Month: November 2022

In digging deeper and monitoring these uncertainties about Exit Planning work, there are common responses that are typically along the lines of one of the following:

1. “I can’t seem to get clients engaged or interested.”
2. “I don’t have the bandwidth to do this myself or the staff available to assist with it.”
3. “I don’t have much Exit Planning knowledge and don’t know what my training options are.”

While each advisor has their reasons for concern, we feel it’s our duty to challenge them and knock down the roadblocks of reluctance with proof that Exit Planning can actually elevate an advisor’s existing offerings and broaden their reach.

Addressing the Roadblocks 

1. Lack of Clients and Client Interest 

Half the battle of Exit Planning work is convincing your owner clients of the importance of planning for their future. Just as you might be hesitant to add Exit Planning to your core services, they are hesitant to admit they should start thinking long-term. The fact is that 100% of business owners will exit their business, whether they planned for it or not.

Another fact that will be supported with statistics in the 2022 BEI Business Owner Survey (coming soon!) is that business owners are considering Exit Planning earlier in their ownership cycle than ever before. Not only does this mean that the demographic audience available to you is expanding, but the ways in which you can reach them are changing too.

The key is to not throw in the towel too early in the process of seeking clients. Putting in the work to market your service as an effective solution to the problem that owners may or may not know they have might take some time. Some effective ways that BEI Members have found success have been utilizing their BEI license to enact automated e-newsletters, using assessment tools for discovery, installing a referral strategy and leaning into social media for outreach.

2. Lack of Time & Bandwidth 

The truth about time is that everyone wishes they had more of it. Just as you may be worried about the lack of time you have to add this service to your offerings, your clients stand by the idea that they don’t have enough time to plan.

As their advisor, it is your job to acknowledge and articulate to them the dangers of not planning. By waiting, your client may not build enough business value to sell for their desired amount, they might neglect training next-level management, or some unforeseen death or injury might occur.

Both you and the business owner will appreciate putting the time in beforehand versus wishing you had made more of a plan once the transition event happens. After all, the role of an Exit Planning Advisor is to optimize the business owner’s time based on their goals, which in turn, will help to prioritize your own time.

From our perspective, there are two solutions that ease time and bandwidth challenges: adopting a repeatable process and connecting with a network of professionals. BEI Advisors adhere to the Seven Step Exit Planning Process and have found value in being able to repeat proven steps with their clients from identifying exit goals to business continuity planning and more. In addition, gaining access to the BEI Network allows for collaboration between advisors across different disciplines to share expertise and strategies.

3. Lack of Exit Planning Knowledge & Training 

Lack of knowledge and training typically falls back on having a shortage of time. However, it’s worth repeating that putting the time in will lead to more clients and more profitability in the long run. It’s easy to use inexperience as an excuse to tack on one more thing to your list. But, having a solid understanding of what options are available when it comes to Exit Planning training can determine how to fit it into your schedule.

As far as BEI training goes, there are two paths to obtaining the Certified Exit Planner (CExP) designation, the industry’s highest certification to perform Exit Planning services: either beginning with one of three BEI Licenses and then doing the series of courses, or beginning with the series of three courses. To learn more about each path’s pricing, download the info sheet below.

Does your practice differ from others in your profession in a meaningful way?

When we ask advisors that question, here are a few common responses:

• We provide outstanding service and follow-up!
• We offer free initial consultations!
• We promise a customer-centric approach!
• We promise “Timeliness, Quality, Support! –an example of one CPA firm’s promise.

In a previous post, we argued—with support from several experts in professional services marketing—that none of these is a unique process or even marginally different from most other advisors’ representation models.

So, the real question is:  How do you develop a distinctive process or representation model that provides more value for your clients and prospects?

Unless you adopt a unique process or representation model that is at least identifiably different from others to set your practice process or model apart, you end up competing on price alone. Other like-minded advisors offer the same profession-specific process, advice, and products that you do.

Of course, your distinctive process or representation model must tie-in to your core practice. For example, a distinctive process or representation model for a CPA could be specializing in a niche industry such as forestry companies. A financial advisor’s differentiating process or model might be specializing on alternative investments for high-net-worth individuals. Both specialized advisors also provide the typical services and products offered by their fellow professionals.

If differentiation were easy, everyone would be doing it!

Frankly, it’s a challenge to offer prospective and existing clients something that is valuable to them and that their competition does not also offer. If such a process or representation model existed, would you at least investigate it?

Is Exit Planning a differentiator?

An increasing number of professional advisors are beginning to talk to their business owner-clients about business Exit Planning, so the term has become a bit of a buzzword. Few advisors, however, can do more than talk about Exit Planning.

They can’t offer exit advice beyond the solutions provided by their profession. They don’t have a distinctive design process that produces an Exit Plan. They don’t use a representation model based on achieving the owner’s successful exit. Instead, they do what they have always done:  offer clients the same products and services as their professional colleagues.

Talk is cheap

Creating Exit Plans requires a distinctive process and a unique representation model.  Professionals such as financial advisors, CPAs, and others who have the training and tools to engage in Exit Planning with successful owners stand apart from their competition. They are different. They provide an invaluable service to successful owners interested in exiting. It’s a service and process that few of their competitors can offer.

Spreading the word

There is little benefit to having a unique process or representation model if few owners and advisors know about it. BEI-trained Exit Planning Advisors use a wealth of BEI created but advisor-branded newsletters, assessments, white papers, PowerPoint presentations, webinars, books, face-to-face meeting agendas, and more to tell owners in their communities that they offer a service—Exit Planning—that is valuable to them.

Every tool highlights the advisor’s skill in doing something that other advisors in their profession do not: helping owners exit on their terms.

The value of Exit Planning to owners

At some point in every owner’s career, exiting their company successfully will be their most important (and sometimes urgent) concern. When that happens, will they know that you are the advisor in their community who can help them? Can they be certain you will assist them in developing an exit strategy that meets their goals?

The next step is yours

You can acquire the knowledge, the tools, and the support you need to become an Exit Planning Advisor and set your practice apart. You can be the one advisor who is equipped to address the business exit concerns of the owners’ you represent and those you could represent. Click here to learn more.

Our next blog describes another differentiation strategy: focusing your practice on a particular target clientele.

For over 25 years, BEI has been dedicated to providing innovative and intuitive tools for business advisors to help them differentiate their practice and provide better solutions to their clients. Following suit, we typically address business advisors in our content, aiming to provide support and resources for them to start conversations with owners. However, this time, we are dedicating an article to all of the business owners on behalf of Exit Planning Advisors everywhere.

As we talk to hundreds of Exit Planning Advisors each week, we want to share some common sentiments that we hear. Our goal is to assure business owners who might be on the fence about Exit Planning or teaming up with an advisor that you are always top-of-mind to them.

Alternatively, this may also be helpful if you are an Exit Planning Advisor who is struggling to connect with clients or get your planning services off the ground. Or, maybe you have been doing this work for so long that this “letter” serves as a humble reminder of why you got started and the gratitude you feel when helping your clients reach their goals.

Dear business owner: 

We know you’ve got a lot on your plate. 

Managing the day-to-day operations of your business is no small feat. It is no surprise that at the end of each hard day, it’s unlikely that you’ve checked a task related to Exit Planning off of your to-do list. We’d be willing to bet that Exit Planning ranks among the tasks that you plan to get to “later.”

We can assure you that we don’t want to give you any more work to do. In working with us to create a comprehensive Exit Plan for your business, we intend to take the quarterback role. Meaning, in every Exit Planning engagement, we are prepared to manage the processes, advisor relationships, documentation, and more so that you don’t have to worry about it.

In this business landscape, it is not enough to simply have a buy-sell agreement stashed away in your files, and it may cost you more in the long run by delaying Exit Planning any further. We resolve to assist you in building a team of advisors that will collectively map out and execute an Exit Plan that will help you make the most of your lives’ work.

The Exit Planning Process revolves around you. 

No matter your business, industry, size, or specialty, choosing what goals are most important to you is a crucial first step in Exit Planning. Whether these goals include reaching a target business valuation, ensuring financial security post-exit, developing a strong management team, retaining key employees, or something different, we vow to work with you to decide which goals are of utmost priority. These goals, plus the steps and resources needed to reach them, are what dictate every aspect of an Exit Plan.

Exit Planning Advisors who are familiar with the BEI Seven Step Exit Planning Process begin with this goals assessment, and continue on to determine the asset gap and what strategies need to be implemented to improve business value along the way.

In addition, it is likely we will work together to come up with a phase-based approach – in which we can select the most important problems that are keeping you up at night – and tackle those first. This way, we can build momentum as we remove some of those headaches from the list in the first phase, making it more manageable to move through each stage.

Your priorities matter to us. 

As mentioned previously, your goals and priorities matter to your Exit Plan, but they also matter to us personally. When we work with you to establish your values-based goals, we see our role shift from “advisor to the business” to include “advisor to the owner.” Since our relationship is with you, we hope that it will endure long after your business exit is complete.

We are invested in your “next great adventure” too. Once the business transition event occurs, we anticipate advisory involvement in terms of making sure your expectations are exceeded and your post-exit lifestyle is going according to plan.

We understand the magnitude of a business exit. 

For most business owners, the sale or transition of their business is the biggest financial decision of their life. Due to the weight of these decisions, we may play “devil’s advocate” and ask the tough questions. We want to be able to look at aspects of your business from a different perspective. After all, your relationships with vendors, banks, family, employees, etc. are impacted significantly when you are no longer involved in the business.

We have also seen firsthand the consequences of not planning. We could share examples and tangible results of clients whose business suffered due to enduring an unexpected life event or an inaccurate business valuation that could have fared better results with Exit Planning. We don’t want to see any of our clients end up in situations that don’t directly align with their Exit Planning objectives.

We know you value progress. 

Exit Planning Advisors, place high value in the monitoring process. Providing you with checklists and reports to track the movement of the Exit Plan is just as important to us as we know it is to you.

We are trained to be able to articulate what things you will need to complete, how the action items consider your biggest concerns, and communicate who is going to implement which recommendations and when.

Just like you have dedicated your life to your business, we have spent countless hours growing in our expertise to assist you with this business transition.

Let us help you find a better way to plan.

Sincerely,

Exit Planning Advisors 

Whether you intend to leave your business soon or stay involved forever, you need a plan for your future. The best way to create a successful plan is to work with a BEI-trained Exit Planning Advisor. BEI has the largest, international network of Exit Planning Advisors who are ready to answer your questions and help you find your path to a successful future.