Sprinkle Kindness and Play the Long Game: What One Founder’s Three-Transition Journey Can Teach Us All
Mark Richards has been in the advanced planning and life insurance space for more than four decades. He has served ultra-high-net-worth families, family-owned businesses, and privately held companies. And across that time, he went through not one, not two, but three major business transitions. When Mark joined us on a recent episode of the Business […]
Sprinkle Kindness and Play the Long Game: One Founder’s Three-Transition Journey
Episode Description: Mark Richards is a principal at Winged Keel Group and leads their Denver office. He’s spent more than four decades in the life insurance and advanced planning space, serving ultra-high-net-worth families, family-owned businesses, and privately held companies. In this conversation, Mark walks through three distinct transitions across his career: leaving his first firm […]
Still Building? Good. Now Build the One Thing You’re Missing.
There is something that almost every successful business owner has in common. You have built the team. You have built up the revenue. You have got your reputation. And you are still building. That is good. That is actually great. But there is one thing most founders never build: a plan for what happens when […]
Your Business Looks Ready to Sell. But Is It Actually Prepared?
Most business owners spend decades building something and then only months trying to sell it. That gap is where value disappears, deals fall apart, and sellers walk away with regret. Tim Vorhoff, founding partner of CreoValo and author of Exit Right: How to Sell Your Company, joined Elizabeth Ledoux on the Business Transition Roadmap podcast […]
Seller’s Regret Is Preventable: How to Prepare for the Transaction of a Lifetime
Episode Description: Tim Vorhoff is the founding partner of Creo Vallo and author of Exit Right: How to Sell Your Company. He spent years at Evercore, one of the world’s top investment banks, before launching his own firm to help mid-market and family-run business owners prepare for and execute an external sale. In this conversation, Tim and […]
How to Choose a Business Transition Consulting Firm When Your Company Is Worth $10 Million or More
When a business crosses the $10 million mark, everything about transition gets more complex. More stakeholders. More tax implications. More at risk if the process goes sideways. And yet, the thing that causes most transitions to fail at this level is the same thing that causes them to fail at every level: the people involved […]
Exit Planning vs. Business Transition: Why the Technical Plan Alone Will Not Get You There
Your attorney has a plan. Your CPA has a plan. Your financial advisor has a plan. But do you have one? Not a tax strategy or an estate document. A plan for the people. The conversations. The relationships that will either hold your family together through this process or quietly fall apart while everyone focuses […]
Business Governance: The Learning Platform Your Successor Actually Needs
If you run a small business and someone brings up the word “governance,” your first instinct is probably to change the subject. It sounds corporate. It sounds slow. And if you have been making every decision yourself for the last 10 or 20 years, it sounds like someone wants to put handcuffs on you. I […]
Why Business Governance Is the Learning Platform Your Successor Actually Needs
Episode Description: Elizabeth Ledoux has spent 30 years guiding business owners through transitions — and in this solo episode, she gets personal about one of the most misunderstood tools in her toolkit: business governance. Most owners hear “board of directors” and immediately think bureaucracy, slowdowns, and handcuffs. Elizabeth breaks down why the opposite is true — that governance […]