Business Succession

For those with their own businesses, developing an exit strategy is often crucial to their retirement. At the same time, there are often deep-seated feelings that a legacy for their life’s work be carried on. Far too often this planning begins much too late and many of the options that would have once been available have passed by. We urge our clients to begin this process as many as ten years in advance of their target succession date. This is difficult for many as they often do not know what they need financially to enter the next stage of life. This issue is perpetuated even further if there are family members also in the business.

The first phase of planning is to take a “step-back” and understand what is needed from the business and begin to think about what life will look like after it is no longer there. There are multiple strategies to transition a business but, like medicine, the treatment that could save a life in once instance could also hurt someone in another. It is the appropriate prescription that makes the difference.

The goal at Advisory Resource Group is to bring together the best consultants, attorneys and tax advisors and to act as the “quarterback” to assist in facilitating a successful transition and we have been doing this for over fifteen years. We model each potential decision side by side in real-time. This allows us to understand the cash flow, tax and retirement implications of each potential path. Using our specialized planning tools, advisors are able to weigh in and have a dialogue that would generally never take place. It is this experience and collaboration that makes planning for a business’ succession with Advisory Resource Group valuable.