Building and maintaining a successful business is tough these days.

Now that you’ve done it, you want to make sure that you pass it on without losing any momentum in the transition.  While most businesses do not survive long after a change in leadership, others have thrived. I can help you to establish a business succession plan that will ensure your business’ continuation and maximize the return for you as the owner of your business.

You are probably saying to yourself, “Who has time for that?  I barely have enough time to run my business and see my family as it is now?”

Think of it like this — business succession planning is an investment in the future of your business for the owners, employees, and clients.  Your business is probably the biggest investment that you own.  Moreover, the existence of a succession plan emphasizes your commitment to your business’ long term growth and creates confidence with your employees, customers, lenders, and suppliers.

So what exactly is a business succession plan?

A business succession plan is a process of reorganizing the equity in your business, updating your wills, trusts, and other estate planning documents, and reviewing your existing insurance policies.  It also includes drafting or updating buys-sell agreements and looking at the current compensation procedures, especially for key employees.  Next, it includes identifying and training the right person to run your company after you are no longer there.  Often times an advisory board can be helpful to advise the owners about these issues. However, it is also important to pull together the right professionals to help get the job done right.  Experienced business/estate planning attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, insurance agents, and bankers help to provide experience, objectivity, and specialized skills in completing this process.  For larger businesses or in more complicated cases, an experienced family mediator can also be a valuable asset.  Finally, once a business succession plan is established, it needs to be communicated effectively to your family, your employees, and your clients, and updated over time as needed.

We can help

Our firm has helped families just like yours with businesses in a wide variety of industries work through these issues. In particular, we have the experience to handle the business, tax, and estate planning legal issues that arise in creating these plans, and we also have the relationships with experienced professionals in these other related fields as well.  If you do not have the whole “team” in place, don’t worry, we can introduce you to the right people to complete your business succession planning team.

Call me today, and we can begin the process together. If you need help pulling your entire team together, I can be your “legal quarterback” to bring in the right people together to create a successful business succession plan for you and your business.