Carving Out A Niche With Exit and Succession Planning

An estimated $40.6 trillion will change hands from 1998 through 2052 as baby boomers pass on their accumulated assets to their heirs. A portion of that wealth transfer will result from the retirement or death of small-business owners. Most business owners have not planned for the future because they have been too busy working in their business, instead of on their business, to make critical decisions about transferring business ownership to their children, selling the business or maintaining passive ownership when they near retirement age.

As a result, succession planning (also known as exit or transition planning) for boomer business owners will be one of the hottest professional service niches in the next decade. You can offer this harried, time-challenged demographic a valuable service by helping them create customized plans that address expected or unexpected occurrences, such as an inside sale or sudden death. You also will give them peace of mind and financial security for many years to come. We offer that service today!

Succession planning is based on a simple premise: At some point, every owner leaves his or her business “voluntarily or otherwise.

That is why it is so important for owners to start thinking and planning their “life after work. ” An exit strategy helps protect the business owner, his family, his employees and his company when expected or unexpected situations surface.

If an exit plan is not created before it is needed, it will be done during a crisis, with potentially disastrous results.

But what exactly is an exit plan? It is a “blueprint, “ so to speak, that can be developed and implemented for the following scenarios: