Succession Planning BACK Assist in the planning for who will be in charge of your business when you no longer want to be.   Too many business owners don't think about the future, let alone who will take over the business. This decision should be as important as the decisions the business owner makes to keep the company in business. The person who succeeds you as the leader of the business should be someone who is familiar with your business and knows how you have operated the business in recent years. One often-successful method of finding such a person is to talk to your key employees about their goals and desires regarding the business you are in. Such person should have adequate education and the necessary skills to assume the tasks required for managing the business. Most candidates for the position will require some grooming in order to effectively assume the leadership role. When the successor has been identified, the business owner will have to develop an action plan to cause the transition to take place in a timely manner. A well-crafted buy / sell agreement should be used to document that action plan. The methodology used for determining the value of the business enterprise (Business Valuation) should be identified in the buy / sell agreement. This agreement would, then, identify the successor(s) of the business and provide for an orderly transition of the business. Since none of us know when we will be "called up yonder", it is extremely important that the business owner have a well-developed operating plan in place for the business enterprise, including the succession plan. We cannot stress enough, the importance of getting started on this planning process if there is no plan in place. Procrastination only complicates the development of a good succession plan. Jim Erlandsen, CPA, CVA