Walking to Destiny: 11 Actions an Owner Must Take to Rapidly Grow Value & Unlock Wealth
For Business Owners. By a Business Owner.
Walking to Destiny is not only your essential resource to understand what makes your business attractive and ready for transition; it is a business owner’s handbook to know HOW TO rapidly grow value and ultimately unlock the personal wealth trapped in your most significant financial asset: Your Business.
The Voice of the Industry:
Christopher M. Snider, CEPA, CEO of the Exit Planning Institute, creator of the Value Acceleration Methodology, and Managing Partner of Snider Premier Growth is recognized as a thought leader and trendsetter in the field of value acceleration and exit planning. With a message that resonates with entrepreneurs across the country, Chris is a sought-after speaker for many major companies, trade industries, and the associated organizations that are dedicated to service the transition and growth needs of owners.
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Recommended Reading
While these books are not sold through the Exit Planning Institute, we recommend these books to any professional interested in learning more on topics in the exit planning ecosystem.
EPI receives a portion of the sale of the following resources.
The Ultimate Sale: A Financially Simple Guide to Selling a Business for Maximum Profit
If you own a business and plan to retire one day, the sale of your business MUST be part of your retirement strategy. Are you like most business owners with all of your net worth tied up in your business? If you only have 20% chance of selling your business, that can be devastating. Even if you are lucky enough to be in the minority who do sell, will you get what you need from the sale to live the lifestyle you want to live?
The good news is, The Ultimate Sale, written by Certified Exit Planning Advisor, Goodbread, owner of FinanciallySimple.com, can help you beat those staggering odds and build your business for its final sale by teaching you:
- What business appraisers look for when they assess your company’s value.
- Why growing your business’s value is more important than increasing its sales.
- What your business’s intangible assets are and how they could be more valuable than tangible assets.
Poised for Exit: A Woman Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Transition
Regardless of your age, gender, industry, or company size, you will eventually need to exit from your business. How well you exit is largely dependent upon how well and early you plan. This book is meant to help prepare you and your firm for an exit based on your own terms.
Your business exit will likely be the biggest financial transaction of your life, and for the majority, you have one shot at doing it right. The tools and checklists in this book are meant to help you lay some of the groundwork. It will also give you a guide for what comes after an exit.
Buyouts – Success for Owners, Management, PEGs, Families, ESOPs, and Mergers and Acquisitions
A must-have book for business owners, key employees, and their advisors who need to be aware of the full spectrum of succession options, Buyouts provides objectives, advice, steps, and a host of examples on the full spectrum of insider-led buyouts. A roadmap for CPAs, it presents the parameters for many of the major industry segments, techniques for managing risk, providing retention and performance incentives for key personnel and insights into getting deals financed.
- Features advice and examples of insider led buyouts
- Essential guidance on succession options for business owners, key employees, and their advisors
- The 411 on selling your company for a fair price, maintaining control over the process, and realizing lifelong goals
Transition planning is becoming a hot business topic as millions of business owners head into retirement. The fact is that only a limited number of privately held companies will be successfully sold to third parties. A roadmap for CPAs, Buyouts presents the parameters for many of the major industry segments, techniques for managing risk, providing retention and performance incentives for key personnel, as well as insights into getting deals financed.
Estate Planning for the Blended Family
Every family is different, and blended families — defined as those with children from previous marriages or couplings — can be even more difficult to plan for. When dealing with complicated family situations, cookie-cutter estate plans just don’t work. Estate planning can be difficult as the subject matter can seem complex for non-lawyers, and family members can be hesitant to clearly voice their opinions on touchy matters. However, planning the future of your family’s estate is crucial for the emotional and financial well-being and stability of all family members, and having everything in order will bring invaluable peace of mind.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: L. Paul Hood, Jr. and Emily Bouchard
L. Paul Hood, Jr. is a frequent speaker and commentator on estate planning issues. He is widely quoted and his articles have been published in a number of journals, including CCH Journal of Practical Estate Planning, Estate Planning, Digest of Federal Tax Articles, Louisiana Bar Journal, and Tax Ideas. In addition to serving on the Louisiana Board of Tax Appeals, he was a sponsored speaker for distinguished law schools such as Duke, Georgetown, NYU, LSU, Tulane, and Loyola.
Emily Bouchard, BA, MSSW, is the managing partner of Wealth Legacy Group and founder of Blended-Families, LLC, where expert coaches make a positive difference in the lives of stepfamilies and inheritors. She has been featured on The Today Show and NPR, is the author of several e-books, and speaks internationally on issues relating to blended families and the emotional impact of wealth.
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Exit Right: How to Sell Your Startup, Maximize Your Return and Build Your Legacy
Before you sell your company, even the odds.
While a successful entrepreneur may exit a handful of companies in their lifetime, large buyers close deals all the time. Without decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions, founders don’t have the tools they need to get the best results for themselves, their teams, or the new parent company.
Through dozens of interviews with M&A leaders at the biggest Silicon Valley acquirers—as well as attorneys, bankers, and founders who have been through the trenches—Exit Right delivers the hard-earned lessons that lead to successful exits. From negotiation to valuation to breaking down a term sheet, managing legal costs, and handling emotional turbulence—this unparalleled guide covers every critical aspect of a technology startup sale.
Learn where deals get into trouble, how to create alignment between negotiating parties, and what terms you should care about most. Above all, learn how to win in both the short and the long term, maximizing your price while positioning your company for a legacy you can be proud of.
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Mergers & Acquisitions from A to Z
Best Practices for Structuring Profitable Deals During Turbulent Markets * Effective Ways to Raise the Capital Needed to Get Deals Done * New Due Diligence Rules and Strategies in the Age of Sarbanes-Oxley * Guidelines for Keeping Deals On Track and Managing Post Closing Challenges * Valuable Tools, Checklists, and Sample Forms
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Built to Sell
If you’re like most business owners, you started a company because you thought it would give you freedom—to do what you want, work on your own schedule, make the kind of money you deserve and eventually retire on the fruits of your labor.
Unfortunately, according to John Warrillow, most owners find that stepping out of the picture is extremely difficult because they’ve built a business that relies too heavily on their personal involvement. Without them, their company—no matter how big or profitable—is essentially worthless. Luckily, there are steps you can take—no matter what stage your business is in—to create a valuable, sellable company that can grow and thrive without you.
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Business Exit Planning: Options, Value Enhancement, and Transaction Management for Business Owners
For many business owners, cashing out of a business is a lifelong dream. For some, exiting a business can be a nightmare. Business Exit Planning: Options, Value Enhancement, and Transaction Management for Business Owners provide a comprehensive view of what every business owner needs to know to plan and execute a business exit. The book
- Includes 30 relevant mini-case studies on business exit planning and transaction management, as well as a glossary of frequently used technical terms
- Details options for those owners who no longer want to be active in the business, as well as for those who want to remain invested
- Covers a wide range of topics related to business exit planning and transaction management, including IPO, MBO, refinancing, ESOPs, building an exit team, business plan and valuation, due diligence, and estate planning
Regardless of whether a business owner seeks an immediate exit or a staged exit over time, Business Exit Planning provides a comprehensive strategy and roadmap to define exit-related objectives.
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The Business Reference Guide
Now in its 25th year, the 2015 Business Reference Guide is the essential guide to pricing businesses.
With up-to-date rules of thumb and pricing details on 700 types of businesses, this guide is a must-have for transaction brokers, accountants, attorneys, business appraisers, banks, business-lending institutions, professional advisors—anyone involved with privately owned business.
Now available online, users enjoy all the data they depend on in the book with the additional benefit of keyword searching, personalized printing, continual updates throughout the year, and more!
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Business Valuations for Dummies
This book is filled with expert guidance that business owners, managers at all levels, investors, and students can use when determining the value of a business. It contains a solid framework for valuation, including advice on analyzing historical performance, evaluating assets and income value, understanding a company’s financial statements, estimating the cost of capital, business valuation models, and how to apply those models to different types of businesses. Co-authored by James Bates, MBA, CEPA a member of the Exit Planning Institute.
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The Market Value Approach
The Market Value Approach – Is must reading for any business advisor who performs or uses business valuations. The Market Approach to Valuing Businesses will show you how to successfully reach a fair and reasonable agreement on value. Whether you’re buying, selling, or valuing a business, the market approach is the most widely accepted method of determining the value of a business or partnership. This book is another tremendous valuation resource written by Shannon Pratt, the grandfather of business valuation. Be sure to check out the workbook that accompanies this book. A classic that keeps getting better with each new edition.
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Middle Market M & A: Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting
In-depth coverage of the middle market in a single volume—based on the body of knowledge of the Certified M&A Advisor® credential program
If you own, operate, or advise a middle market company, what does this mean for you and your clients when thinking about shareholder liquidity, selling or buying a business? And how can you improve the odds of getting a deal done?
A vital tool for all business professionals interested in understanding mergers, acquisitions, exits and strategic transactions for middle market companies, Middle Market M&A: A Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting is a must-read for investment bankers; M&A intermediaries and specialist; CPA’s and accountants; valuation experts; deal and transaction attorneys; wealth managers and investors; corporate development leaders; consultants and advisors; lenders; and CEOs, CFOs and board members.
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Million Dollar Consulting Tool Kit
Million Dollar Consulting Tool Kit is perfect for business brokers and other deal people. This practical toolbox provides specific checklists, guidelines, templates, and actual examples for each and every step of the consulting process. It covers marketing, sales, meetings, implementation, follow-up, invoicing, practice management, insurance, equipment, subcontracting, and scores of other elements. It belongs in every professional advisor’s library.
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Ownership Thinking
How to End Entitlement and Create a Culture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit
It’s an insidious disease that is crippling companies, destroying our economy, and crushing potential. It’s infecting the very roots of business performance, and it’s spreading fast. It isn’t the recession, market volatility, scandal, or greed.
It’s entitlement. And it may be killing your business.
In myriad ways, entitlement has been cultivated for decades. As a result, too many employees today believe that they are entitled to a paycheck simply because they show up. Brad Hams has proven that we are not doomed to a path of entitlement and dependence. Over 15 years of working with hundreds of companies, he knows that the vast majority of employees addicted to entitlement actually want to engage, want to contribute, and feel much better about themselves when they are in an environment that requires them to do so. Now, with Ownership Thinking, Hams shares his strategy that will increase your company’s productivity, employee retention, and profitability:
The Right Education: Teach employees the fundamentals of business and finance, how their company makes money, and how they add or take away-value.
The Right Measures: Identify the organization’s Key Performance Indicators and teach employees to forecast results in an environment of high visibility and accountability.
The Right Incentives: Create incentive plans that are self-funding, and clearly align employees’ behavior to the organization’s business and financial objectives.
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Private Capital Markets 2nd Edition
This theoretical and practical guide gives readers important insights into the workings of the private capital markets so that they can make sound investment and financing decisions.
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Selling Your Business to Your Employees
Selling Your Business to Your Employees: Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) & Worker-Owned Cooperatives is an easy-to-understand guide for owners of small and medium-sized businesses interested in exploring selling to employees as an exit strategy. Learn how employee ownership can:
- Allow you to sell some or all of your ownership stake while taking advantage of significant tax breaks for you and the company.
- Position the company for future growth, enhanced productivity and performance, while also rewarding the people that helped build the business.
- Provide you with the flexibility of maintaining an ongoing role in the business if desired.
To order, contact the Ohio Employee Ownership Center at 330-672-3028
Selling to an ESOP – 11th Edition
Selling to an ESOP – 11th Edition is a comprehensive guide for owners, managers, and advisors of closely held companies considering setting up an ESOP to buy part or all of the owner’s stock (s). The first half of the book describes how ESOps work and discusses basic considerations for selling to an ESOP, ranging from valuation to financing. The second half of the book focuses on the tax-deferred Section 1042 “rollover” that allows selling shareholder(s) in closely held companies to indefinitely defer capital gains taxation on the proceeds from the sale to an ESOP. The 11th edition has been revised to tighten up the organization of the book and to reflect recent changes in law and practice
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The Speed of Trust
According to Stephen MR Covey, trust is one of the essential elements of business, and the ability to create, preserve and restore trust has become one of the most important skills today, inside and outside the office. In the book The Speed of Trust, Covey gives readers all the key tools to cultivating trust in their relationships, while offering up the wisdom of other great business leaders on the topic.
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The Speed of Trust
According to Stephen MR Covey, trust is one of the essential elements of business, and the ability to create, preserve and restore trust has become one of the most important skills today, inside and outside the office. In the book The Speed of Trust, Covey gives readers all the key tools to cultivating trust in their relationships, while offering up the wisdom of other great business leaders on the topic.
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Valuing a Business, 4th Edition
For nearly two decades, and through three previous editions, Valuing a Business has provided trusted, complete business valuation for experienced business valuation analysts, beginning analysts and students, and all professionals needing complete valuation information. Its clear, concise explanations of valuation methods and conclusions have made it the classic text against which all other valuation books are measured.
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The Master Plan: Exit Strategy For Successful Business Owners
The Master Plan offers timeless wisdom, practical advice and enduring strategy to meet the needs and challenges of a new generation of business owner, who want to be prepared to exit their businesses.
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Every Family’s Business: 12 Common Sense Questions to Protect Your Wealth
Every Family’s Business challenges the idea that successful family businesses must keep family issues and business issues separate. Tom believes this separation is impossible and that most family businesses are set up from the beginning to fail because they attempt it.
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Additional Books by CEPAs
Many of our CEPAs have written books about exit planning, business growth, entrepreneurship, and leadership. We have listed a few books from CEPAs below. Are you a CEPA and an author?
Let us know about your book! Contact Colleen Kowalski with more information about your book!
EPI receives a portion of the sale of the following resources.
Run It Like You’ll Sell It: Adopting the Seller’s Mindset to Maximize the Value of Your Business
As few as 20% of companies that are put on the market ever sell. A performance like that won’t even get you a swing of the bat in the minor leagues. Reading Run It Like You’ll Sell It will improve your batting average and likely let you swing for the fences and score big time. Without a doubt, one day you will no longer own your business….so shouldn’t you start planning for that day? The longer you wait to work on the sale of your business, the more value you will lose. On the flip side, the sooner you prepare for your eventual sale, the more you will likely receive from a buyer. That’s a good thing.
Run It Like You’ll Sell It lays out the process to get your company ready for sale to maximize the value of your business in a simple, easy-to-follow manner. By adopting the Seller’s Mindset, you will be constantly prepared for one of the most important events of your life.
Enjoy It: Business Succession & Exit Planning
Most people go into business not only to earn an income but also to build the value of their equity and to sell, but many business owners do not develop a strategic plan for exiting their businesses – without one, the value in your business will retire when you do.
Succession Plus spells out a practical 21-step succession planning process suitable for any business owner, no matter what their circumstances. Investing the time to develop a succession plan is one of the most important financial decisions a business owner may ever make.
Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust
Your Exit Map covers the various strategies for transferring a business to new ownership. It describes the features that attract different classes of buyers, how they target companies for acquisition, and their methodologies for assigning value.
This is not an exit planning encyclopedia. Your Exit Map offers a high-level overview of how to use simple tools to determine the balance of priorities between your retirement timeframe, financial goals, and your desire to preserve the legacy of what you’ve built. It explains sales through business brokers, competitive acquisitions, private equity, leveraged buyouts, ESOPs and family transfers; describing the parameters for extracting maximum proceeds from each approach.
Your Exit Map also features interviews with owners who have exited their businesses with varying levels of success. In their own words, they describe the best and worst things that happened as they prepared to exit, during the process, and afterward. Their stories bring home the joys and pitfalls that accompany such a major change in lifestyle.
The Business Owner’s Dilemma: Take Control of the Mental Chatter, Clarify Your Ideal Future, and Enjoy the Success You’ve Earned
Too many business owners aren’t enjoying the success they’ve earned.
The pressure of continuing growth while also planning their existing success leaves most owners overwhelmed.
After serving as a guide and partner to some of the world’s most successful business owners for nearly twenty years, author Ali Nasser identified three critical dilemmas challenging their minds:
1. The Re-Investment Dilemma™: How do I re-invest my success?
2. The Legacy Dilemma™: What is it all for?
3. The Exit Dilemma™: What is my best exit strategy?
Your Baby’s Ugly: Maximize the Value of Your Business or You’ll Have Nothing to Sell
This book helps you improve your business in eight key areas that will set you up for growth in revenue and profits today, not just for eventually selling your business. Focus on the present as shown, and you’ll have more sales, more profit, and even more exit options.
Those who operate their own company, firm, or practice typically plan for everything ― except success. Too often, business owners focus only on generating an income from their operations; they fail to realize the real payoff comes from building an enterprise that has value beyond the income they earn annually. The result is a squandered opportunity to truly achieve the American Dream.
If you’re a business owner and you want to avoid that mistake, read this book. It could be the best book on entrepreneurship I’ve ever read. It presents a highly realistic view of operating a business and offers practical advice that can make the difference between you selling your business one day for massive amounts of money ― or failing to get even a single offer. The sooner you read this in the life cycle of your enterprise, the better.
Discover Your Next Best Step: 10 Proven Principles of Servant Leadership Wisdom
Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes our intended path is clear. Other times, we find ourselves at a crossroads, struggling to choose between two or more opportunities. Which way should I go? Which path is right for me?
Discover Your Next Best Step: 10 Proven Principles of Servant Leadership Wisdom provides the tools you need to navigate life’s unexpected ups and downs. Showcasing real-life examples from the author’s own triumphs and trials, this book will help you create your own unique roadmap. You don’t need to know your final destination. You simply need to figure out your Next Best Step. That’s it! Implement these Scripture-based principles in your own life, and you’ll be well on your way to deepening your faith and expanding your power of influence. Embrace the journey!
The 5 Critical Succession Conversations: A Comprehensive Guide for the Family Business
Are you struggling with telling your family that you do not want to work in the family business? Do you struggle with convincing your family business to try new ideas or innovations? As the owner, are you struggling with surrendering control to your successors? Do you need more separation between the business and your personal life?
Successfully navigating the succession process within a family business requires a delicate touch. In this book, we explore the difficult conversations that you may encounter along the transition journey and help you anticipate and plan for them with minimal stress. With the goal of maintaining strong family and business relationships while effectively addressing tough subjects, we cover common issues like:-establishing boundaries to preserve the business and personal life-declining an offer to lead the family business-changing the business vision or ways of working under new leadership-convincing the business to try new innovations or ideas-asking for more freedom make your mark-addressing poor performance brought to you by Succession Strength’s top team of business experts including an organizational psychologist, The 5 Critical Succession Conversations: A Comprehensive Guide for the Family Business smooths your succession journey and ensures that your business not only survives but thrives for generations to come.
Don’t Get Bullied by Your Bank…or Anyone Else!: The 5-Step Plan to Exit Your Business With All the Money You Need to Live the Life You Want
Where did the chip on the author’s shoulder come from; such that he wants to protect business owners as they exit for retirement? The chip comes all the way from the rough and tumble streets of Boston to the exclusive offices of private wealth management in Palm Beach.
Callanan takes the reader through his painful rollercoaster journey of generational alcoholism, bullying, and drug addiction as a youth. The book also includes him finding his faith in God. This faith helped him to deal with a baseball bat accident that took the life of a classmate, a family suicide, and more than one business market crash.
The author presents a well-researched argument that Wall Street is operating from a broken 50-year-old model. This broken model will disappoint retirees as they age unless they make risk management a priority in their family portfolios.
This very personal and vulnerable story is told so that the retirement income planning paradigm for business owners is transformed. Callanan wants to educate people on how to exit for all they are worth. It’s an insider’s view that although the odds are against the client, something can be done about it. Nothing is left off the table. The People need to know. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to make sure they are not getting bullied by their financial institutions into taking less than they deserve.
Sell Your Business By Design, Not By Default: A Guide to Selling Your Business for More Money
How can I sell my company for more money?
How do I prepare to sell my company and what do I need to know?
How do I not get clobbered with taxes when I sell?
These are the questions you will have answered when you read “Sell Your Business By Design, Not By Default.” Selling your business may very well be the single largest financial transaction of your life. You need to get it right. There are land mines out there, pitfalls that can cripple you for years to come. You will need to be smart.
“Sell Your Business By Design, Not by Default” is about being smart and getting it right. It is your go-to resource guide for “selling your business for more money” by making smart, informed decisions when selling your business to maximize your profits when you sell, taking care of the well-deserving employees who helped you get there and not let Uncle Sam take too much of your money.
Want updates on the exit planning industry and direct access to our latest content?
Earning the CEPA Credential is the first step in mastering exit planning. Save $1,800 off retail price of all courses when you bundle your CEPA program with the CEPA Exam Prep course and two additional EPI Academy programs: Implementing the 120-Day CEPA Playbook and Practice Launch Lite.
Package Includes:
Certified Exit Planning Advisor Credentialing Program + CEPA Exam Prep Course:
Through the CEPA credential, you will gain the knowledge needed to advance your exit planning practice, protect the value in your business, and engage more effectively with business owners.
The CEPA Exam Prep Course was developed to give you further opportunities for preparation specific to the CEPA Exam and to give you additional touchpoints live with your CEPA Faculty. This course is broken into three weekly sessions prior to the start of your CEPA program. These three sessions are in addition to the Pre-CEPA Onboarding Call that is offered to all attendees at no extra cost.
Implementing the 120-Day CEPA Playbook:
Implementing the 120-Day CEPA Playbook is an expansion of the playbook you receive in your post-CEPA training. Together with Scott Snider, President of the Exit Planning Institute, you will lay the foundation for implementing the training, tools, and knowledge into your practice.
Practice Launch Lite:
A virtual workshop with EPI leadership. Utilizing real-life consulting and exit planning firm, Aspire Management, to show advisors how to implement exit planning into their practices.
This three-module course is an expansion of the playbook and introductory call by the Exit Planning Institute that instructs advisors on the first 120-days post-CEPA program. Together with the creator of the playbook, President of EPI Scott Snider, the attendee will lay the foundation for implementing the training, tools, and knowledge into their practice as either a chargeable service, marketing strategy, or both.
- Platform: EPI Academy
- Style: Online / Self-Paced
The CEPA Exam Prep Course is a recommended add-on course produced by the creators of the CEPA exam and is intended to fully prepare candidates to successfully pass their test with ease. Strengthen your knowledge of exit planning core concepts and expand your opportunities by receiving additional and exclusive insights from your CEPA faculty, along with your own study guide and sample test questions.
This course allows you to focus in on key areas prior to the start of your CEPA program and includes:
- Course walkthrough, core concepts to know, test tips, and Q&A.
- Both a physical and digital version of the CEPA Exam Prep Guide.
Already registered for CEPA, but still want to add on the Exam-Prep Course? Get it here.