What will the future bring after the last year or so of frenetic estate and business succession planning? I don't have any better crystal ball today than I had last year when I was advising clients to play "use it or lose it" with their gift and generation skipping tax credits. However one thing is [...]
Here it is late January 2013, and I know I am not alone feeling both emotionally and physically tired. The holidays went by like a runaway Power Point presentation. My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-left. Clients that were calling every other day are not to be heard from. They don't want to talk to me, and for [...]
The last two years have been very exciting and challenging. As soon as the Republican leaders figured out that President Obama's definition of finding compromise and achieving consensus meant everyone acknowledging that he was the only brain in the room and agreeing with his ideas, it was assumed that that the President Bush tax cuts [...]
Business Structuring is a critical factor of the interdependent Succession Matrix®. Business Structuring impacts the nine other factors of the Succession Matrix® and accordingly, those other nine factors positively or negatively impact Business Structuring. For more information on all ten factors, refer to the International Succession Planning Association website at www.ISPAssociation.org. Business Structuring actually [...]
As a dedicated business succession planner, I am often bringing up the subject of employment contracts. The predictable initial response is “I hate contracts and what role could an employment contract have in my business succession planning?” This question generally comes from someone who has 80% of his/her net worth tied up directly or indirectly [...]
In addition to employment contracts being beneficial for business owners, they also can play a very important succession role with key managers. Business owners commonly have concerns that key managers, critical to the continuation of the business’ success, could be recruited away by a competitor. There is also concern that the key managers could become [...]
Another situation I dealt with recently during an annual review of planning involved what I refer to as a “five minute bomb.” Five minutes before the end of the meeting with a client, when I’m preparing to leave and go home, he says to me “oh, there’s something else I forgot to tell you” and [...]
Business owners frequently select their successors with an intuitive approach, or based on experience-informed “gut” feel. Most of the time they’re pretty good at it, but when it comes to evaluating a successor for a family business, the family relationship dynamic inevitably clouds a business owners evaluation. There are emotional entanglements that get in the [...]
To say that the economy is bad is an understatement. The going is tough right now, and there is no denying it. How a business reacts to this environment and its own internal challenges are determined by its leadership. I see leadership in businesses reacting in many different ways, but the extremes of those reactions [...]
A clear, concise, well communicated, self-affirming vision is a critical component to the creation of an unstoppable family business succession plan. However, just establishing a vision in this complicated world is not enough because in the business succession realm, this vision involves teamwork. Unfortunately those whom we endear, those whom we love, those whom we [...]
