Planning to sell your business can be overwhelming when considering the broad range of issues and advisors with whom you will be working. NLBA follows this process developed by business enterprise institute. The process considers your objectives in selling your business and aligns current and future advisors to these objectives.
Identify exit objectives
- Your succession plan will rest on 3 owner established goals.
- When you want to sell or cut back significantly from day to day operations.
- How much money you want when you sell.
- Who you want to sell the business to.
These objectives form the foundation of your succession plan.
2. Identify business and personal financial resources:
A. Where you are is as important as where you want to go. This next step determines what you have so you know what your business is worth.
3. maximize and protect business value.
A. What features or characteristics are necessary to make your business salable and valuable? These features, value drivers, either reduce the risk associated with owning the business or enhance the prospects that the business will grow significantly in the future. In this step, we will identify ways of maximizing and protecting your business value.
4. Sale to a third party
A. Selling your business to an outside third party has immediate value to you in terms of cash in your hand. This will certainly minimize your financial risk and eliminate any family succession planning issues. your succession plan will develop an action plan that will set your business up to sell for its highest value.
5. Sale to insiders
A. A sale to insiders, (family members, key employees, other owners) does not end with the closing. Only when your price is paid in full does the sale end. In this step, we will identify action items that orchestrate a successful sale to insiders who often lack sufficient cash.
6. Business Continuation
A. Business continuation is much more than simply making sure there is a new owner. Your succession plan will develop solutions to realizing your business’ value in case something unexpected happens to you or your business partners.
7. Personal wealth and estate planning
A. The final step in creating your succession plan is to resolve issues related to preserving your wealth and passing it along to your loved ones. For business owners, this issue can be complex at times because a large portion of your total estate is tied up in value of your business. your succession plan will work to resolve these issues and provide a clear road map in achieving your goals and objectives.