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Exit Planning Articles Focused on your Exit Options
Exit: Exit Options
Should you be targeting a specific segment of the buyer market? How can that be accomplished? What technical issues will you face with taxation, negotiation and contract structure? The specific and unique challenges of Family, Employee and Third-Party sales.
Should you be targeting a specific segment of the buyer market? How can that be accomplished? What technical issues will you face with taxation, negotiation and contract structure? The specific and unique challenges of Family, Employee and Third-Party sales.
Most Recent Your ExitMap Blog Articles
20 Red Flags to Look Out for When Buying a Business Buying a business is an opportunity to skip the growing pains of launching a startup. It’s a chance to start with a proven model with customers and cashflow. How can you tell if the prospective business is a genuine investment opportunity or a disguised escape route for a burnt-out owner? The following is a list of the top five things to consider when prospecting a business purchase – and some red flags for each category so you can recognize trouble a long way away. This list is no way exhaustive and there are many other issues to consider when buying a business. However, nailing these ... Read more Personal Vision – Life After the Sale Part 2 In our last article about life after the sale we discussed identity. Even when business owners are comfortable with who they are, however, there is still the nuts and bolts issue of activity.
A business owner spends 20, 30, or (not uncommonly with Boomers,) 40 years focused on running a business. Unless they’ve built a substantial organization that is run by employees, it likely remains their biggest single time commitment right up until they leave. That commitment is frequently a lot more than 40 hours. Personal Vision – Life After the Sale Part I Life after the sale is often both the most important and most neglected factor in exit planning. Although (according to two different surveys in 2013 and 2022,) 75% of owners report regrets or unhappiness a year after the transition, exit plans continue to be constructed primarily around financial targets. In the event you haven’t heard this since you were five years old, “Money doesn’t fix everything.” Superficial Planning To be fair, most advisors include some conversation about “life after” in their planning conversations. Unfortunately, they are often satisfied with the features associated with an abundance of free time. Visiting the family, RV’ing through the country, ... Read more "Work From Anywhere" Comes Full Circle Work from anywhere has been a necessity, an epithet, an obstacle, and an opportunity over the last 3 years. To paraphrase Aristotle’s axiom about Nature (“Horror Vacui”), business abhors a vacuum. Where one occurs, it is quickly filled. Work from anywhere started as a COVID-induced necessity. During the lockdowns of 2020-2021 (and longer in some places) we all had a crash course in video calling, VPNs, and virtual meetings. Employees quickly expanded the definition of anywhere. They tired of shunting the children off to a bedroom during conference calls, or using office-like backdrops to hide their kitchen cabinets. Soon they began changing their backgrounds to ... Read more Family Succession Planning: Who Gets the Office? Sometimes the most sensitive question in family succession planning is “Who gets the office?” Dad’s (or Mom’s) office is usually perceived as the center of authority by the employees and other family members. That is where you got called on the carpet, where you were informed of promotions, or where you took an insolvable problem. When a parent/CEO is handing off operating responsibility, there is often a lag, sometimes measured in years, between stepping back from the daily decisions and completely separating from the premises. There is great value in having that experience available for coaching, mentoring, or just to lend perspective on new ... Read more Prepared for 2023 – Is This the Year to Exit? What does being prepared for 2023 mean for business owners who are approaching, at, or already beyond normal retirement age? It’s become fashionable to pontificate about the “inevitable” recession in the coming year. There is an argument for not talking ourselves into making it happen. Unfortunately, there are indisputable reasons why it is going to occur regardless of whether we discuss it or not. Inflationary stimulus (including $6 trillion of ”quantitative easing”) in the US, combined with over-dependency on Russian gas supply in Europe and falling industrial production from COVID lockdowns in China have created the proverbial slow-motion car wreck for the world economy. All ... Read more Entreprenuers Don’t Use Rearview Mirrors All business owners are goal oriented. From the day you founded or assumed control of your company, you set targets and achieved them. That is why you are successful. You know how to define a goal and make it happen. If I asked you to tell me the best thing that you did in the business three years ago, you’d likely respond with, “I have no idea.” or “Why would I know that?” or “Who cares?” You are busy looking forward. I’ve even had some owners get angry. They feel some obligation to know the answer, and that they are somehow failing a test if ... Read more Die at Your Desk or Go Golfing? Die at Your Desk or Go Golfing? The truth of the matter is, every small business owner will eventually transition from the business. While most have spent much time working in the business, and at times on the business, they have not given much thought to what to do after the business. Whether you love your work so much that you would be happy to die at your desk, or you would like to devote much more time to your golf game, every small business owner needs to consider how they plan to exit. And planning has significant benefits. The Business Enterprise Institute defines three ... Read more Are You Prepared for the Next Stage of Your Business? You’re a successful business owner who’s devoted all your time and effort to growing your company to be a best-in-class provider in the industry. With your head down so long, you’ve probably never thought about what you were going to do as you approached the next stage of life. Planning for that next stage before you actually get there can help solve many of the problems today’s business owners often face following an exit transaction. It may sound great to play golf every day, or to sit at the lake and fish, but does that replace the daily rush you had while operating your business? ... Read more The Dismal Ds and Exit Planning 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.” ... Read more Preserving Family Wealth is a Generational Effort Wealth within a family can be a double-edged sword. It can serve as an incredible resource to benefit its family members, but it can also be destructive and divisive. Destructive in the sense that if not properly tended to and respected, wealth can destroy the purpose and outcomes of individual family members, and divisive in the sense that it can damage the bond between family members and cause a splintering of the family. Wealth and the handling of wealth is a topic that has been discussed or written about throughout the ages, as it is mentioned in both the Old Testament and the Gospels within ... Read more When Kids Don't Cut It Many owners want to see their children inherit the business, but what happens when the kids don’t cut it? Some years ago I worked with a business owner whose exit plan was to sell into one of the private equity roll-ups that were active in his industry. His son was finishing college, where he studied for a career in wildlife management. The son’s ambition was to spend his life in the great outdoors. One day my client was beaming when I walked into his office. “Guess what?” he said. “My son called. He wants to take over my business!” After a few minutes, it was ... Read more An Often Neglected Means Of Protecting Business Value Protect The Business Most Valuable Asset A compelling and common characteristic of successful business owners is optimism. The “glass is always half full” attitude results in the risk-taking, perseverance, and innovation it takes to build, grow, and protect a successful business. Like any personal strength, this optimism can quickly become a weakness when there is a need to plan for the gloomy business contingencies of death and disability. What happens to the business due to either of these less than optimistic events is the last thing an optimistic owner wants to think about. Some might say that perhaps owners don’t care if the business fails ... Read more Succession Planning or Exit Planning? Small Business Owners Need Both! One of the questions we often hear from business owners is, “What is the difference between Succession Planning and Exit Planning? Aren’t they the same thing?” Surprisingly, they are not. The next question usually is, “Which one do I need?” The answer is simple. Whether the business is small or large, family-owned or not, astute business owners always need both. Nearly $10 trillion dollars in business assets will be transferred globally in the next decade, according to Forbes Magazine. Baby Boomers selling privately owned businesses or transferring them to family members will comprise much of that $10 trillion dollar transfer. As the market becomes crowded ... Read more Exit Planning in a Crisis Why would you be exit planning in a crisis? At the height of the economic expansion (a few months ago in late 2019) I was reviewing a company’s financial statements. Their sales were stagnant, and profits were minimal. When I asked the owner why his business hadn’t grown, he responded, “Well, the Great Recession hit our industry pretty hard, you know.” Take note that it wasn’t his fault. He was in a hard-hit industry, and the economy dealt him a bad hand. He ignored the thousands of businesses just like his that had grown and prospered in the last ten years. Once you hunker down ... Read more |