Customers and shareholders of Apple are beginning to wonder if the company can continue to be as successful as it was when Steve Jobs was at the helm. Their last two new product releases have not sold as well as expected, and fans are disappointed with what they see as a lack of innovation and style. When someone as influential and visionary as Steve Jobs exits a business, albeit in his case through his untimely death, it is always going to be difficult to fill the void.
This is an extreme example, of course, but it illustrates the importance of exit planning and how getting it wrong or ill-timed can have an enormous impact on the success and indeed the survival of the business. The worrying aspect of this scenario is the number of businesses that don’t have an exit strategy. Worse still are the number of owners who do not know what exit planning means.
Exit planning is a structured process through which the business is made ‘exit-ready’ for the time that the owner decides to either sell the business or hand it over to someone else to run. This is not an easy process to undertake, especially since most business owners have invested considerable emotional capital as well as time and money in their enterprise. That is why Affinity Accounting Plus recommends that an exit plan be prepared with the assistance of an independent expert.
For an exit plan to be successful, the owners must be completely objective about their business and its value to someone else. It is also vital that they start the process with a specific financial outcome and timeframe in mind. This is their end goal and will define every decision that will go into the composition of the exit plan. Many of these businesses are also managing their own superannuation through an SMSF so these investments and the management of the fund must also be taken into consideration in any exit strategy.
These are complex and difficult decisions, yet many people think they can do this on their own. The reality, however, is different. Without assistance from an experienced outside party, their exit plan never gets off the ground. It gets lost in the daily detail of running a business and becomes that job that they must get to, but never do. Affinity Accounting Plus knows this and helps clients maintain focus so they conclude the process with a functioning exit plan.
A successful exit plan plots a path for the owner to hand the keys to a new owner and walk away without any detriment to the business. This adds value as the new owner can see a return on investment that is clearly projected into the future. Are you thinking about retirement and want the sale of your business to partially fund it? Do you need assistance in putting an exit plan together? Visit www.affinityplus.com.au and put yourself in their expert hands.
