Why Transition 3.0 Changes Everything: Our Evolve Program

What if the biggest risk in your transition isn’t taxes or valuation—it’s making assumptions about the people you love? 

In this episode, Elizabeth Ledoux and her successor-partner Andrea Carpenter unpack how Transition 3.0 is changing the way families think about succession. Instead of designing a transition for your successors, Transition 3.0 invites you to build it with them—reducing assumptions, strengthening communication, and dramatically increasing success. 

They explore why 60% of transitions fail, why proactive planning protects relationships, and how the Evolve program helps owners create clarity, optionality, and momentum—whether they plan to exit in 2 years or 12. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode: 

• Why 60% of transitions fail—and why communication is the real reason 

• The difference between Transition 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 

• How assumptions become landmines in family and partner dynamics 

• Why designing transition with your successors changes everything 

• The Evolve program and what makes it different 

• What owners get wrong about timing—and why the best time to plan is before you want to leave 

• How clarity reduces advisor costs and accelerates decision-making 

• Real stories from families who were proactive… and those who waited too long 

Chapters in this episode:

00:00 — Welcome & Why We’re Talking About Evolve 
00:26 — The People-First Path to Transition 
01:44 — Why 60% of Transitions Fail 
03:36 — The $83.5 Trillion Wealth Transfer & What’s at Risk 
05:33 — Protecting Relationships: The Real Asset 
07:05 — What Transition 3.0 Is (and Why It Works) 
08:46 — Assumptions That Derail Owners 
10:43 — Avoidance as a Decision 
12:35 — The Transition Compass: Why, What, Who, When 
14:41 — Optionality, Timing & Planning Before You’re Ready 
16:20 — Identity Work & Life Beyond the Business 
18:49 — Resetting Family Dynamics & Addressing Tension 
21:42 — The Evolve Program & How It Works 
24:11 — The Transformation: Clarity, Behavior Change, Strategy 
27:53 — Story 1: Reactive Family Crisis → Reconnection 
29:38 — Story 2: Proactive Partners → Faster, Clearer Decisions 
33:11 — Starting Even Without a Successor 
33:36 — Why the Best Time to Start Is Now 
34:45 — Legacy and Harmony: Yes, You Can Have Both 
36:35 — The Application Process & Who Evolve Is For 
38:12 — Take a Small Step: Your Future Depends On It 
39:02 — Closing Thoughts 

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 

Connect with Andrea Carpenter & Your Next Gen Friend 

Website: https://yournextgenfriend.com/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournextgenfriend/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yournextgenfriend 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreashaver/ 

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

Why Transition 3.0 Changes Everything: Our Evolve Program Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux: 

Hi everybody and welcome back to the Business Transition Roadmap podcast. 

Elizabeth Ledoux:

For those of you who do not know me, I am Elizabeth Ledoux and I am the founder of the Transition Strategist. I’ve been doing this work for about 30 years and today I am here with my wonderful partner. She’s a new partner in my world because we are going through and living our own transition journey and I’d love to introduce you to Andrea Carpenter. 

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, hi everyone. I’m Andrea and I’m the successor and I’m proof that the process works. And we wanted to take the opportunity today to just talk you through what is evolve and how can it help you and your family ⁓ create a roadmap, create a transition strategy, grow your business to the next level, stay together as a family, all of these good things that happen by going through our process. And we like to start with. 

We’re going through this too and we’ve used these tools too because it really does work.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Absolutely. Yeah, so our Evolve program, we’re going to talk to you about that in this podcast today. And it basically is a 12-month guided engagement where a business owner along with successors can come in and do a people-first path to discovering their business transition. So not just the functional side, because we know there are great advisors out there who all help in that area. And they’re absolutely needed in this process. 

This one is the people first approach and in 12 months there’s a guarantee that you’ll have a roadmap forward or we’ll keep working with you at no cost. So we want to walk you through what it is, why it works and we’ve got great success from it.  

Andrea Carpenter:

So I came across a stat recently, Elizabeth, which was 60 % of transitions. And they were talking about wealth transitions and generational transitions that they’re going to fail. And that reason, the gut reaction when I tell someone this is like, well, they didn’t lock down their will enough or they had a bad tax strategy. And so all the money went away and that’s just simply not true. 

That 60 % of transitions failing is actually because the family couldn’t communicate. So it was communication breakdown, miss expectations, people not on the same page. And it was actually only 4 % failing because of legal and tax and ⁓ reasons like that. And so when I think about a business owner or a family who’s about to go through the process, a lot of times when we talk to people, they’re like,

Well, I’m actually about to go talk with my lawyer about a transition strategy. And we work with a lot of amazing lawyers and attorneys and people, and we love our partners and they are 100 % essential in a process like this. But when you start with them, the amount of time that you are going to spend with them talking through the process and what that looks like is drastically increased.

And you’re putting that 60 % of transitions failing because of bad communication at risk. And I think that’s why the industry average success of generational transitions from Gen 1 to Gen 2 is only 30%. And with our clients, the thing we’ve seen is 95 % are successful and they are in step with their family and they’re going through. And I truly believe that it’s the foundational work.

that we help them do on the people’s side of the transition.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

yeah, I completely agree with you on that. It’s incredible. ⁓ You know, there was a recent article that came out in ceoworld.biz is where that’s at. And it was just talking about the $83.5 trillion generational wealth transfer that’s going to happen. And if you think about that, you know, a business, an active functioning operating business is a part.

And usually a big part, statistics say like 80 % of a business owner’s wealth net worth is in that business. So it’s just one of your big assets that you really need to take advantage of and be careful with. And it talked about that’s $83.5 trillion is expected to transition over the next two decades. And it’s going to go into the people’s hands that are really typically unprepared.

So to Andrea’s point, you do need the tax and you need the estate and you need the legal agreements. You have to have all of that. There’s no doubt about it. However, what we’re finding is that advisors are not solving the right problems or they’re solving the right problems, but they’re doing it sometimes in the wrong order. And so as you think about that, how do you get ahead of the game?

The biggest mistake is truly, I think, waiting for a crisis to force an action. Because if you can get ahead of it, it’s so much easier, so much less expensive. In all of the Tiger 21 work that I do, when you have a great family and when you have those great, great, great relationships, those actually become the most valuable asset that you have in your life.

Andrea Carpenter:

you

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Like the money is great, but if you’re not talking to your husband, if you’re not talking to your wife, if your children are not speaking to each other, the cousins don’t know each other, ⁓ employees are unhappy, that is a big deal. That’s no fun.

Andrea Carpenter: 

and that’s what you know.

Yeah. And so when you think about how do I protect those relationships and really bring people I care about with me. And yes, we do work with a lot of families, but we’ve worked with business owners too, who care about their managers or they care about their employees. They’re not related to the people they’re passing on, but they want to leave a legacy. They know that their business has ripple.

positive effect into their community and they just they care about people and wanting to do the right thing. And so there’s something really cool that we’ve started talking about and that’s transition 3.0. And how do you not how do you protect those relationships, especially in a succession scenario, it’s actually involving the successor in designing what looks what that what the future looks like. And so

I’ll just run through on a high level what these are and then Elizabeth add in and anything that you need. If you think of the traditional way that people might’ve done succession planning or wealth transfer planning, you would work with your advisor and then you might pass away. And then everyone would find out there would be like in all the movies, right? Let’s read the will, what happened? Who’s doing what? Transition 2.0. Okay, I designed everything. Everything’s all buttoned up.

Now I’m going to inform and announce to everyone else how I think this transition is going to go. So 3PO is the collaborative design. It’s what we see consistently working because as an owner, you give a choice to the next generation. There’s an opportunity for you to participate here. Would you like to do that? And if they want to, you get to build it with them and you’re no longer doing it to them, but you’re building it together.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah, and that’s such a neat thing. We had ⁓ an expert who works with successors. Typically, they’re successors who have not done well. But it was really interesting a couple of weeks ago. She was talking about the idea of having assets and then being able to match your assets to what the successors’ lives, what they want in their lives, and helping them do that. And I think in transition 1.0 and 2.0,

You’re basically looking at the asset and saying, where’s equality and fairness instead of by design in transition 3.0, looking at what you have and helping to match the assets that you have to the person’s lives. Somebody may want the business and want to come into the business and love it. Other people may choose not to do that and there may be another way where they could see.

some of the opportunities and use the assets to a better benefit. So I thought that was cool. We love the idea of Transition 3.0 ⁓ and you being able to build it with your successors instead of without them.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. And a lot of times we hear from owners, they think they know what other people want. But a lot of that is making big assumptions about what someone else wants. My son definitely wants to come into this business. No, none of my kids have any interest in this business whatsoever. Someone said they don’t want any of the money. My spouse is OK if I keep working. Like all of these things are assumptions. And if it’s not from the mouth,

of the other person and we don’t give them space to kind of think through what they actually want. And sometimes for the next gen, at least in my case, I needed to be educated on what’s actually possible and what it means and how it would affect my life in a positive or negative way so that I could make a decision on if it was something that I wanted to engage in.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah. And that was a great journey that you and I had together. I remember that part. We loved it. ⁓ And it worked out. I don’t think if you hadn’t gone through that process, I don’t think you would have said yes. ⁓ And I’ll add another assumption that I think is really interesting that I’ve seen owners make all the time is that everybody’s going to want this business. Everybody’s going to want these assets. And that is absolutely.

one of the biggest landmines that you can have because, and not even to, you we even sometimes have to think farther out of whether or not, say it’s an employee and you think all your employees are gonna want to come in because they’re your key people and they’re all gonna wanna be there. ⁓ What if one of their spouses isn’t willing if the risk is too big and you’re not even connected with that person, right? So.

They’re influencers that we have to take care of. And again, the people first concept, how do we get them across that finish line? We do it with having less assumptions because our assumptions are landmines.

Andrea Carpenter: 

Yeah. And I think the other thing worth saying here is when you think of transition 3.0, we don’t really want or need to start with how much money is the business worth and how should we transact? Like if you’re already thinking, well, should I gift it? And what’s the tax advantage and over what timeframe is it going to happen? And, maybe that’s not the right structure. Should we do an ESOP or maybe we should like go to an investment bank? Like there are

When you don’t have a clear direction of where you’re going and what’s important to everyone and the objectives that you’re trying to achieve, any advisor in the world that you talk to could convince you why their idea is the best solution for you. And really, as the owner or as the successors, your job is to know what’s important and the things that you’re looking for. And then

As we go through, we call it the transition compass, the essential questions you need to answer to know your direction. As you answer those questions, why, what, who, when, as you get through those questions, it’s easier to say, okay, and now here’s option A, path B, path C that we think are gonna be good options that align with what we want. And that’s gonna work for our people. And I think an advantage is,

We get to help you with that strategy and we have so many amazing advisors and CPAs and lawyers and ESOP experts and all these other people, right? So if you’re like, yeah, that is the right path for us or we’re gonna do this or no, we’re just gonna do a buy sell agreement or we need to redo our estate plan, then you can go to those advisors, work with them. You’re already very clear on what you want and they can help you at a better level, a faster level than if you just went to them first.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

and sometimes at a cheaper level. Because yeah, your job is to really become clear about what you want and your why. And once you have that, then you’ll have a strategy forward because you’ll know where you want to go. That’s a really grounding feeling instead of being kind of spinning and lost. So and then your advisors actually can come together and create the structure to support where you want to be.

in your roadmap as you’re designing it, many times, of course, you’re talking to your advisors because you’re learning, you’re growing, like, hey, if I want this, what do you think? And then all of those conversations still happen. It’s just that by the time you say, okay, this is the direction I want to go, now let’s go build the structure, that typically saves you a lot of money because the advisors ⁓ are expensive. And we’ve had seen people that have

been doing this for a year, two years, three years, they’ve been thinking about it and still haven’t finalized. They’re still spending money with those advisors.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, for sure. So Elizabeth, someone might be listening to this. Like, is this even a fit for me? And I think there’s a couple different types of people that we see that this ends up being a really good fit for. And the first is actually the owner. Like you’ve been working hard, you’ve been growing your business 15, 20 years, but you’re like, I am having so much fun. I want to keep growing this and I want to do it a little bit longer. Like I have 10 years left.

But are my kids even interested? Is someone going to be able to become the CEO? What is going to happen and what are my options? And when you do that, again, it opens up your world. Your options are the most, the further out that you are. And it also gives you a great opportunity to continue to build that value of the business and have a lot of fun as you do it.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah, yeah, because the best time to plan is really when you don’t need to leave. And I think, you you’ve heard that before, the best time to go get a line of credit is when you don’t really need it. ⁓ The best time to plan and to build a roadmap is when you aren’t ready to leave. It gives you, again, your vision forward will shift and you’ll be able to walk down that with more confidence. You’ll also lead people better. And you definitely would have a

an idea in your mind of what is your next adventure look like? How do you want to live it? How much money is it going to take? Start to really look at your financial side over this, if you have 10 years left. Start to look at that and start to know that you’re going to start to have a little bit more fun. Building a business is fun. It also is challenging and it’s all in and you might be ready to just start to do some other fun things.

Not work is hard. Give other people an opportunity to grow.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. And it’s really about building optionality, not pushing you out. A lot of people hear like business transition or succession and it’s like little like alarm bells go off in their head. Like everything’s going to change. I’m going to have to leave. That’s really not the goal at all. There can be a roadmap and we’ve seen roadmaps with owners who are working and they plan to work until they die because they’re having so much fun and they love it. So really it’s about

communicating what you want to make sure that the business that you have been building for so long is supporting you in your path.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah.

That’s such a funny one because you made me smile and laugh inside a little bit because it’s incredible when an owner ends up with some of their kids inside of a company. They just go in to see the kids and work with the kids. They just want to stick around and they thought they were leaving when they actually stayed and enjoyed it.

Andrea Carpenter:

Mm hmm.

Yeah. And so we love it when when our family stays together and everyone’s happy. But there are people out there who are worried about family dynamics. I mean, it’s it’s out there everywhere. And almost everyone, unfortunately, knows a story of a family or a family business that’s tearing people ⁓ apart. Or they have this fear, right? They’re on the precipice like, no one really wants to talk.

about it. It’s like the elephants in the room when you think of family dynamics inside of a business.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah, and the concept of avoidance, ⁓ know, when you can feel those issues there, ⁓ avoiding them, that is a decision. You do have a choice, and people will come in all the time and go, well, I really just didn’t have a choice. And I’m like, well, actually you do. It’s just that the choice isn’t easy, right? It’s not the one that you would love to hit that easy button and make it happen.

So avoidance is a decision and it’s usually the worst one because those little landmines that are sitting there, the little things that are, you know, the little tension points, ⁓ if you can address them, a couple of things happen. One is you clear the air and you get those taken care of in this people first idea. The second thing is you can hit, in a way, a little bit of a reset button. And what we’ve found is then people are

closer once they decide they’re not going to avoid it. They dive in and they’re brave. This is one of the reasons why I love and do this work and have done it for so long, is helping people not to have their family blown up. That’s the worst thing that can happen. Your relationship’s gone ⁓ or have tension for years when if you were able to just walk through it together, that tension goes away.

You have the opportunity to reset some of that.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. Okay. And then the third, a lot of times you’ll start talking to an owner and everything that they’ve done for the last 23 years has been the business. And they have a lot of identity wrapped up inside of the business. And they honestly just don’t know what’s next for them personally. And so they’re a little paralyzed and they don’t really see a clear path forward out of the business. ⁓

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yes.

So if you want to think about it, your next chapter, this next adventure that you’re thinking about going on, ⁓ it isn’t a question about retirement, especially if you make time your friend. ⁓ It isn’t about retirement. This roadmap, this journey that you’re on is about finding your purpose outside of the business and living that life. And sometimes we just get so

focused and we know, we only know ourselves inside of the business. That’s the only way we see ourselves. And so there’s a little bit of fear in that. And so there’s identity work that can be done. Figuring out, it’s a Japanese term, figuring out your ikigai, ⁓ your reason for getting out of bed in the morning, what’s next for you. And it’s okay. Like Andrea said earlier, it’s okay to stay until you’re no longer on the planet.

even if it turns out to be when you’re 90 and now people might even be living to 100. But what you want is to understand what’s next for you, figure out your reason for getting out of bed, do some identity work, and make sure that you’re going to give other people an opportunity to take this business forward. Because if you stay too long, it will not go well.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. So I think that identity work is a big piece and I’ll just chime in as a successor. A lot of times the successor sees, you’ll see your owner struggling with this maybe before the owner even realizes it. ⁓ Yeah. And so there are, there are ways and we can help you figure out like, how would I bring this up or how would we start talking about it? And a lot of times that’s again, putting it back on you, but we could maybe do another episode.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

So true.

Andrea Carpenter:

someday.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

someday. Yeah, it’s

really interesting. don’t sometimes we all of us we know we don’t see our blind spots. We don’t know, you know, what we’re sometimes what we’re doing. And it’s great to have, in my opinion, with my successor, it’s great to have her give me her vision and her through her lens what she’s seeing in me. It’s helped me to grow as a person and I’ve so enjoyed it.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, no, I’ve it’s fun. We always say it’s a journey. And that’s definitely true for us. We started talking about this almost two and a half years ago. And here we are today still on our journey, which is fun. So that’s really the concept behind evolve is as you go on a journey with your family or as a solo owner and think about what’s next. There’s things that you will need along the way.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Hey, isn’t she?

Andrea Carpenter:

And so we have our transition compass. have our transition roadmap. Those would be core pieces that you would want ⁓ or need as you start to navigate forward and think about what is the direction that we’re going. And remember, a roadmap is always something that is changeable and flexible and a lot there. So our promise, if you decide to join Evolve, is that you can complete your roadmap in as little as 60 days, and you can spend the rest of your year

implementing with support. Some families want to go faster, some families need to go a little bit slower. Sometimes we’re inviting people in or it’s harder to bring everyone together. So the program is really built on flexibility for you. Each month you’ll get time with your transition guide. This is our team of facilitators who are absolutely amazing humans and people ⁓ that we would trust with our families in our work to come in and really

guide you in a direction, help point out things that they see, and help get you to that strategy as fast as you need. And we also know that sometimes one-on-one support and continuing to learn and see other ways and how other people are navigating and looking at things. So our group labs bring everyone in the transition community together two times a month to get support and learn how other people are navigating and thinking through these challenges.

When you come in, there’s an interactive platform that everyone can access. So you’re building your roadmap and this big tool where everyone has access to all the tools and you can add things in and they really just become a living tool, not a static document. And to make sure that it’s really special and we can give everyone attention, we only take eight new clients every single month when they come into the evolve program. So Elizabeth, I would love for you to share a little bit about.

That’s obviously the what, which is important, but really, what is the transformation that we expect that everyone will have when they come into evolve?

Elizabeth Ledoux:

The idea behind this and the reason why we ask for a year commitment is because it takes time for you to change and shift your behavior and to get you thinking about this. You’ve to get your head and your heart around it and start going forward. ⁓ The reason why it works is your commitment is important and then you’ve got real facilitation, not just templates and hopes. You’ve got really somebody who’s

⁓ standing with you and helping you again to see things that you’re not seeing, but also give you paths forward that are the right ones for you.

Andrea Carpenter:

And that strategic foundation is really critical. And again, keeping people together, we don’t need it to fail because people weren’t communicating. But also before you go to the legal teams or the CPAs and you start getting draft documents, let’s get that foundation in place to save you time and money there.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

It’s designed again for the relationships. It’s not just the logistics. Again, those relationships typically become the most important thing for you moving forward. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a person come in spinning from all the different options in front of them. They go through this evolve program and those options that they’re spinning with really boil down.

logically, because you know I’m an engineer by background, think, they boil down logically into like the one, two, or three best paths forward. It is so easy to see where you’re headed.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, and I would say again, transition 3.0, that focus on relationships, that’s how we achieve that 95 success, 95 % success rate over the industry average of 30.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah. So when transitions fail, relationships are almost always damaged, if not always. There is business value loss typically, and you can end up in years of conflict and have estranged children, people who are really angry not talking to each other. I have such a great family and I’ve been blessed with that.

We, years ago when I was young, we went through a small conflict and I remember being so close to my cousins and then all of a sudden we really weren’t having Christmas that well together and I actually just didn’t understand it. I was only about 12 years old and I want to share that story with you because you, when you go through this, know, think about the generations and all the people that you’re going to touch. Now I’m close to my cousins again, but it took probably 10 years.

Andrea Carpenter:

Thanks.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

I lost about 10 years with them and finally when I got a little bit older, was able to rebuild some of those relationships myself. think about the ripple effect and who is really going to be affected by some of your decisions that you’re making.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, we almost think of Evolve as your insurance policy against anything falling. So ⁓ if you’re serious about keeping the business in your family and protecting what you’ve built, when you think about legacy, we believe that Evolve will be a professional, intentional transition strategy builder for you.

I think, yeah, I was going to say, Elizabeth, people are like, OK, I kind of get it. But like, has it actually worked before? And we’ve helped hundreds of families do this work. And I thought we could share a a couple stories of some people that we’ve helped.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah,

absolutely. So, you know, when family comes to mind, ⁓ just top of mind that we worked with, and it’s a second generation family, so money was built and businesses built and had many businesses actually, because they were a very successful family. So second generation ⁓ was now in charge of the businesses. They knew they needed to do something and they were putting it off.

just because it was so complicated. And the second generation, they were approaching 80 years of age, so needed to do something. They knew it. The trigger was, in this case, one of the sons found out about a will, and the family had a huge blow up, ⁓ up to the dad didn’t know how to talk to the son, and the son was very angry about what was happening, and it was really pretty sad. So we got engaged at that point.

and we started helping them to really understand what had happened. And it took about a year and a half, truly, to get that dad and son back to where they were working well together. We took it as though an opportunity to deepen their relationship instead of like get through it. What happened and we deepened that relationship. So that was an opportunity that we used to get them on the same page again. And then once they were on the same page,

The family walkthrough are the evolved process and they built out a roadmap that they have today. The next gen is included. They did build it together and now the family is aligned and working together. So that is one story of a great family and a good outcome in this case

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. So even if things feel dire already, what I hear is certainly still possible. And then I wanted there, there’s another great example, clients who recently ⁓ finished building the first draft of their roadmap. These are 50 50 business partners. They’re not related. ⁓ Each of them have kids that they think might come into the business someday. One, one kid on each side.

And one of the owners, actually his daughter, is already involved. And she’s been in the business for about five years. So she came to them and asked if they could start to talk about what a transition plan might look like, because she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to come in. But her dad was already starting to come out. So when they came to us, they already had their draft plan. They thought it would take three to four years for her dad to exit the business.

As they worked through the big kind of aha that I witnessed them go through was ⁓ that it could actually happen now. They didn’t have to wait ⁓ for her dad to exit the business and she did want to come in. So now ⁓ her dad is gonna start departing soon and the other partner is gonna remain on and she’s gonna step into leadership sooner and be mentored by the other partner. And the other partner wants to leave the door open in case

his son decides that he wants to come in someday. So I think that is a great kind of very proactive look at a business who said, we think we might want to do this. We think this might be a path. Let’s explore what it would look like to make sure that it’s a good fit for everyone.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah, and those are the stories that we know take less time, less emotion, less conflict, less friction, and work well. So the first family that we talked about, that was a reactive situation. They waited until something bad happened or there was a challenge in a relationship before they decided to jump in. And now they’re doing really well, but we had to go through that year and a half of rough water.

in order to even get to a place where we could start to talk about a roadmap forward together. Then the second one was, again, a family that was so much more proactive. So more love the stories. You don’t have to wait for a blow up. And I just want you to pause for a second as you’re listening here and ask yourself, what is your motivator to start? We all know someday we’re leaving these businesses.

There’s no way around it. You’re going to leave vertically or horizontally, one way or the other. What’s your motivation and your motivator to start? Do you want to be proactive or reactive? Because it truly is your choice. You can delay and wait, or you can choose to be proactive and explore and figure it out. One more thing, you can do this to begin with on your own. Even if you don’t have a successor, my story,

is I did not know Andrea when I did my roadmap. I decided though, because of my team, they wanted to have a plan B. And so I just went through our process and used the tools that we have. About a year and a half later, I met Andrea and I realized, my gosh, she’s the right one for me. So you can do this by yourself even if you don’t have a successor in mind.

Andrea Carpenter:

This is good.

Yeah, no, I love that. And I think you said it right, transitions a journey, not an event. It’s not like this thing that is going to happen someday. So go on a journey, invite people in with you and just have, you can have a lot of fun along the way too.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Absolutely. and the best time, truly the best time to start is now in the near future. Whether you’re leaving in two years or 12 years, it doesn’t matter. This is about your life, it’s about your journey, it’s about relationships and people that you care about. And it’s about helping everybody get what they want and use the business to be the wings, the wind underneath the wings instead of the anchor that destroys.

⁓ everything that you’ve tried to build in your family and in your relationships.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah, and it can feel like you need to button some things up before you come. Like, oh, it’s a ways away, not quite ready yet, need to figure out X, Y, Z first. I would say that’s really not true. The whole process is designed to walk you through and introduce questions that maybe you didn’t even know you needed to think about. So you can be even more prepared.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Absolutely. So people sometimes believe that they cannot have legacy and harmony together. In our process, we’ve proven that you can have legacy and harmony together. And not only can you have it, it is absolutely more successful when you do.

Andrea Carpenter:

So you’re like, okay, I might be interested in doing this. We do have a promise to our clients that in 12 months, you’ll know where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, and that the people you care about are in step with you. And if you don’t have a roadmap at the end of the 12 months, we’ll just keep working with you for free until your roadmap’s complete. So know that that’s really the process and whatever you decide or whatever the roadmap says at the end of that, it’s really It’s really driven by you and we’re just here to help guide you through that.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

So that we can help you to make sure that you’re the right person and the right one for this kind of a process because we do know this process well. There is an application process that you would go through. We want this to be successful for you and not have you start if you’re not ready. So if you are interested, you can apply at transitionstrategist.com.

And just as a reminder, we take eight clients per month so that we can make sure that we bring you through the process and that you have all the attention that you need.

Andrea Carpenter:

Yeah. as Micah and I are the two people most likely to ⁓ review your application, we can’t accept every business because not everyone cares about their people. And so that’s really why we have our application and our filtering process. Call it an interview, but we need to make sure it’s a good fit on both sides because we don’t need to work with people if you only care about

selling your business for the maximum amount of money, then I can refer you to plenty of other advisors who would be great support to help you do that. And really our process is about making sure that you can take care of those people that you care about. ⁓

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Absolutely.

you’re going to make an investment of money in this, absolutely there. But you’re also going to make ⁓ an investment of your time. And time is a very valuable resource these days. So we want to make sure, again, that you’re right for this process and that both your investment of time and money is going to be of a high value for you. And you’re going to get the return that we want you to get. So.

If you think you’re not ready to make the application, there are a lot of resources on our website. And we still want you to start engaging now. We want to encourage you to do that. ⁓ Because the earlier you engage, the more options you’re going to have and the better thinking you’re going to have. I think you’ll feel grounded and good in just starting to learn if you’re not ready to go for the program yet.

Andrea Carpenter:

lesson.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

So yeah, keep building. That’s what’s next. ⁓ we want you to, in my work over the last, gosh, 25 plus years, the one thing that makes me so sad and really, I could say, irritates me, right? That’s in our Pathfinder program. What irritates you the most and motivates you the most? Well, one thing that irritates me the most and motivates me the most is people doing nothing. It’s like, I can’t.

even take a small step because I don’t know my big step. don’t know where I’m going. I want everybody to take a small step. I want to encourage you to do that. It’s so important.

Andrea Carpenter:

Mm, yeah, and remember, it’s a journey, not an event.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Yeah, so be in the 95 % that make it and are successful and check us out. We’d love to see you.

Andrea Carpenter:

We’re so happy to share this with you and you can always reach out directly to me on LinkedIn or via email. I’m Andrea at transition strategist.com if you have any specific questions.

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Andrea, thank you for taking this time. This has been great.

Andrea Carpenter:

awesome.

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