Changing Your Role in Your Business to Help It Grow If business owners want to grow their businesses, it’s practically a given that they must change their roles within the business at some point. Peter Drucker, who is widely considered to be the founder of modern management and wrote nearly 40 books on the topic [...]

Understanding Business Value A successful Exit Plan results in the business owner exiting their business with the financial resources to meet their future needs. In Step Two of The BEI Seven Step Exit Planning Process™, Exit Planners work with business owners to quantify the value of their assets as well as the financial needs of [...]

Value Drivers Have you ever wondered why one business has buyers lining up to pay top dollar while another sits on the market for months or years? What do buyers look for in a prospective business acquisition? Download Now!

Using Short-Term Key Employee Incentives to Increase Sale Price One of a business owner’s greatest challenges is to attract, motivate, and keep key employees. As owners approach the end of the marathon of exiting their businesses, often tired and distracted by everything they’ve done, they begin to assume that it is no longer worthwhile to [...]

Transferring Wealth to Children: A Primer for Business Owners Both business owners and non-businessowning parents want to transfer a monetary legacy to their children, if possible. However, business owners are different in the tools they can use to transfer wealth. Whether you own a business or not, the fundamental questions are the same: How much [...]

Business Continuity Planning Successful owners are usually optimistic people, somewhat averse to dwelling on the more unpleasant aspects of business. Contemplating one’s demise certainly qualifies as an unpleasant aspect. Consequently, advisors tend to use a lot of softer phrasings when they talk about business continuity. They ask, "What happens if the owner 'passes on' or [...]

Business Growth by Acquisition This white paper is dedicated to the owner seeking to exit his or her business in style. Acquiring other businesses is a tool that business owners use when growing their own businesses. The operative word is growing, since the purpose of growing your business through acquisition is to increase the value [...]

Setting Goals All business owners will exit their businesses, either by choice or as circumstances dictate (e.g., death, incapacity). Ideally, owners want to exit on their terms: leaving their businesses in the hands of successors they choose, on a date they pick, and for the money they need and want. Download Now!

Headwinds Bicycle riders appreciate the importance of avoiding headwinds on a long ride, especially as they approach the end. A headwind causes a rider to either expend more effort or take more time to arrive at a destination. When a rider is already tired, neither option is appealing. Download Now!

Transferring Your Company to Key Employees Owners wishing to sell their businesses to management—specifically, key employees—face two unpleasant facts: Their employees have no money (most likely) and they cannot borrow any, at least not in sufficient quantities to cash out the owner. Thus, each transfer method described in this white paper uses either a long-term [...]

Top 10 Deal Pitfalls This white paper describes 10 deal pitfalls (in no particular order) that each have the capability to derail a deal, some more effectively than others. All of these pitfalls are fairly common, although some owners are prone to fall into more pits than others. As you examine this list, you will [...]

Successful Transfer of The Family Business What could be easier than transferring your family business to its natural successor: your heirs apparent, your offspring? If some of your first guesses were peace in the Middle East, increasing honesty in politics, or convincing a teenager that he or she might be wrong about something, you have [...]

Exit Paths for Business Owners When business owners start to think about exiting their companies, the number of possible Exit Paths can seem limitless. In reality, there are only eight: Transfer the company to family member(s). Sell the business to one or more key employees. Sell to employees using an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). [...]

Leaving Your Business Is Inevitable Owners begin thinking about the Exit Planning Process when two streams of thought begin to converge. The first stream is a feeling that they want to do something besides go to work every day: either they would like to be someplace else—doing something else—or they simply no longer get the [...]

Employee Incentive Planning As business owners plan to exit their businesses, they must confront the challenge of incentivizing employees—specifically, management—to stay with the company after they have left. Having a strong, established, and committed management team to take the reins once an owner has exited is becoming more of a prerequisite than a luxury when [...]