Exit Planning: The Definitive Guide

Leaving your business is the most significant financial transaction of your life, and nothing has greater financial and emotional consequences. The future quality of your life depends upon how well you manage your exit process. The Definitive Guide lays out the steps you must take to achieve all of your dreams and aspirations as you exit your business. Author John Brown shares the stories, tested process and exit planning roadmap that is the compilation of wisdom from hundreds of exit planning advisors across North America. These advisors, and John Brown's company, BEI, create thousands of owner exit plans every year. In The Definitive Guide, you will learn: How and why to set actionable exit goals How your role as owner must change if your business is to attract buyers How your business and its management team steps up to next-level operational excellence How to assign responsibility and set the deadlines necessary to complete your exit journey successfully Which nine important value drivers deliver the value buyers pay top dollar for How to avoid the common traps that can prevent you from creating an exit plan, interrupt your progress and destroy the ability to leave your business and achieve financial security. How to choose which exit path is best for you, your family and your business. Armed with unbiased lists of benefits and challenges, compare four possible exit paths: A sale to insiders (management team or co-owners) A transfer to children A third-party sale A sale to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan LET BROWN AND THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE BE YOUR COMPANIONS AS YOU UNDERTAKE THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL EVENT OF YOUR LIFE.