Reconciling Goals and Objectives for Your Exit Plan

Once one has established an indication of the Expected Wealth Transfer (the after-tax proceeds from the business exit) on the one hand, and an estimate of the Targeted Wealth Transfer (*the wealth transfer required to provide the personal life-after-business goals) on the other, the business owner and the exit team must now reconcile the two before selecting and implementing an exit strategy.

Whether or not the expected and targeted wealth transfer values are the same, the owner should review all exit options, and should also evaluate a number of Positioning Strategies for execution prior to implementing an Exit Strategy.

Reconciliation or Closing the Gap is an iterative process of evaluating combination's of positioning and business exit strategies that will yield a release of wealth compatible, as to quality, time, value and certainty, with achieving the specified goals and the associated Targeted Wealth Transfer. Again, notice that there are two key points of inflection for matching the exit with the personal goals:

• The ability to vary the value timing and certainty associated with extracting the business wealth
• The ability to vary the timing, risk tolerance, estate wealth, living standards and other variables inherent in the personal goals

A key issue business owners face in considering Positioning Strategies is the very central question of the risk - reward paradigm. Positioning strategies cannot be executed entirely without risk, but manageable risk strategies may deserve consideration if they serve to better ensure that the business wealth will be delivered in the context, amount, time and certainty needed to meet the identified personal goals.