Living What We Teach and the Evolve Program Launch

Andrea shares the reality of being a successor in the business she helps other successors navigate, revealing how even the most prepared transitions come with unexpected challenges and growth opportunities. Elizabeth reflects on how bringing on a successor has energized rather than slowed down the business, creating momentum and fresh perspectives that benefit everyone. 

The heart of this episode focuses on their new Evolve program—a comprehensive approach that makes professional transition planning accessible through group immersion experiences, ongoing implementation support, and peer community connections. This isn’t just another consulting offering; it’s a proven methodology that’s been tested with larger enterprises and is now available to the broader business community. 

Let’s talk about the questions you have about your company’s transition to a successor: www.transitionstrategists.com/discovery

Key Topics Covered: 

• Successor Energy Effect: How bringing on Andrea accelerated business growth 

• The Meta Experience: Navigating succession while helping other families do the same 

• Evolve’s Three Pillars: Immersion + Implementation + Peer Community 

• Starting Without Answers: Beginning the journey before you have it all figured out 

• Relationship-First Planning: Keeping families together through complex transitions 

• No Financial Conflicts: Advisor-only approach vs. transaction-based models 

• Timeline Reality: Why succession takes longer than most families expect 

• Community Impact: Supporting the massive generational wealth transfer 

Elizabeth and Andrea emphasize that transition is truly a journey, not an event, and that having the right support system makes all the difference in creating successful outcomes for families, businesses, and communities. 

Chapters in this episode:

00:00 Introduction to Transition Updates and Evolve Program 
02:10 The Energy of Bringing On a Successor 
04:09 Andrea’s Meta-Experience as Successor and Guide 
06:33 Introducing the Evolve Program Vision 
08:44 The Three Pillars: Immersion, Implementation, Community 
11:06 Starting Without All the Answers 
13:28 Supporting Both Owners and Successors 
15:47 What Makes Evolve Different 
18:10 Business Size and Accessibility 
20:29 The Evolve Process Experience 
22:42 Invitation to Explore 

Connect with Andrea Carpenter: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-carpenter-5b5b1a1b/ 

Your Next Gen Friend Podcast: 

Connect with Elizabeth Ledoux and the Transition Strategists: 

Website: https://transitionstrategists.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetransitionstrategists 
Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethledoux/ 
Transition Strategists on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transitionstrategists/ 
Transition Strategists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transitionstrategists 

Subscribe to “The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux” on your favorite podcast player: 

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MxSYA2 
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3IhMMux 

Get Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman’s latest book, “It’s A Journey: The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning”: https://amzn.to/3oq2LQv

Living What We Teach and the Evolve Program Launch Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hi everybody, and welcome back to The Business Transition Roadmap.

Today, we have what I think is an exciting episode for you because we have Andrea Carpenter here with us. Throughout our podcast, we’ve been periodically posting episodes about our personal, internal transition at The Transition Strategists.

So anyway, today we’re going to be talking a little bit about that, but also about more exciting things—like our new Evolve program and what we’re doing there.

This is something that we’ve been working on since Andrea first started. We’ve been talking about this Evolve community, and I thought we’d give a little update on where we’re at, the progress, and then really dive into the Evolve program and what’s going on there.

For me, it’s an example of how bringing on a successor can really add energy and value into the company. So that’s what I want to focus on today.

Andrea, thanks for being here again. It’s great to have you.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah, excited to share a little bit more about all the things we’ve been working on because I feel like we’ve been so busy. Oh my gosh, I have to tell you that.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
And you know, when you bring on a successor, I think everyone around you thinks your life is supposed to slow down as an owner.

But really what happens is your life increases—the flywheel starts moving quicker, the momentum builds, because you’ve got this amazing new energy in the business.

So yeah, busier than ever. But all with good and exciting things.

So Andrea, from your perspective, since the last time we talked to the audience, what’s been going on with our transition and how are you feeling about it?

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah, it’s so funny because when people ask—it really is so meta that I’m a successor in our business and also helping other people navigate the same process.

I was mentally prepared. I had seen this work with other families. I knew there would be lots of feelings, tough challenges, and things that seem like they’d be easy but end up being harder.

And all of that has been true. Even so, I’m still shocked at some of the things I thought would be easy for me—but weren’t.

So yeah, it’s been a really exciting time with a lot of leadership growth.

Something we’ve also been working hard on is shifting our business model so we can really serve our clients in a better way.

I’m excited to share that with everyone today.

We could probably do a whole episode on how our transition is going. And if that’s something that’s interesting to you, we’re happy to talk about it.

I actually talk a lot about these things on my podcast Your Next Gen Friend.

There’s just so much that goes on—it’s ongoing. We always say it’s a journey. It’s something that will continue, even when I’m more involved or you’re less involved. Things are always shifting and changing.

That’s why we’re so excited about Evolve.

Yes! That’s a great segue into introducing the Evolve program.

I know I’ve talked about it before. You’ve talked about it sometimes. But we wanted to tell you more about how this actually works and how it helps with transition.

And we can relate that back to our own transition as well.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Because you know, going back, one of the things that’s important, I just got off of a different podcast, but one of the things I think that’s important is to have a business go forward and hopefully thrive forward and do more than what you can do is just an owner.

So this evolved program that we’ve put together and have launched, which we’ve been talking about it for months and months, and we’ve had starts and stops on it and everything else.

But the evolved program that we have is incredible.

And it’s sort of in a way a dream come true because my goal is to help as many business owners as we possibly can, walk through transitions well and help their successors learn and grow and help the business stay healthy.

And, you know, really have what you would think of as a dream transition where you’re happy with your next adventure.

And it’s sort of a win, win, win on all fronts.

That’s the big deal.

And so to me, this evolve is really, really incredibly wonderful because it allows for a business owner to affordably come in, do their work, do it in a shorter period of time and have the have the their needs as far as implementation covered.

So Andrea, I would love for you to give your version of what the Evolve program has in it and the three pillars and just tell everybody about it because I’m so excited.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah.

And from a successor perspective, you might be like, well, maybe I know for sure I want to come into the business or I don’t know for sure that I want to come in.

And really it’s a safe space to explore all of those different things.

Like you might think something’s going one way and there’s really just a lot that we have to put out on the table.

I think you and I talked through so many different factors and we were deciding like it’s a big decision to decide that you’re going to take over someone’s business or for an owner to decide that they’re going to let someone else become the steward of that business and start to take pieces of it forward.

And so that’s really a lot what this is about.

We we say 3 pillars of our work.

The first is like, what are all of those things and discussions that we need to have?

Like we need to start laying those things out on the table so that we can have discussions about them.

A successor who has an assumption or an idea that something is going to happen at a certain time that doesn’t align with the owner or an owner thinking someone wants to come in or is ready or isn’t ready.

Those things can be really detrimental to your business and also to your family if you’re not talking about them.

And so that’s why we really love to start with an immersion which just helps your whole family or your business partners and you come together and just, I’ll call it, lay everything out on the table.

Why do you want to transition?

What exactly are the assets?

Who are we trying to take care of
When do we think things are going to start to happen?

Because there’s role transfers, there’s strategic decision transfers, there’s equity transfers.

So we want to just start having high level discussions about all of those different things.

We also bring in like what’s financial components, It’s obviously a piece of it.

So for an owner who’s leaving, do they know what their numbers are and as they need to get out for a successor who’s coming up, like what’s their capacity to to buy in and start to think about those things.

And then we can actually get into the mechanics of the transition and start to draft a timeline.

So really at the end of those 2 1/2 days that you feel confident, prepared and ready to start having more conversation.

So it’s not really like you leave and then you have an exact plan.

That’s the thing.

There’s a lot of stuff we have to sit and think and continue to talk through.

So that’s really why our second pillar is implementation support.

It really varies business to business and family to family, how long people need to stay engaged.

Sometimes it’s six months, like we just need to finish working through the plan, make sure we’ve had all the important conversations, that everyone is talking, care, taking care of.

But sometimes it’s, we have clients who have been with us three to five years because like I said, for Elizabeth and myself, my experience is so many things are changing so fast.

There’s always something new that I need to kind of get feedback and support on.

And then lastly, kind of that third pillar, my favorite pillar, for those of you that know, I kind of have a background and facilitation and really this idea of peer learning and, and collective wisdom.

And so for you to not feel so alone in the transition, whether you’re the person leaving, whether you’re the person coming in, it is it’s an isolating thing.

Most of your friends are probably not in the same situation.

They’re not going through the same thing.

So it’s hard for them to relate.

So really a space for you to come get questions answered, talk with your guide, and most importantly, talk peer-to-peer with other people who are also navigating transition as they go through.

So that’s a super high level of review.

I want you to fill in any gaps or, or things that are important for people to know that I, I might have skipped over.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
No, no, I think you hit all the three pillars and you know, just imagining if you’re, if you’re a person that’s thinking through this evolve that you really get to come in and do an immersion program so that you have a direction, you have a strategy forward.

And I was just having a conversation earlier this morning that literally, you know, starting and having starting, even if you’re not ready to transition and you don’t have a successor and you don’t even know anything about what you want, that’s the place to start.

It’s OK to start there because when you become, when you have a strategy forward, when you have that foundation from which to move forward with, you can discover along the way.

So I was just saying to another lady earlier today that they give so much peace for you to know as an owner what direction you want to go, kind of a time frame of how you might get there.

So if it’s three years, oh gosh, in three years I’m going to find my successor and I’m a look for him.

And if I have to, I’m going to advertise for them.

And in five years I’m going to see if I can get them as into it being an owner.

And in, you know, 10 years, I think I’m going to be ready to leave.

That’s not an unusual timeline.

That’s an OK timeline.

And you do not have to know what you want before you start the process.

What, what, what this whole process is about is discovery and exploration and helping to go through a it’s a framework that helps you to easily find what you want.

A big deal when you’re wandering around thinking in your head is spinning.

So anyway, the immersion program, when you think of Evolve, that immersion program is really cool.

And then there’s a lot of work to be done afterwards with other advisors, but also things like governance and yeah, governance invitations to invite your successors in navigating their, their response and their reception of it.

And then trying to integrate in things like tax and estate and financial well-being and their financial well-being.

And if the company can, excuse me, if the company can afford to do what you’re thinking of.

And there’s a lot of work to be done with with that.

And so all of that support is there to help you navigate for as long as you want it.
So I am loving this.
The community’s awesome.
And, and I’ve been a facilitator for about 30 years, and it’s a big deal to have a team and a peer group that you can really bounce things off of.

So it’s awesome.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah.

And for a successor, if you are invited to kind of participate in this, it’s also making sure like, is it actually something you want to do is coming up into the business your visionary or is that because you think someone else wants that for you or you’re going to let someone down if you don’t do that?

And those are really important questions for for you to answer.

Those aren’t the only things obviously, that that you would cover kind of in that an initial process.

And in terms of the implementation support, while our owners are working on how do I give invitations, how do I have conversations, successors are starting to navigate, how do I be a better manager?

How do I be a better leader?

How do I start to take ownership off of other people?

How do I evaluate what I’m good at and what I’m not?

Because the types of roles and the things that the previous owners did might not exactly be your skill set.

And there might be, there’s going to be shifts in the way that the company works and manages.

And that’s a lot for you to also think through.

So just know that yeah, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t be alone.

And the process is really designed to support everyone.

They navigate that transition so that the business and the family and everyone stays together and happy on the other end of that.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

And it’s so funny because, you know, people say, oh, well, you know, that can’t that can’t happen.

You can’t have, you can’t have a business transition with, you know, relationship and family harmony.

And we have proof that it is possible.

And if you have enough time and you think through it well enough that it absolutely can come true.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah.

And I also want to say what potentially makes this program different from other advisors, other companies, your CPA is your attorneys that can help you start to think about succession planning is a, it’s very focused on the people and what’s important to them.

That’s what’s going to help you feel really successful going out on the other end, whether you’re the owner or the successor.

It also, we’re one of the few firms that really truly focuses on transition and we are not taking a percentage of your deal.

So you go to a business broker, you go to an investment bank.

At the end of the day, there is some financial motivation.

I, I’d like to believe humans are, are good humans and they want what is best for you.

But truly in our work, we have no, there’s no financial win or anything for us on the other end.

And your decision of how you want to transition, what you want to do if you decide to sell, if you decide to transition, if there’s some other creative thing that you come up with, that’s amazing because we are not going to financially benefit from you deciding to go one way or the other from the process.

So I just wanted to put that out there because there’s a lot of decisions that you can make on, on who to kind of engage and, and work with.

And we can just be one advisor, help you come up with that.

What is that strategy or that direction we think we’re going to go.

And then we can help you engage with your attorney, with your CPA, with your other advisors to actually make a plan that aligns with all the things that you said are most important.

Important. This is really valuable.

It helps you step in and hopefully it would save you a little bit of money on the other end too, because you’re going in to those other advisors that are really charging by the hour to drop documents and all those other things.

]And you have a clear idea of what you’re already trying to do and, and how to move forward.

So, yeah, 

Elizabeth Ledoux:

 yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s so important and so rewarding.

The other thing that I think makes us different is over the years, since I’ve been doing this for so long, all of the intellectual property that we have, we use, we don’t license from anybody else.

So all of this is proprietary to us and it’s all been tested and proven for many, many years.

So it’s pretty exciting.

Again, the work that we primarily have done has it’s been with larger, bigger, more complicated businesses.

And this we know it works.

And so it’s fun to be able to bring it in this evolved program to the regular wonderful business owner that is out there every day working away.

Because, and this is this is just me, but I know that our country is so reliant on all of our private businesses.

And we all know that there’s this massive wealth transfer that’s going to happen because the owners are aging.

And it’s just important to our communities that we get those businesses in the right hands and that they continue forward.

It’s a big deal for all of us.

Andrea Carpenter:
It is, yeah.
And so if you’re listening to this and you’re like, well, is my business even a fit to to start to go through this?

There’s not really a business that’s too small.

You can invest in yourself and your employees and, and there’s more right than just what happens to you and your financial windfall.

It’s taking care of your people.

It’s taking care of your clients, whether you’re an employee first, client first, however family first, whatever kind of that value system is that you’re carrying, we want to make sure that as you move towards your next adventure that you’re able to honor that.

And yeah, just just really move forward in a way that that feels super good to you.

So we’ve worked with businesses as small as $500,000 a year top line revenue and we have businesses that do over $100 million top line revenue.

And the way that we engage you, we’re talking a little bit today about evolving the immersion.

And if you’re a bigger family enterprise and, and there’s more than three people, we want to work with your family one-on-one to make sure that we’re really taking care of every person and we can hear everyone’s stories.

And I don’t feel rushed kind of in a group setting, but for businesses where there’s two, maybe three people involved in the transition, you get along.

It’s not super complex, but it feels complex in your head because it is because there’s a lot to sort of untangle there.

Those are the type of people that are great fit for our group immersion.

So that’s also bringing that peer learning into that immersion setting.

So we’re coming right up on time, but I quickly just wanted to describe what it looks like for you when you join the Evolve program.

So we would love to hop on a call and learn more about your business specifically because we can make specific recommendations of exactly like which entry point into the program would be best for you.

But when you join, you kind of you pay your deposit and then we want to get started right away.

There’s kickoff calls, there’s personal interviews with everyone who’s participating.

We’re going to do IMAP assessments, which we’ll probably do a whole nother episode link about the IMAP.

That is an assessment to help you really understand your natural wiring, your strengths, how you like to communicate.

It’s a great foundation for your class.

There’s a little bit of other pre work.

I would expect 4 to 4 to 8 hours of pre work before the event.

Then you actually attend the immersion class.

That’s 2 1/2 days.

Most of them we host in person at our retreat space in Fort Collins, which is just a really great escape to come to the mountains, get out of your day-to-day and really just like put yourself in a space where you can focus on this.

And then once you graduate immersion, we’ll work with your transition guide to really figure out what resources, what tools, what types of.

Coaching is it, is it your whole group staying together?

Do we need to work individually with each person?

Are we giving invitations?

So what’s that work that comes next that’s really customized to you?

And then it moves into more of a monthly engagement from there.

So if that’s something that’s interesting to you, I invite you to, to learn more and, and book a call with our team that’s transitionstrategists.com/discovery and we’d love to talk with you.

So, Elizabeth, I said a lot of things.

And anything that you want to add in terms of an invitation for people to join us?

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, I think the only thing that I would say is please be brave and please explore.

It’s really easy to do that.

And worst case is, you know that we exist for a future time when you might, you know, when the time might be right.

But it’s great to know your options.

Big believer in that.

And so, yeah, just a big invitation to you from us to just explore and see what’s see what’s going on in your world.

It’s awesome.

Andrea Carpenter:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Anyway, thank you so much.

Thanks for being here, Andrea, and thanks for joining us, everybody.

This is so important in our world and I’m glad that you were here today.

So thanks.

SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION

The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux

How do communities thrive? When businesses experience healthy growth and transition. Join CEO of The Transition Strategists, Elizabeth Ledoux as she and her guests identify what makes a successful business transition roadmap. If you know you want to transition or exit your business “one day”, today is the right day to start planning. This show will give you the roadmap.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you can check out other episodes here: Podcasts – The Transition Strategists