Though it can be hard to imagine when you’re landing your first client, applying for a business loan, or opening a second location, there may come a time when you want to or have to stop being a business owner. That said, your business doesn’t have to come to an end because your time as an entrepreneur does (unless you want it to). There are a variety of ways to keep your company going if you step down, all of which require a plan–a succession plan.
In this episode, we talk about what it takes to plan for the continued existence of your business: what you’ll need, who to involve, and how long it takes. We also talk about exit strategies, startup narratives, the potential consequences of short-term thinking, and one thing you can do now to prepare for the future of your business, whatever that looks like.
As always, we want to hear from you: do you have a succession plan? How do you imagine the future of your business?
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Mentioned on the show:
- What is succession planning, anyway?
- What are the pillars or steps of a succession plan?
- The relationship between succession planning and an exit strategy
- Budgeting for a business transition
- What happens if I don’t have a succession plan? Also,some family business survival statistics.
- The E-Myth (book)
- From emyth.com: How to Build a Business That Doesn’t Depend on You: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
- How business valuation can help with succession planning and with choosing the best way to transfer ownership of your company
- The role of managers in succession planning
Bonus links:
- Research on succession planning from the Harvard Business Review
- The ins and outs of succession planning templates
- One sample template
- Another sample template, and 5 steps to creating a succession plan
- 5 ways to transfer ownership of your small business, with pros and cons for each
- Because nonprofits need plans, too: A toolkit for nonprofit succession planning from the Kansas City Federal Reserve
- 3 examples of succession planning done right
