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 […]
Business Transition Strategy for Founders Looking for “What’s Next”
Founders rarely reach out because the numbers confuse them. They reach out because they have started to picture life on the other side of the business and the picture comes back blank. The company has a plan for almost everything. There is a plan for hiring, and a plan for the equipment that gives out […]
How Two Business Transitions Shaped the Second Edition of It’s A Journey
Five years ago, Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman sat down to write a book about business transition planning. They had watched too many owners arrive at the most significant decision of their working lives with no roadmap in front of them, and they wanted to put one in their hands. What neither of them fully […]
Lessons from a Successor Turned Transitioner with Laura Chiesman
Episode Description: Elizabeth welcomes back Laura Chiesman, managing partner and financial advisor with Savant Wealth Management and her co-author on It’s a Journey: The Must-Have Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning. Laura has lived both sides of a business transition. In 2015 she purchased her firm from its original founder, and years later she became the […]
How to Know You Are Ready for Life After Your Business Transition
When a business owner sits down with me to talk about their transition, they usually come prepared. They can talk about valuation. They can walk me through who might take over and roughly when. Many of them can describe the legacy they hope to leave with genuine feeling, because they have thought about it for […]