Retiring Baby Boomers may be counting on the sale of their businesses to provide the income they neglected to save for retirement. But it’s a lot harder to manage liquid wealth than to manage an operating company.
 
It takes a lot of planning to successfully transition a business. And the challenges and concerns don’t stop once it’s accomplished. Mr. or Mrs. Business Owner needs your help to develop investment strategies in advance of the sale to achieve the best possible outcome.
 
A first step might be to find out what life after the operating company looks like from the owner’s perspective.
 
He or she may have unrealistic expectations for how much the business will bring and also for how far those liquid assets will go in fulfilling their dreams.
 

Getting top value for a business in the current economic environment may take some strategic planning. You can make your business owning client's life a lot easier if you become chief of the his or her advisory team.

 

You may want to take some time to sit down with your client before meeting with his or her attorneys and tax professionals. You can explore your client’s goals and expectations for the sale as well as what to do with the proceeds after the fact.

 
Prioritizing those goals will make it easier to manage your client’s expectations of just how many goals the assets resulting from the sale will have the capacity to achieve.
 
This will also put you in the perfect position to guide the focus of other professionals involved in the transition process. Otherwise, their advice can become conflicted and create a great deal of anxiety for your client and his or her family.
 
For example, a 2006 Yahoo Small Business/Harris Interactive study showed 55% of Boomer respondents had the goal of starting a business later in life. Especially when there are other family member owners in a business that’s in the process of being sold, concern about their fair share can derail an owner's long-dreamed-of plans.  
 
The ability to keep attorneys and tax professionals focused on the client’s goals—including those of other family members—can mean the difference in a successful sale and transition and a divisive event that permanently damages family relationships.
 
In one case, you develop great relationships with other family members, enabling you to acquire high quality new clients. In the other, you may not only miss getting the new clients, you may lose the current one because the effects of the sale caused his family to stop speaking to him.
 
Looking at the number of wealthy investors who are still involved in their businesses can help you target the level of business owners you desire to have as clients and what complexities they may be facing.
Once you decide on which tier of the market to serve, you can tailor your service offerings to fit that group’s particular needs. Drilling down to each client’s goals can then guide the entire succession planning and post-sale investment process.
 

 

 

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With classes approved for over a decade by the CFP Board, IWI, and NASBA, Advisors4Advisors CE classes are an optimal knowledge stream for CFP®, CIMA®, CPA, CPA/PFS®, CFA®, and other practitioners. It's not a grab bag of speakers willing to sponsor CE content. Nor is it a one-man CE course. It's a group of subject matter experts with amazing communication skills and a history of thought leadership that, together, give advisors a well-rounded knowledge system for running a professional practice ethically and intelligently.

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A4A has had a profound effect on my business. Since 2009, I’ve relied on the consistent messaging and updates to run my business successfully. Being able to present the information from Bob, Fritz, and Craig's ongoing CE webinars has been a significant benefit.

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