Business Advisory Services

Our Unique Process combines deep discovery, financial analysis and a focus on execution and implementation; this removes business-owners from a traditional planning process and places them into a decision-making process.

I-FAQs

Questions you don’t know to ask

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Overview

Every entrepreneur to whom we’re referred has done some good planning.

Many have longstanding relationships with great professional advisors. Yet when we’re invited in, the entrepreneur remains stuck on one or more big issues. Entrepreneurs are the best instinctual decision-makers in the world. So why is it that more than 80% of business owners don’t have a game plan for exiting their business on their own terms? We believe a key factor is what we’ve termed, The Partial Presumption™.

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What We Do

Our service offering consists of the following areas for business owners and entrepreneurial
family groups:

  • Succession and Exit Planning
  • Family Business Transfer
  • Keep or Sell Decision Making
  • Business Consulting
  • Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) Structuring
  • Valuation Modeling
  • Personal and Business Cash Flow Modeling
  • Executive Benefit and Executive Compensation
    Consulting
  • Business Operations and Management
    Assessment
  • Estate Planning
  • Strategic Planning
  • Value Growth Consulting

Uncommon Approach

The correlation between depth of discovery and breadth of your options

We believe that delving deep at the onset of the work is both crucial and essential for revealing your options and choices. Bypassing or rushing through this early stage of discovery often results in one of three outcomes. First, lack of clarity stymies confidence and pushes decisions down the road. Second, the solutions that are executed are band-aids that either don’t solve the full issue or create unanticipated problems in seemingly unrelated areas. Third, lack of early stage information reduces the net value of the business or the net proceeds to the entrepreneur.

Our deep discovery begins with helping you Know your story from here forward. All of our clients are life-long leaders, focused on everyone else’s needs – family, key lieutenants, customers and vendors. Now is the time in your journey to allow that spotlight to shift to you. Entrepreneurs struggle with who they’ll be outside of the business. Together, we unearth and refine what can make life fulfilling and joyful once you’ve monetized your life’s work.

Deep discovery also includes hearing from all stakeholders at the onset of the process. The primary stakeholder is the operating business itself because all other stakeholders rely on it for cash flow. Next, we look at who has been instrumental in getting you to where you are today. Who are the people that – if they weren’t here yesterday – it would impact the future success of the business? This group typically includes key lieutenants (family and non-lineage), longstanding trusted advisors, and others who may have a voice and the ability to offer wisdom.

By digging deep at the onset, we learn where there’s alignment of people, process and priorities, and where there’s a lack of alignment. Then we design a plan for changes in strategy, structure and behavior that bring alignment into play. And, we remain steadfastly involved as your accountability partner to achieve your stated objectives.

Knowing what you’re saying NO to, or what you’re saying YES to.

Often when an entrepreneur is presented with an idea or an opportunity for exit, it’s impossible to confidently pull the trigger because you’re not sure what you’re agreeing to, or what you might be leaving on the table.

When you start down a succession path without the ability to pro/con your choices and see the total financial picture, the process often stalls out. You can’t recoup the time or the runway that’s been expended, and you find yourself starting over with less energy than you had the first time around.

In our model, confidence is driven by knowing what we term, net-pennies-in-your-pocket. For any type of potential transition, when the transition or transaction is complete and everyone else has been paid, how much will be left for you and your family? And most importantly, is that enough? We help you drill down and stress test your number: how much do you need to maintain your lifestyles for the rest of your lives?

We provide thorough financial modeling in three essential realms: numerical, operational and relational. You’ll see the upside and downside of any potential course of action, alongside intended and unintended consequences.

For any particular choice, what is the true unmitigated risk?

Our Business Advisory model was built to belie the statistics.

  • Only 30% of closely-held companies survive into the third generation.
  • Less than 30% of businesses that go to market actually result in a completed transaction.

It turns out that when proper planning and preparation is part of the process, intergenerational transfers bear the same or less risk than external transactions. And, going to market isn’t the same as closing a sale. Dozens of financial, operational and relational factors can reduce your value or kill a transaction.

The key is to understand the true underlying risk of any choice you’re contemplating. You can improve the statistics by ensuring three areas are addressed;

  • Engage in deep discovery at the onset of your journey;
  • Ensure you have cross-disciplinary financial modeling that shows both positive and negative outcomes;
  • Address the relational work that needs to be done in the Five Key Areas.

Upfront Stakeholder Involvement

Some exit planning processes will push forward with the entrepreneur alone, because it’s the fastest, cleanest route to closing the advisor’s desired transaction. In our experience, pushing forward without upfront stakeholder involvement is a time and opportunity vacuum for the entrepreneur.

We get everyone involved at the beginning of the process. In fact, we only engage with businesses that will prioritize this phase. Together we build a body of information – an accurate current capture of your strengths and your gaps – planning ahead and pre-empting anything that could stall the process in the future. In our experience, anything else is inefficient.

The Numbers

140
family groups served

Family business succession

Move to G2

30%

Move to G3

12%

Move to G4+

3%

Source: Family First Institute

2,500,000,000
of business value served

Ideal Client Profiles

  • Companies with 30+ employees
  • Owners of closely held businesses with $20M+ in revenue and/or $3M+ EBITDA
  • Looking for help with succession or exit options
  • Family-owned businesses
  • Business-owners who care about their employees and the future success of their business
  • Business-owners looking to transfer their business to children and/or key employees

I-FAQs: Infrequently Asked Questions

Infrequently Asked Questions are an educational olive branch to improve your discernment about business exit or succession planning.

Know all of your choices, not just the one on the table.

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