If business succession planning were unemotional it would be easy. But as you might expect, whenever the “Three F’s” – families, feelings, and finances – are involved, emotions can run high and the planning can be difficult as agendas are diverse. The senior generation typically wants financial wellbeing, to remain in charge and preserve what they’ve built over their lifetime. The next generation is busy maneuvering through new family partnerships, leadership development, communication gaps with the senior generation, and timing and readiness to assume control. Inactive family members are worried about lack of transparency, risk management, distribution of profits and lack of control. Couple all of this with the associated complex estate and income tax issues and it’s no wonder that procrastination becomes the path of choice.
Succession planning addresses three very separate and distinct issues:
- Should I keep or sell my business? What’s my exit strategy?
- Who is going to run the business? Will it be a family member, key employee(s), or an outside professional manager?
- Who is going to own the business? Will it be kept in the family, sold to key employees, or sold to a third party?
For people who have a financial and emotional stake in a closely-held company, Cypress Strategies helps you through the process of addressing the complex emotional, financial and tax-related issues that surround ownership and management succession.
The Cypress Strategies Process Benefits:
- Our team helps you navigate the rough waters of the “keep or sell” decision.
- We recognize and advise you on how to address family issues which cause tension and procrastination.
- Our moderating helps ensure that all stakeholders in the planning process have a voice. All individual views must be understood to ensure a successful outcome.
- Through experience, we infuse both creativity and practicality into the planning process. We understand that each client has a different complexity threshold.
- Consensus will be built around a plan which can be implemented. The most suitable plan doesn’t make everyone happy, it’s one that everyone can live with.
- We create sophisticated financial models to illustrate how a variety of proposed planning techniques might respond to a range of economic conditions – at business and estate levels as well as personal cash flow levels.
- We help ensure succession and exit strategies properly coordinate with business and personal cash flow needs and income and estate tax planning.
- Our team will collaborate with existing advisors to form an effective planning team.
- We identify the tasks to be completed, create deadlines and hold everyone accountable. We make sure the job gets DONE!
The Cypress Strategies Process
The Cypress Strategies Process creates a unique collaborative framework to assist our clients to identify clear objectives that act as the foundation and road map for a comprehensive plan. Most importantly, we get our clients to take action.
