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The inflation-adjusted 2016 estate and gift tax exemption limits are set at $5.45 million per individual or $10.9 million per couple. This means that if you are a single business owner, you can leave up to $5.45 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. Likewise, if you are married you can [...]
Most people believe that succession planning is synonymous with estate planning; wills, trusts, estate tax, life insurance, franchisor/manufacturer approval or gifts to family members. No doubt estate planning is an important component of succession planning. However, for anyone who has struggled with family squabbles, successor development, retaining and recruiting top talent, and unreasonable strategic partners [...]
Before you can get comfortable, you first need to define your exit strategy. This means being able to define what your exit will look like and the range of options are broad and include: Complete cold turkey break from operations Exiting day-to-day management but continuing to have operational final say Entrepreneur’s retirement: participate when you [...]
Identifying and developing successor candidates can be a challenging endeavor, especially when evaluating family member and key manager successor candidates. The difference between a family member employee and a key manager can be compared to an ongoing rivalry between 2 current NFL quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Their routes to the NFL couldn’t have [...]
Whoa! I was definitely not prepared for the meeting I just had with my client. Going into the meeting, I thought I was well prepared. However, I came to realize that emotions have a way of clouding what appears to be very straightforward decisions. The meeting was to facilitate the client transferring substantial assets to [...]
Take stock of the employees in your company; most likely you have already mentally classified them into categories of nonperformers, underperformers, average performers, or super performers. Hopefully, you have the majority of your people in the super performer bucket, but in all likelihood, you have a mix of all four types. As the business environment [...]
~ An Excerpt from Family Business Heartburn Relief™~ The vast majority of businesses have a designated "successor leader." However, a business can have multiple successor candidates, who can provide support to "the leader." Successor candidates include any family member or key manager who brings value to the business and is prepared to serve as a [...]
When working with a team of business leaders, one of my first questions is "How many of you are ready to go to the next level?” Either a lot of hands go up or there is a chorus of "Absolutely." And then I ask them "How many of you know what the next level looks [...]
Family members are attracted to the family business for a number of reasons. Most of my clients are thrilled to have their offspring involved in their businesses and many have high aspirations for their children. The truth is, family members can represent a profound asset especially if they enter the business with humility, adequate training, [...]
There are many elements that are key to a successful business and it is not a walk in the park. Most often, some of these characteristics include: A strong leader who is on top of their business Someone who is able to wear many hats and put out fires as they arise Someone who has [...]
