Planning for a successful business future is like being confronted by a bear. If you run from it, it’ll catch up to you and eat you. If you attack it without a strategy, it’ll overwhelm you. And, to stretch the metaphor, simply rolling over and playing dead isn’t in the DNA of many business owners, especially when it comes to their businesses.

With preparation and the right tools, you can come out on top. However, many business owners fall prey to the misconception that they must have a fully fleshed-out plan for a successful future. Just like you don’t need to eat the bear in one bite, you don’t need to have a full plan for a successful future.

Let’s examine how planning your future in steps can help you take on the bear of planning for a successful future on your terms.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships. –Michael Jordan

You are a talented business owner. It’s why you win in your market. But when it comes to long-term planning, having an intelligent team to support your talents can position you for even bigger wins, such as continued business success, financial independence, and a fulfilling retirement. Today, we’ll show you some of the expert teammates with whom you’ll be working to help you focus on what you do best and win your planning championship.

As the year winds down, it’s important for business owners to raise their awareness of last year’s performance. Knowing what you did well, along with where you struggled, is crucial to planning for future success. Today, we’ll show you three categories that you can review

Occasionally, successful business owners will say to themselves and their advisors, “I’m too old to start a multi-year plan for my future.” In many respects, this mindset is similar to saying, “I’m too old to succeed,” which is preposterous! Let’s look at a few reasons why you’re never too old to plan for a successful future.

Proper planning can give you time back

The strongest businesses often have written plans for how to address unexpected events and mitigate risk, known as business continuity instructions. Their owners ask questions like, “What happens if a co-owner or I die?”, “How do we protect key employees from competitors?”, and “How do we address interruptions in our supply chain?” Here are three major items to consider as you create your own written business continuity instructions.

Generally, business owners feel comfortable being owners. They enjoy what they do, but rationally, they know they need to change their roles in their businesses eventually. But most owners don’t resist planning their exits on a rational basis. Instead, they resist Exit Planning at an emotional level.

Consider Clancy, a 50-year-old business owner. He loves working at and owning his 25-person manufacturing company, but he knows that he’ll eventually need to start preparing for retirement. He assumes that if he can sell his business for about $5 million, he and his wife can live comfortably and still help send their grandson, Ralph, to the finest colleges. He gets his business professionally appraised and learns that it’s currently worth $3.5 million

When we start any important project, it is common to choose to plan in phases. Sometimes we choose to plan in phases because there is a certain aspect of the project that we consider to be more urgent than others. Maybe it can be overwhelming to try to focus on the big picture. Regardless of the reason, a phased planning approach can be a great strategy to help alleviate the stress of a large project like planning for the future of the ownership of your business.

Even if you know you are interested in a phased approach to planning, you may still not know where to begin the process. Considering every business owner and every business is different, there are many ways to approach planning for your business. To give a sense of the more common starting points, here are some examples.

As a successful business owner, you know how important asset protection is. However, many business owners look past an important question when protecting their assets: “Why am I doing this?” A cursory glance at that question might make an owner say, “Because I’ve worked hard to create what I’ve got.” But that raises another question: “How is your hard work connected to what you now own?”

Successful business owners may face a conundrum as they pursue success. “Though my competitors do something similar, they don’t do it the way I do it. So, how do I know the right way to achieve success, especially if I don’t do things their way?”

It’s a bit of a paradox: How can you build and enhance your company’s unique qualities while adhering to commonly followed best practices? The key is having a planning process. Here are some of the things you should consider to position your unique business to achieve generally agreed-upon standards of success.

Next-level management teams are the drivers behind building business value. But how can you and your advisors attract and keep next-level management teams? The answer lies within incentive plans.

When incentive plans are properly designed and implemented, your business has the potential to grow well after you sell. Well-executed incentive plans can motivate each member of your management team to measurably increase the value of your company.

When you started your business, it was probably obvious that you needed a plan. It may be less obvious, though, that when you leave your business, no matter how you do it, you’ll also need a plan. The reality is that every action you take during the life of your business has an impact on your departure down the road.

Getting Full Value

No matter who you decide will be your successor in the business, you will most likely want to build value in your company. Third-party buyers or investors will tend to look at objective, quantifiable facts when deciding how much to offer for your business. Employees, family members, and co-owners will want to feel confident that they are taking over a healthy and stable enterprise.

Business owners have a lot of information at their fingertips. There are calculators and assessments available for just about every aspect of your business and personal situation. As a result, many business owners think they have an accurate idea about the value of their business. They may even think they have an idea of where the business value should be at their departure from the business. And retirement needs calculators are abundant, claiming they’ll give business owners a good idea about what they’ll need if or when they step away from their businesses. It can be difficult and somewhat complex to accurately measure the value of a company today, and then what it needs to be worth when the owner is ready to leave. Owners may be surprises to find “the gap” between the current value of their company and where the company value should be when they are ready to move on is much different than what they predict. 

Setting goals is a catalyst for success, especially if you’re planning for the future of your ownership and the success of your business. The strongest goals tend to have five aspects that help you guide the process for achieving them. In other words, when you set goals, you want to set SMART goals:

It can be difficult to consider what will happen to your business and your family if you die unexpectedly. Without proper planning, you could be leaving your family and/or key stakeholders in a huge mess. Proper planning allows you to keep your business on the right path even after an unexpected tragedy leaves you unable to continue running your business.

Estate plans focus on transferring assets upon an owner’s death. A successful estate plan achieves three important personal goals:

Preparing your business for a successful future often goes hand in hand with preparing your business for a successful sale. No matter whom you sell to—and even if you believe you’ll never sell your business—you should focus on catching Deal Killers. Deal Killers are things that can affect your business’ value and future. Let’s look at an example of the difference between addressing Deal Killers early and ignoring them until it’s too late.

No matter how you define business success, one thing is constant: When everyone is rowing in the same direction, it’s much easier to reach the destination. As you grow your business, you’ll likely find that the stronger your internal people and processes are, the more options you have to achieve success.

Today, we’ll examine some of the potentially positive consequences of preparing your key employees for a stake in ownership. Whether your long-term plans are to sell your business (to employees or a third party) or stay forever, prepping your key people for possible ownership can position you for greater success

According to a recent report released by the Legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research, Florida’s population is increasing at an estimated rate of 808 people per day, or a total of 294,796 new residents per year. Well known for its beautiful beaches and sunshine, Florida’s population is estimated to increase at this rate for at least the next five years, due in part to a migration within the U.S. population that has occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Success is rarely linear. As a business owner, it’s important to both acknowledge that fact and create plans that can provide short-term results while having long-term impacts. Today, we’ll show you four areas in which strong planning and realistic goals can position you to achieve more success in the coming year.

Running a successful business is complex per se. Adding the element of “family” to a business often creates more complexities, especially as the business grows. Lifelong family bonds and expectations can run headlong into business realities and needs. Today, we’ll share some ideas about how to keep the family business running and the business family happy.

When you die, how much money do you want to have to pay lawyers to wrangle the complications of your estate? How about the IRS—how much of your life’s work would you like to hand over to them? And if given the choice, would you prefer a smooth and responsible transfer of wealth to your family, or a difficult, bloody-knuckle battle? These questions may have obvious answers, but less obvious is how you get there. Today, we’ll look at some ways you can consider balancing your estate so your money goes where you want, not where others tell you it needs to go.