Is Now the Time To Sell Your Business?

Have you been thinking about selling your business but just can’t decide if now is the best time?  Do you find yourself repeatedly analyzing the economic situation and wishing you had a crystal ball? There are positive signs and there are negative signs….

If you’re still up in the air and can’t quite decide whether or not to hit the eject button, here are six reasons you might want to consider getting out now.

1. You’re less interested in fighting the good fight

A lot of business owners took the Great Recession in the teeth. If you’ve got your business stabilized and the prospect of possibly having to fight through another recession leaves you panic-stricken, it could be time for you to get out.

2. The worst is behind you
Let’s say you were mentally ready to consider selling a few years ago and then 2008 hit and 2009 was bad, and in 2010 and 2011 you made cuts and adjustments, so now you’re starting to see some profit and revenue growth.  With your numbers going in the right direction, now might be just the right time to make your move.

3. The tax man is coming

Governments around the world are looking for money to fund the cost of an aging population. At some point this will mean increased taxes.

4. Nobody is lucky forever
If you’re lucky enough to be in a business that actually benefits from a bad economy, congratulations... you’ve probably just had the four best years of your business life. But no cycle lasts forever and right now might be a great time to take some chips off the table.

5. The coming glut

As a business owner, demographics are not on your side.  As the baby boomers start to retire in droves, we’re going to have a glut of small businesses coming on the market. That’s great if you’re buying; but if you’re a seller, you may want to avoid the flood and head for higher ground now.

6. The closing window

Since 2008, it’s been tougher for private equity companies to raise money; so many firms had their last successful round of fundraising a number of years ago. Many of these funds have a five-year window in which to invest or they have to give the money back to the people who gave it to them. Some boutique private equity firms will make investments in companies that have at least one million dollars in pre-tax profits (larger private equity firms will not go below $3 million in EBITDA); so if you’re in the seven-figure club, you could get a bidding war going for your business among private equity buyers keen to invest their money before they have to give it back.

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

Are Baby Boomers Ready to Exit Their Businesses?

Here’s an article I thought you would find interesting. The article, Are Baby Boomers Ready to Exit Their Businesses? was written by Barbara Taylor and was originally published in the New York Times on the 11^th of February of 2011.

After reading the article, I ask that you answer THE questions: Are you a baby boomer ready to exit your business with an Exit Strategy in plan?

-Joan

Are Baby Boomers Ready to Exit Their Businesses?

Many of us who offer financial services linked to retirement have been anticipating the day when the largest wealth transfer in our nation’s history officially begins.  Yet there is no shortage of articles proclaiming that people born from 1946 through 1964 are ill-prepared for retirement.
“They are afflicted with a business disease that is caused by a lack of exit planning,” said Peter Christman, founder of the Exit Planning Institute and author of “The $10 Trillion Opportunity: Designing Successful Exit Strategies for Middle Market Business Owners.” By Mr. Christman’s estimate, as many as 75 percent of all business owners are afflicted with the no-exit-plan disease.
According to a 2008 study conducted by Atlanta-based White Horse Advisors and Vistage International, 96 percent of boomer business owners agreed that having an exit strategy was important – but 87 percent did not have a written plan.

While business owners certainly aren’t the only people guilty of poor planning, boomers anticipating selling a business as they approach retirement in the coming years may be faced with a double whammy: lack of planning and a glut of supply. “This is a landmark moment in our generational development,” said Patrick Ungashick, president of White Horse Advisors, and author of “Dancing in the End Zone: The Business Owner’s Exit Planning Playbook.” According to Mr. Ungashick, 9 million of America’s 15 million business owners were born in or before 1964, resulting in one business owner turning 65 every 57 seconds – and the potential for a tsunami of businesses for sale.
Both Mr. Christman and Mr. Ungashick believe that many of these Boomers have a disproportionate share of their wealth tied up in their businesses. “If these sellers don’t start planning now, they will be sorely disappointed,” Mr. Christman predicted. Both Mr. Christman and Mr. Ungashick recommend that business owners work with tax, legal and exit planning advisers.

Mr. Ungashick encourages business owners to identify areas of transferable value in their businesses. These include management, financial controls, systems, and customer concentration. He noted that not having an exit plan can undermine what he calls legacy aspirations. “Owners have goals and values that they founded the business on,” he explained. “They don’t want to see them kicked to the curb.”
Time will tell whether retiring Baby Boomers exit their businesses with a victory dance, or a shuffle of disappointment. One cause for optimism: Boomers have a tendency to re-shape entire industries. Perhaps it will be their retirement that transforms exit planning from an obscure financial tool to a business best practice.

Note: Barbara Taylor is a New York Times blogger and co-founder of Synergy Business Services in Bentonville, Ark.  This abridged article was originally published in the New York Times on February 11, 2011.

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

10 Planning Tips for Getting Top Dollar When Selling Your Company

Our office is proud to announce our new referral partner – ExiTrak. We are working together to complete a 4-phase process that prepares your company for a strategic sale, as opposed to a merely financial one. 

Here is a great article written by Steve Popell, the designer of the ExiTrak process, which gives a glimpse of what will be covered in more detail in our next Webinar with Steve Popell as Guest Speaker: Planningto Sell Your Company in the Foreseeable Future?  Go Strategic.  ItPays a Lot Better! October 25^th at 2:00pm PST.

Enjoy!

10 Planning Tips for Getting Top Dollar When Selling Your Company

By Steven D. Popell

Originally published in Active Garage, July 12, 2010.

            
 There are two very different reasons why effective long-range planning is critical for getting top dollar when you sell your company.  First, top-notch planning helps you to manage your company better and involve your employees at a higher and more productive level.  Second, but not as self-evident, success in this area is very impressive to prospective buyers.  Why?
Because successful long-range planning (defined as developing a plan, implementing it and achieving most or all of the long-range goals) is indicative of solid and sophisticated management – a highly valuable strategic asset for most acquiring companies.  Here are 10 elements for developing a long-range plan that increase the likelihood of success.

1.     Involve your key people.  For one thing, they will have ideas that are worth considering.  Beyond that, it is axiomatic that the best way to overcome resistance to change is to ensure that those who will be implementing the changes help to determine what those changes will be.  An effective planning group can comprise as few as three people, or as many as 17.  The important thing is that no one who can have a major impact on how the plan is implemented is left out.
2.     Make sure that there is a solid consensus around the vision for the company; i.e. what will be the company’s identity in years to come.
3.     Develop a clear and easily communicated mission statement that expresses what the company does and for whom.
4.     Conduct a SWOT analysis; i.e. identify the company’s principal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
5.     Develop long-range goals that are challenging, achievable and in line with the company’s vision, mission and values.  These goals should be specifically designed to take advantage of strengths and opportunities, while addressing weaknesses and threats.  In addition, ensure that each member of the planning group (and the rest of the staff, as well) can relate the achievement of the company’s vision, mission and long-range goals to a high level of performance in their specific area(s) of responsibility.
6.     Identify outside factors over which you have no control and little, if any, influence.
7.     Short term objectives. Determine what you need to achieve within one year in order to give yourself a leg up in achieving your long-range goals.  But, be cautious with your scheduling.  The biggest mistake most owner-managers make is front loading implementation far too much.  If you are going to make a mistake, especially if this your first planning experience, make it on the low side of delivery.  You can always add short-term objectives later, but if you fail to achieve your objectives, it can severely damage morale.
8.     Attach task assignments, with individual responsibilities and deadlines, to each short-term objective.  Organize task assignments by quarter.
9.     Attach action items to each task assignment.
10.  Conduct follow-up sessions no less often than quarterly.  This step is, in reality, as important as all the rest, because it is all that stands between you and a dusty planning document that fails to impact the future of your company.  Make sure that you are utterly uncompromising in comparing actual performance with plan.  There is no reason to be unpleasant, but papering over poor and/or late performance helps no one.  Most long-range plans fall behind in the early stages, usually because of excessive front loading.  The critical element is that everyone agrees on the relationship between plan and actual performance, and how to get back on track and timeline with any projects that are lagging.

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

Does Your Business Have Curb Appeal?

Does Your Business Have Curb Appeal?

Let’s say you’re in the market for buying a house and you go to view one that looks appealing in the ad. How does it look on the inside? The outside? What about the location? What is your general impression?

Like your house, your business projects an image to potential buyers. When they come to see your business for the first time, your “curb appeal” can attract a buyer to your business—or cause them to walk away from it.

Do you need to improve your curb appeal? Here's a three-step plan:

1. Fix Your Leaky Faucets
Perhaps, like many other business owners, you started your business from scratch with one or two employees and now you have 20 people working for you. But do you have the appropriate HR infrastructure in place for that size of a company?  Perhaps you even take pride in your informal management style, but it can prove to be a liability when it comes time to sell.

Make sure your human resources policies are at least as stringent as those of the company you hope will buy your business. Some basics to have in place:

•    A written policy making it clear you forbid any form of harassment or discrimination;
•    A written letter of employment for each staff member;
•    A written description of your bonus system;
•    Written policies for employee expenses, travel and benefits.

2. Assemble Your Binder
When you go to buy a house, it will give you confidence if the owner has the instruction manuals for the appliances, information on where they were purchased, and who to call if one of them breaks down.

Similarly, when a potential buyer looks at your company, he wants to see that you have your business information in order.  Documenting your office procedures, core processes, and other intellectual capital can help you attract more bidders and a higher price for your company, while also lowering the chance of the deal falling apart during diligence. 

If you want to attract a buyer one day, your business needs a binder with instructions for basic functions, such as:

·         Opening up in the morning and closing down at night;

·         Forms and step-by-step instructions for routine tasks;

·         Templates for key documents;

·         Emergency numbers for service providers;

·         Billing procedures for customers.

·         How your company is positioned in the market and your marketing tools.

3. Document Your Intangibles
Intangibles for house buying might include: Is the house near a good school or daycare? What kind of neighborhood is it?  What kind of commute are you looking at to get to work?

Your business also has intangible, often intellectual, assets that a potential buyer needs to be made aware of, such as:

·         Proprietary research you’ve conducted;

·         A formula for acquiring new customers;

·         Criteria you use to evaluate a potential new location;

·         Your unique approach to satisfying a customer.

As with selling a house, your company's curb appeal can go a long way toward closing a deal. 

Curious to see if you have a business you could sell one day? Get your Sellability Score now.

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

Q&A - How long will it take to sell my business?

From time to time, I will blog commonly asked questions and answers to help those of you who are considering selling your business. 

Q: How long will it take to sell my business?
A: The time needed for sale depends on a great many factors including the price of your business, the type of business, and your willingness to finance the buyer. In general, it takes 120-240 days or longer to find a buyer for a business. The price and the terms you are offering are important factors. The more reasonably priced and the better the terms offered, the faster the sale.

Here’s some advice –

You want to be updating your financials monthly and sending them to your intermediary. Buyers like to have a current picture of the business. Plan on 60-90 days from the time you have an accepted asset purchase agreement or stock purchase agreement to close escrow. It can take 3-6 months to get to the accepted offer stage or even 8-9 months.

I have a deal I’m working on that has over 30 Non-Disclosures signed and had four offers but we do not have a signed agreement. It has taken 9 months to get to this point.

The seller has become realistic on the price and understands now that there will be a large earn-out-due to 50% of the business being with one account.

Many variables affect the time on the market. Price it right, be available, keep the numbers current and things will happen a lot quicker.

I will gladly discuss with you how your business fits into these general guidelines. Contact us now to schedule a free consultation. Thank you!

-Joan Young

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

Keeping the sale of your business CONFIDENTIAL

Tip of the Day

Keeping the sale of a business confidential is probably the number one concern for business owners. Employees may become worried about the security of their employment, and clients may become concerned about quality and service.  Here’s something to ease your concern…

Business Brokers specialize in confidentiality. Every business they sell is a confidential transaction. A broker acts on your behalf allowing you to remain anonymous. It’s important to maintain confidentiality.

So, When should I tell my employees about the sale, you may ask? 

Although it sounds cruel, our considerable experience has proven that it is best to tell your employees about the sale after the sale is complete. Of course, if there is an employee whose expertise will be needed after the sale, you should introduce the buyer to this employee shortly before closing.

We have found that once employees find out that the business is for sale, they often just assume that their position will be replaced with the new owner’s personnel. This is far from the truth, however. Current employees are a wealth of knowledge! After the transaction has occurred and the seller is no longer there, employees become a real asset to the business. It typically works best if employees are introduced to the new owner right after closing the sale. This enables the new owner to tell about his background and to take time to assure the employees of their value and that no one is going anywhere– all without distressing anyone.

If you’d like to discuss how the confidentiality of the sale of your business will be handled, contact me at the number below. Thank you very much.

-Joan Young

Sunbelt Business Brokers, Greater Bay Area | (408) 436-1900 | www.sunbeltbayarea.net

Prevention is better than cure

To grow a valuable business – one you can sell – you need to set up your company so that it is no longer reliant on you. Of course, this can be easier said than done, especially when, like a PR consultant or plumber, what you are selling is your expertise.

To scale up a knowledge-based business, you first have to figure out how to impart your knowledge to your employees, so that they can deliver the goods. However it can be difficult to condense years of school and on-the-job learning into a few weeks of employee training. The more specialized your knowledge, the harder it is to hand off work to juniors.

The key to scaling up a service business can often be found by offering the service that prevents customers from having to call you in the first place. You have to shift from selling the cure to selling the prevention.Fixing what is broken is typically a hard task to teach; however, preventing things from breaking in the first place can be easier to train others to do.For example, it takes years for a dentist to acquire the education and experience to successfully complete a root canal, but it’s relatively easy to train a hygienist to perform a regularly scheduled cleaning.

It’s almost effortless for a real estate manager to hire someone to clean the eaves trough once a month, but repairing the flooded basement caused by the clogged gutters can be quite complex. For a master car mechanic, overhauling an engine that has seized up takes years of training, but preventing the problem by regularly changing a customer’s oil is something a high school student can be taught to do.

For an IT services company, restoring a customer’s network after a virus has invaded often takes the know-how of the boss, but preventing the virus by installing and monitoring the latest software patches is something a junior can easily be trained to do.

When you’re selling your expertise, it can be tough to hire a team to do the work for you. As ironic as it sounds, sometimes the key to getting out of doing the work is to offer a preventive service, which not only maintains your business income, but also eliminates the need for someone to call you in the first place.

Visit our website for more information. On there, you will find a sea of information on Exit Strategies, business valuations and more. If your curious to know what the value of your business is, contact me at jyoung@sunbeltbayarea.net or give us a call at (408) 436-1900.

The First Step to an Exit Strategy

When do you want to sell your business? If you're like most business owners, the date keeps shifting. Like driving on a flat stretch of highway, you keep going, and yet the horizon never seems to get any closer.

If you ask a business owner when they are going to leave their business, they'll say five years from now. If you ask them three years later, it will still be five years from now. Business owners know they can't afford to leave their company because it doesn't have enough value to fund their retirement. They're not sure what they need to do to increase its value, but they think they will be able to fix it in five years.

Without a clear plan to increase its value, a business owner risks being taken out boots first still five years away from being ready to sell.

To get out of the Perma Five cycle, we recommend business owners divide their time between tasks that are either operational or strategic and focus on eliminating operational tasks one by one.

A business with an owner who is operationally irrelevant yet still strategically involved has a lot more value than a company in which all the little decisions are run through the corner office.

To become operationally irrelevant, we recommend business owners create a summary of the key elements that drive their business. Just like scanning a car's dashboard to check your speed, you start looking at the metrics on the dashboard and managing the numbers, instead of wading into every crisis to try to fix it.

So what should be on your dashboard? I know manufacturers that track their work-in-progress (WIP) to the day and Internet companies that monitor their conversion rate in real time to the decimal point. Your dashboard should include a few basic numbers that reveal how you're doing now and ideally how your next few weeks are shaping up.

• Cash position
• Revenue on the books for the month
• Customer retention rate
• Rolling net promoter score (a measure of customer satisfaction)


If you can make yourself operationally irrelevant, you'll be able to sell your business if you want to, or, if you don't, you'll have more fun running it knowing you can focus on the strategic issues without getting marred in the operational details.

Mistakes to Avoid before Selling your Business

Are you planning to sell your business in the next few years? Here are eight mistakes to avoid before calling it quits:

Mistake 1: Being boring

While it is true buyers like predictability, they also like growth. Set aside a small slice of money for experimenting on new things (product ideas, etc.). The BBC, for example, has a “gambling fund,” which it uses to fund experimental programs that fail the typical new program development testing cycle. It was through the gambling fund that the blockbuster t.v. show “The Office” received funding.

Mistake 2: Selling your product, not your business

A buyer will need to see that your company has a way of winning customers without you. Hire salespeople or invest in marketing so that your business is less reliant on you as a rainmaker. Start thinking of your business as your most important “product” and invest your sales energy in meeting with people who might buy your business, not your product.

Mistake 3: Staying married

Eighty-four-year-old Hugh Hefner told The New York Times last year, “If I sold it (Playboy Enterprises), my life would be over.” If you’re too emotionally connected to your business, it will be difficult to get the price you deserve and will leave you feeling as though you’ve lost a family member after the sale. Instead, slowly start cultivating interests (e.g., travel, another business idea, charity, etc.) outside of work to ease the transition.

Mistake 4: Using retirement income as the basis of your number

Succession planners will tell you to figure out how much income you want in retirement and make that the basis for calculating how much money you need to get from selling your business. The reality is, your business is worth what someone will pay for it and has nothing to do with how much you need to retire. You’ll likely be bored after selling your company, so after taking some time to decompress, travel and play, you’ll probably find yourself starting something new anyway.

Mistake 5: Not including survivor clauses in your contracts

Acquirers like to see that you have locked customers into long-term agreements, but if your customer contracts do not have a “survivor clause” to ensure they remain enforceable after a change in ownership of your company, they may be moot. Talk to a lawyer to make sure an acquirer will get the benefit of the contracts you’ve got with customers after you’re gone.

Mistake 6: Sharing equity with key employees

It’s tempting to use equity or options to retain employees you want to keep through the negotiation and sale of your company. However, you can achieve the same result with a simple “stay bonus,” which you offer key employees who remain with your company for a period of time after the sale. A stay bonus is a lot simpler to implement, doesn’t muddy your company’s capital structure and may end up costing you less in the long run.

Mistake 7: Leaving your team rudderless

A lot of big-personality founders set the tone for their business through their personal charisma, but if you want to sell your business, you need to make sure your company has a set of values independent of you. David Ogilvy handed out Russian dolls to his managers as a reminder of the perils of hiring successive layers of smaller and smaller people. Ogilvy sold his shares in his agency and retired to a castle in France, where he ultimately passed away, but the dolls live on in the hallways of Ogilvy offices as a reminder to managers to always hire people smarter than they are. Find a way to remind employees of your values when you’re not around.

Mistake 8: Not having a BATNA

Professional negotiators suggest having a best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) — that is, a plan B in case negotiations to sell your business stall. For example, if you’re planning to sell your business to a strategic buyer, also have a financial buyer keen to make an offer or a management team with the means to buy your business over time. That way, you’ll have more leverage when negotiations get dicey.

Have you ever sold a business? If so, what you would you do differently next time?

How Do I Get an Accurate Business Valuation?

If you're planning to sell your business, an accurate valuation will ensure that all the hard work you've put into it will be taken into account and included in the price. Business valuations are also important when seeking investment capital, taking on a partner, or selling shares.

While many business owners have an idea of what their business is worth, that idea can quickly wither in the face of challenges from the IRS or other sources. Therefore, getting an accurate business valuation is crucial.

There is more than one type of valuation. For example, there's no point in evaluating a services business based on the value of its physical assets. Other methods to consider include intangibles such as goodwill, which can be difficult to assess. And value may also vary with context and subjectivity — a business may be worth different amounts to different people, depending on their preferences and needs.

This means that if you want a meaningful valuation, you will need to discuss your business circumstances with a business valuation expert. You may find that the valuer needs to use a number of different methods and then come up with a final amount that gives weight to each figure that emerged from each method. Good interpretation and judgment will be needed to come up with a final figure that accurately reflects the value of your business.

Value factors

A number of different factors need to be taken into account to ensure that a valuation is accurate and useful. Some of these factors include:

• The nature and history of the business
• General economic outlook, including industries that affect your business
• Your business's book value, financial condition, and earning capacity
• Your business's dividend history and paying capacity
• Investor risk inherent to your industry
• The maturity of the business and its industry
• The value of the business in the absence of the current owner
• Stock sales
• Stock of comparable public corporations

A valuation expert will also review and analyze recent financial history, financial projections, buy-sell agreements, executive compensation, organizational charts, quality of employees, management depth, major customers and competitors, and the viability of the business without the current ownership.

Methods of Valuation

The crudest valuation method is known as the "multiples" method, which operates by rules of thumb. For example, legal firms are commonly valued at 40 to 100 percent of their annual fees, while landscape businesses are estimated at 1.5 times their discretionary earnings, plus the value of their capital assets. However, multiples only give a rough, industry-wide ballpark figure for business value, not an exact value.

More accurate methods include the "balance sheet" approach, which basically subtracts business liabilities from assets. The "adjusted book value" method is similar, but uses current market value rather than purchase price or depreciated value.

Retail and manufacturing businesses are often assessed according to asset value, assuming those assets are significant. Service companies are often valued using the "capitalization of income" method, which places a heavy emphasis on intangible assets. It's also possible to calculate the value of a private company by making a comparison with an equivalent public company and making appropriate adjustments. Business value can also be estimated by anticipating cash flow over a three- to five-year period, and adjusting that into current dollar amounts.

When and why should I pay for a broker’s opinion of value?

As a business broker, our first contact with business owners is often when they decide that they want to sell their business. Sometimes this is great, but sometimes it doesn’t allow the business owner to meet their expectations.

For business owners who are not familiar with business brokers, we are often seen - not as professionals who help them navigate a long and challenging road - but as a ‘salesperson’ just looking for the listing. This makes it difficult for some business owners to understand both the value of having an opinion of value, and in appreciating that the right time to get this (for the first time) may well be years before they need/want to sell.

At Sunbelt Business Brokers, we charge our clients to prepare a Most Probable Selling Price (MPSP) Report which is a broker’s opinion of value. Once a client reviews the MPSP they have a clear understanding of the range of value of their business as well as understanding the areas that contribute to the value of the company. This will also identify areas to change or improve to have your business ready to sell.

Imagine that you have owned your business for many years. It has provided you and your family with a lifestyle that you have enjoyed, but you are getting ready to retire. Remember, from the cash flow of the business buyers have to be able to support themselves, pay their debt servicing costs and expect to get a return on their invested capital. You, on the other hand, not only want to ‘get a great price’, but also to keep as much of it as possible. If taxes eat your selling price, then the great price wasn’t so great. In many cases you need to prepare yourself and your business for this transition.

• Your Sunbelt MPSP provides an opinion of value AND reviews your operations for elements that may need to be changed prior to sale;

• Your accountant, with their knowledge of your business (and a copy of the MPSP!) may assist you with tax planning and recommend deal structures;

• Your financial advisor may assist you with tax planning and disposition options;

• Your lawyer may assist you with deal structure, sale documentation, and sometimes help create tax-efficient entities.

Shifting your company from ‘operating to run’ to ‘operating to sell’ can take one or two, or more years to prepare for as you whip that business into a condition that can maximize both the selling price and your ability to retain those proceeds. Having a Most Probable Selling Price Report done - and in turn - updated as you move closer to your proposed exit time, can be a great tool to allow you and your advisors to prepare for this significant transition. Not allowing yourself the time or avoiding an ‘expense’ can both come back to haunt you. The snapshot that a Most Probable Selling Price Report provides can be one of the best investments you will ever make.

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Plan for succession and a possible sale.

Of family owned companies, 30% will experience a change of ownership due to retirement within the next five years. This is according to the Research by the University of North Carolina’s Ashville’s Family Business Forum. More than half of the family-owned businesses' CEOs nearing retirement age 61 and older haven’t chosen their successor.

More retirees are finding that their children really do not have any interest in taking over the family business. This means you will need more time than you think to prepare your company for sale to an outside party.

You may find that an employee or employees may want to buy your firm. They typically will need bank financing or a private-equity partnership, and that will entail having good financial statements to show to lenders or investors.

Of course an unexpected illness or death can disrupt even the best of plans, so plan on the unexpected. Control what you can. Have a buy/sell agreement ready which will outline the terms under which a potential successor can value and buy your business.

Make sure you have talked with your tax planner to see how estate taxes might affect you as well. They are typically based on the fair market value of the company upon the date of the owner's death. Hopefully you are seeing the importance of using financial and legal experts knowledgeable about retirement and estate planning.