Exit Planning for Business Owners – Stage 1:

Introduction:

Small businesses provide almost all new job growth, employ over 50% of all workers and annually account for about 1 trillion of US revenues.  It’s almost without question that there is tremendous value stored here.  However, most owners are not realizing the values of their businesses beyond the income that they draw from their businesses because most don’t have an “Exit Strategy” to monetize this valuable asset they’ve built.

 

Defining the problem:

There are three primary obstacles that most business owners face that leads to this loss of value:

1. There is no plan in place to allow the business to continue to function after the founder/owners retirement or death.
2. Of the businesses that manage to survive the first obstacle, their value is significantly impeded and the owner(s) (or their families) will not realize the potential value that their business could have yielded with proper planning.
3. Even if the business owner(s) realize the aforementioned problems and want to make an exit strategy, many fail to implement one because it is a complex endeavor, requiring the coordination of many different professionals, and it gets lost to the pressing day-to-day obligations of actually running the business.

This is where we come in:  We have developed an Exit Planning service that provides you with everything you need to prepare an Exit Plan and get started towards realizing the full potential of your business.  Our process is tangible, your costs are fixed, and service is comprehensive.

 

What is Exit Planning?

Many people confuse Exit Planning with Succession Planning and there are many similarities.  However, Succession Planning primarily deals with who will assume leadership of your business when you are gone, which generally involves an internal transition.  Most businesses need a succession plan and many succession plans will include an exit plan.  Our Exit Planning service focuses on selling your business to an outside entity such as an investor, competitor, national chain, or even going public.

We define Exit Planning as Planning to proactively take actions to maximize the value of your business and then laying the groundwork to actually divest your business interests. 

To do this you will need to take some or all of these actions:

• Evaluate your business model and optimize.
• Evaluate your entity structure and optimize.
• Create a business and marketing plan that outlines your Exit strategy.
• Participate in Business Coaching.
• Perform 1 or more business valuations.
• Hire a business broker or merger & acquisitions (M&A) firm.
• Identify potential buyers.
• Negotiate the deal.
• Oversee the transition of the deal (maybe for multiple years).

 

Who Needs an Exit Plan?

All profitable businesses that have owners that want to monetize the value of their business that do not have internal heir apparents should engage in this type of Exit Plan.

If you have internal successors then please consider our Succession Planning service.

 

How can we help – the Three Leg Strategy:

What most business owners fail to recognize is that exit planning is a 1-5 year endeavor.  Most people will not be able to just wake up one day, decide their going to sell their business, and walk away with money in a few months (at least not an amount they’d be happy with).  It takes time and work to devise and implement a plan that will maximize the value of your business, implement that plan to bring it to fruition, and then find the right buyer that will yield you top dollar.  In recognition of this fact, our program is split into 3 phases, which we provide service for stage 1 and stage 3 (stage 2 will consist of you and your business coach optimizing your business – cutting out all other professionals during this stage will reduce your costs considerably):

Stage 1: Initial Exit Plan Design and Implementation (~2-4 months): This initial planning period is critical to organizing your priorities and building a plan that you can implement to maximize the value of your business.  It will help you to define your objectives, align your expectations with achievable outcomes, and lay the foundation for the team that will help you realize your exit.

Stage 2: Business optimization (1-3 years): Because it is a long process for many business owners to actually implement a plan to maximize the value of the business, it will generally take many months to successfully complete.  There are many, many things that can be changed and optimized and this cannot be done overnight.  Generally, your best ally here will be an experienced business coach that specializes in your industry.  We will be available to you throughout this entire process and help to coordinate with your coach but in the interest of containing your costs, you should only need your coach at this stage.

Stage 3: Implementing your Exit Strategy (2-12 months): Once you have optimized your business, and you still want to sell, then we will embark on the critical last step of actually divesting your business while maximizing your value.  In this stage, we will re-value your business, hire a business broker or M&A firm, hire a law firm, and create a wealth management plan for your proceeds.  Our firm will coordinate all of these processes for you in an organized, informed, and impartial manner. We represent you as a fiduciary, which means that we represent your interests first:

• We work for you and no one else.
• We do not work off commission.
• We will not take any kick-backs.
• We will always disclose our and anyone else’s conflicts of interests to you.

 

What’s included in our Exit Plan – Stage 1:

 For your $7,000 fee, you will receive:

• A Preliminary Business Assessment & Evaluation.
• One Business Valuation: You must use one of our partner firms which is accredited and familiar with your industry.*
• Development of a written Exit Plan: Up to two on-sight meetings and then unlimited meetings at our office or webconference until your plan is completed.
• We will provide the legal services to draw up any necessary documents: Using one of our pre-existing legal partners.*
• Three months of complimentary business coaching: We will introduce you to one or more business coaches from which you will hire one to help you implement your business optimization strategy.  Your fee includes the first three months of their services.
• Initial Implementation Services: We will help you begin implementation (stage 2) and will remain available to consult with you and your coach until you are ready to begin stage 3.
• Option to become an On-going/Full-Service Client: Up to a 2 quarter fee waiver from any advisory fees due to offset your succession planning fee.

* You must comply promptly with our outside professional’s requests for information, documentation and not cancel or reschedule appointments for non-emergency reasons.  Otherwise, the applicable overage/hourly charges will be billed to you.   We’re running a tight ship here to fix your costs…

What you can expect if you hire us in this capacity?

1. Select the “Buy this Service” button below and you will make your secure payment via PayPal.
2. You will be re-directed to a online scheduling page where you may book your initial appointment immediately.
3. We will contact you within 1 business day to discuss your situation and supply you with the information that you will need to collect and have with you at our first appointment.
4. 1st Appointment  (We will probably come to your office): Entails getting to know your Lead Financial Advisor, collecting all financial information, and understanding your goals so we can began to build your draft plan.
5. Business Valuation: We will present your initial findings to the accounting firm that will perform your valuation and they will contact you to acquire any additional information/meeting they require to complete their valuation for you.
6. 2nd Appointment (We will probably come to your office): We will review your valuation, preliminary findings, and match them to your objectives and capabilities.  We will discuss business coaches, what you need from them and who might be a good fit.
7. Interview Business Coaches: In-between our data gathering meetings and completing your actual plan, you will need to hire your business coach so that we can get them up to speed and incorporate their thoughts and insights into your exit plan.
8. 3rd Appointment (Generally at our office): We will present your draft plan, discuss possible alternative strategies and gather feedback to revise your draft plan into a final plan.
9. 4th Appointment (Generally at our office): We will present your final plan and discuss what actions are necessary to implement your plan.

Exit Plan Services Stage 1: $8,000.00

Not sure which plan to choose or want to interview us before deciding?