Planning | FJG/FYI
Exiting in Style
by Tim Cope
Is retirement from your business on your distant horizon or even in your near-term future? If it is, then the time has come for you to begin planning your exit from your business and to start looking for the “door.” The door leading to your future, to your financial stability and to a retirement that fulfills your objectives.
Business Exit Planning is a well defined and developed process designed to let you to leave your business under the conditions most favorable to your future. I call it, “leaving in style.”
Developed in the late 1980’s by John H. Brown of the Business Enterprise Institute, Business Exit Planning provides a framework for business owners to address all the disparate issues related to selling and exiting their business, including:
- Your objectives
- Your financial plan
- Your business’ value
- Your legal, insurance and financial needs
- Your wealth preservation plan
- Your business continuity plan
The Business Exit Planning process starts by helping clients assess and then articulate all of their business exit objectives.
As a Business Exit Planning Consultant, I look at all aspects of the exit process including my client’s personal financial plan, exit objectives, insurance needs, wealth preservation plans and the valuation and sale of their business.
In consultation with a client, I assemble a Business Exit Planning Team comprised of financial, insurance, legal and business specialists who will address the financial, tax, insurance, succession, valuation, business culture and myriad of other issues inherent to the process.
Drawing on each team member’s professional insight and structuring that around my Exit Planning process, I then develop an individual Business Exit Plan organized around my client’s objectives. Once they have signed off on the plan, I will coordinate the activities of the Business Exit Planning Team and provide them with frequent updates on your plan’s progress.
Working on my client’s behalf as their Business Exit Planning Consultant, I will manage the business exit process from inception to completion.
And my job won’t be complete until they pass through that door to their future!