning Institute -Twin Cities Chapter.
 

The Dismal Ds and Exit Planning

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The “Dismal Ds” is an inside joke in exit planning. Every industry and profession has them. In some, it’s “You can have it done well, done fast, or done cheaply. Pick any two.” In planning it’s “Sooner or later, every owner exits his or her business… 100% guaranteed.”

Clearly, that refers to the unplanned but inevitable departure from the biggest D – Death. That isn’t the only D, however. There are others, NONE of which lead to a controlled, lucrative, or enjoyable transition. Most start with dis- defined as “dis– 1. a Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a privative, negative, or reversing force.”

The other Dismal Ds include:

  • Disease – the critical illness of the owner or an irreplaceable employee.
  • Dissension – between partners, shareholders, or family members
  • Disaster – Fire, flood, storm, or accident
  • Disability – An owner’s inability to oversee operations
  • Disinterest – of the founder or next-generation ownership
  • Distraction – When an owner’s focus is elsewhere. (frequently love or bar ownership)
  • Disarray – More simply, bad management
  • Dishonor – financial fraud or other skulduggery
  • Disenchantment – A fancy word for burnout
  • Divorce – a bitter fight over the business asset or its value
  • Debt – Leverage taken on in good times but no longer sustainable
  • Depression – Economic malaise (think hospitality in 2020.)
  • Defection– The poaching or bolting of a key employee, frequently in sales
  • Defenestration – Getting thrown from a window

(Okay, I may have gone too far with that last one, but I couldn’t resist.)

Planning – The Cure for the Dismal Ds

The point is, there are many ways of a forced exit from your business due to circumstances. Some might be beyond your control, but most can be avoided.

  • Disease – Have solid business continuity instructions in place
  • Dissension – Start with a good buy/sell or shareholders’ agreement that makes it plain how disagreements will be handled
  • Disaster – Fire, flood, storm, or accidents can be insured, including for loss of revenue.
  • Disability – Business continuity instructions again
  • Disinterest – Start implementing an exit plan before your business shows the effect. For example, in brokerage, we used to say “Show me an owner who says he is burned out, and I’ll show you financial statements that evidenced the problem three years ago.”
  • Distraction – Don’t buy a bar. Don’t buy another business. Don’t have an affair.
  • Disarray – Get help. Consulting, coaching and peer groups all work.
  • Dishonor – Have an outside party check your systems and security.
  • Disenchantment – See Disinterest
  • Divorce – Settle the value of the business first, preferably before the lawyers do it for you.
  • Debt – Limit your debt to half what your current cash flow can service.
  • Depression – If you have to cut expenses, do so deeply and quickly.
  • Defection– Two words- employment agreements
  • Defenestration – Stay away from the Departed, or Irish, Italian, and Jewish mobsters in general. Alternatively, live where there are only low-rise buildings.

Dismal DsI obviously have my tongue firmly planted in cheek for this column, but my point should be clear. Your business is probably the most valuable asset in your life. Losing it to unplanned events hurts. So even if you are no longer in the picture, you have some responsibility to your family, employees and customers.

A good exit plan, whether it’s for implementation now or years down the road, should take many, if not all of the Dismal Ds into account. All entrepreneurs want control over their future. That is why they are entrepreneurs. Planning isn’t merely an intellectual exercise. It’s all about control.

John F. Dini, CExP, CEPA is an exit planning coach and the President of MPN Incorporated in San Antonio Texas. He is the author of Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust, and two other books on business ownership. If you want to see how prepared you are for transition, take the 15-minute Assessment at MPNInc.com/ExitMap.