Family business tension about succession often starts with what nobody says
If you own a family business, take a minute with this question. What do you think each person in your family believes will happen to the business when you step back? Most owners haven’t looked at it that way. They’ve been carrying the transition privately, waiting until they have something solid enough to share. In […]
Is Your Successor Ready? Why Successor Development Is a Two-Person Journey
I’ve asked “is my successor ready?” as an owner, and I’ve watched our own team live that question as Andrea Carpenter steps into leadership at The Transition Strategists. It’s one of the most natural things to wonder in a family business transition, and it’s the question owners bring to me more than any other. Over […]
Successor Readiness Always Takes Two People
Episode Description: Elizabeth Ledoux goes solo to take on the question she hears from both sides of nearly every business transition. Transitioners ask whether the successor is ready, and successors ask the same thing about themselves. Elizabeth makes the case that the question, as most people ask it, only has room for one person, while […]
Why Business Owners Delay Succession Planning, and the Question That Gets Them Moving
I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners through business and family asset transitions, and I can usually tell in our first meeting whether someone is going to move forward. Some owners leave that conversation ready to act. Others stay stuck for another two years, or drift into what I call the five-year rolling retirement plan, […]
She Went From Five Days a Week to Two and the Company Grew Faster
Episode Description: Elizabeth talks with Ariel Steele, who has owned Tax Credit Connection in Colorado for twenty one years and who spent most of those years believing the business could only run through her. Ariel walks through the burnout that started the shift, the three years it took to build a team that could carry […]
How to Step Back From Your Business Without Selling It
Ariel Steele works two days a week and still owns one hundred percent of her company. It took her three years to build that, and about twenty to get out of her own way. She has owned her business in Colorado for twenty one years. Her team of five now runs everything from the prospecting […]
What Makes a Transition Strategist Different From Your Attorney and CPA
Owners ask me this constantly, and it is almost always the ones who have already built a strong team around them. They have a tax advisor they trust, an attorney who has handled their work for twenty years, and a financial professional who knows every line of the balance sheet. So the question tends to […]
Preparing Your Financials for a Business Transition Starts Years Before the Transaction
A private equity group came knocking on a company doing more than forty million in revenue. The owner had not gone looking for a buyer and had no particular plans to sell. The group opened his financials, spent some time with what they found, and passed. Nothing was wrong with the business. It had grown […]
Why Your Books Decide What Happens When Private Equity Comes Knocking
Episode Description: Elizabeth sits down with Brian Kofford, CPA and founder of Strive CPAs, who has spent 25 years working with founder-led companies that have outgrown a traditional accounting relationship. Brian is an entrepreneur himself, and he brings that lens to proactive tax strategy, fractional CFO work, and outsourced finance. In this conversation he walks through what actually happens when a […]