I know what you’re thinking — it’s “too soon” to think about succession and exit planning.

You’re not alone. That’s what most business owners think, whether they’re five years or three decades into their business journey. But waiting until you’re ready to sell or have to leave the business because of life circumstances means you’ll likely end up like most of your peers: part of the 80% of businesses that go to market and never sell, or among the 70% of family-owned companies that never make it to the second generation.

It doesn’t have to be that way. With advanced planning and intentional strategies, you can exponentially increase the likelihood that you’ll exit on your own terms with clarity, confidence, and control.

Below are five readiness essentials that every business owner should start working on now, no matter your industry.

This article was originally published in the September 2025 issue of Independent Dealer.

1. Solidify Your Financial Foundations

If your financials are rock-solid, great. If not, now’s the time to clean them up.

That means accurate, up-to-date profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow analyses — all prepared in a way that a potential buyer or successor can easily understand.

It might also mean evaluating whether the advisors who’ve helped you so far are the right ones to position your business for a successful transition. Transparency and professionalism in your financials boost both your credibility and your valuation.

2. Clarify and Strengthen Operational Know-How

Can your business run smoothly without you?

Start documenting everything that keeps your operations humming from how you manage vendors and customers to how you deliver your product or service.

Create clear standard operating procedures (SOPs), integrate technology where it helps, and ensure that systems and processes are teachable and transferable. The more your knowledge is embedded in the organization, the more resilient and valuable your business becomes.

3. Cultivate Your Human Capital

Your people aren’t just employees — they’re your company’s most valuable asset and the key to its continuity.

Identify those with deep customer relationships or essential skills and start preparing them for leadership now. Coaching, mentorship, and intentional development not only prepare your next generation of leaders but also make your business more attractive to buyers or successors.

A business that can thrive without being dependent on one person — especially the owner — is a business built to last.

4. Differentiate and Communicate

In a world of sameness, your differentiation is your superpower.

Too many businesses are “the best-kept secret” in their market. Strengthen your brand, clarify your message, and communicate what truly sets you apart.

Whether it’s exceptional service, specialized expertise, community impact, or innovation make sure your market (and potential buyers) know your value. A well-defined and visible brand doesn’t just attract customers it attracts opportunity.

5. Define What a “Good Exit” Looks Like for You

This one’s personal. A “good exit” isn’t just about the money. It’s about what matters most to you.

Maybe it’s keeping the business in your family. Maybe it’s rewarding loyal employees through an internal sale. Maybe it’s maximizing value and moving on to your next adventure.

Knowing your ideal outcome early shapes every decision you make from your financial preparation to who you hire and how you structure deals. Without that clarity, even good offers can create stress and second-guessing. With it, you can move forward with purpose and peace of mind.

Plan to Finish Strong

Succession and exit planning aren’t about endings; they’re about continuity. They’re about ensuring that your business, your people, and your legacy continue to thrive long after you’ve moved on to your next chapter.

The best time to start was yesterday. The second-best time is today.

When you plan with purpose, you give yourself and your business the future you both deserve.

Are you ready for the peace of mind that comes from knowing your financial house is in order, your operations can thrive without you, your people are prepared to carry the torch, and your unique value is clearly understood by the market? Then let's make it happen together!

A few months ago, Dr. Donna Marino and I decided to do a series of LinkedIn Live conversations about grief in business. It’s something we’ve both experienced personally and often find ourselves helping clients navigate.  

We started by looking at what it means to be a business owner or a sudden successor who has to keep everything going while experiencing the sudden loss of a loved one, a prolonged illness, a business partner's passing, or a personal crisis like divorce. By the end of our first conversation, Donna and I had identified ways to think about preparing for, navigating through, and managing grief in your small or family business. 

First and foremost, your main job is to take care of you, the person who is grieving, before you worry about your business. The best way to do that is to prepare for loss when you’re not actively experiencing it.

1. Before the loss: Building a business that can withstand life’s uncertainties

Having a business continuity plan in place means that when a crisis occurs, your team is prepared to support you so you can take care of yourself and your family. 

Legal and financial readiness

Many owners assume that family or team members will “step in” if something happens to them. But assumptions are not strategies which is why succession planning is so important.

• Ensure your will, trust, operating agreement, and power of attorney distinguish between personal and business responsibilities.
  
• Confirm successors or key personnel have legal access to bank accounts, payroll systems, passwords, and contracts.
  
• Consider separate fiduciaries for personal estate management and business continuity, especially in family businesses.
  

Operational continuity planning

If your business depends on you to function day-to-day, it’s more vulnerable than you think.

• Document standard operating procedures across departments.
  
• Cross-train staff for key roles to prevent bottlenecks.
  
• Identify leadership gaps and actively develop successors; don’t just name them.
  

Emotional and leadership resilience

You won’t lead well through grief if you haven’t made it a habit to practice vulnerability and self-awareness. Investing in your ability to manage and cope with stress is one of the best ways to build resilience and overcome adversity.

• Understand your default stress reactions — Do you shut down? Lash out? Over-function?
  
• Practice asking for help and delegating before it becomes a necessity.
  
• Surround yourself with a trusted network of advisors, mentors, and peers who can step in and offer guidance.
  

2. During the loss: Leading through crisis without losing yourself

When grief strikes, leadership is still expected. That doesn’t mean you have to go it alone or go at full capacity.

Communicate honestly with your team

Your people don’t expect perfection, but they do need clarity.

• Be transparent that you're navigating a difficult period.
  
• Set realistic expectations for response times, decision-making, and visibility.
  
• Appoint a trusted team member to act as your proxy where appropriate.
  

Redistribute and prioritize workloads

This is not the time to carry everything on your shoulders.

• Temporarily reassign key decisions or responsibilities.
  
• Defer non-essential initiatives until you're ready to reengage.
  
• Allow room for imperfect execution from yourself and others.
  

Protect your cognitive and emotional capacity

Grief affects your brain. Executive functioning, memory, focus, and emotional regulation all take a hit.

• Avoid making high-stakes decisions in the immediate aftermath of a loss unless absolutely necessary.
  
• Build in time for rest, therapy, or spiritual practices that ground you.
  
• Lean on advisors who can guide the business while you tend to your personal wellbeing.
  

3. After the loss: Rebuilding with intention

Once the initial storm passes, there’s often an urge to “get back to normal.” But a wiser question is: What version of normal do I want now?

Reevaluate your leadership role and business design

Grief changes you. Use that change to create a new relationship to your business that is more aligned to your personal priorities.

• Reassess your long-term vision for your role in the business.
  
• Identify what responsibilities you no longer want or need to carry.
  
• Consider whether your business model or staffing needs to evolve to support your wellbeing and goals.
  

Institutionalize what you’ve learned

Treat your experience as a case study in business resilience.

• Update your succession plan, org chart, SOPs, and legal documents.
  
• Create protocols for handling grief and loss in the workplace not just for you, but for your team.
  
• Build internal practices that reflect a culture of compassion without sacrificing accountability.
  

Shift the culture around grief

Many companies offer one or two days of bereavement leave — often only for immediate family. That doesn't reflect the reality of loss, especially in close-knit or family-run businesses.

• Train leaders to support employees through grief, mental health challenges, and life transitions.
  
• Model vulnerability yourself. Show that strength includes emotion and boundaries.
  
• Normalize conversations around mental wellbeing and sustainable performance.
  

You can be a leader and still be human

Grief is not a detour from leadership; it is leadership. How you prepare for it, how you walk through it, and how you grow from it speaks volumes about the kind of leader you are.

There is no way to avoid loss, but there are many ways to avoid chaos, burnout, and isolation when it happens. If you’re building a business that’s meant to last, grief readiness must be part of your continuity plan in anticipation of the day when it won’t be business as usual. 

Need help preparing your business for the unexpected? At Purpose First Advisors, we help business owners build value and resilience; especially for even when life throws curveballs. Let’s talk.

There are a handful of numbers and other metrics that will help you know if your business is headed in the right direction - toward sustainable, transferable profitability. The KPIs you need and the ones your competitors are probably ignoring are what drive profitability and business value - the two ways your business can, by design, reward you financially and allow you to make your desired impact in the world. 

Enterprise Value Assessment (EVA)

If KPIs are the compass you use to know if you’re on the right track, then an Enterprise Value Assessment (EVA) lets you accurately draw the map you use to get to your destination. To really know what’s driving value creation and sustainably profitable growth for your business you need to add an EVA to your annual planning. 

Right now, your annual plan demonstrates how you’ve decided to allocate resources to improve year-over-year performance with an emphasis on financial outcomes. The EVA will turn your annual plan into a value acceleration roadmap that ensures you won’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term, short-lived financial gains. An EVA will tell you whether you have a 

• Profit Gap: Is your profit below that of your peers? Beating your previous profit goals is great but what if you are still less profitable compared to your best-in-class competitors? How much money are you leaving on the table and why?
• Value Gap: What tangible and intangible factors are impacting your ability to get a top valuation? If your best-in-class peers at the same level of sales are getting 2, 3, or 4 times higher multiplies than you would if you went to market, then what changes do you have to make to close that gap?
• Wealth Gap: Can your business help you reach your wealth goal, i.e. the amount of money you have decided you need to live a life you love regardless of whether you work? Chances are you’ve sunk lots of money back into your business over the years figuring that investment will eventually pay off and reward you for your sacrifices. Based on your current valuation and profitability will that day ever come?

The EVA will also give you new insight into your personal readiness for a future transition and inform a reasonable timeline for improving your business’ readiness based on its strengths and weaknesses and the prioritization of value driving activities. 

For example, if you’re EVA reveals that your valuation is being dragged down by high owner dependence then the KPIs you monitor might now include 

• Capacity utilization rates to measure how efficiently operations are running without bottlenecks that only you can resolve.
• Employee satisfaction surveys to monitor how intentional career pathing and successor development plans are impacting morale, productivity, and retention.
• Customer satisfaction feedback to determine how successful employees are at building strong relationships with customers without direct involvement from you in the marketing, sales, or fulfillment processes.
• Profitability per job, product, or project to demonstrate the team’s ability to drive profitability under non-owner leadership. 
• Waste and rework metrics to demonstrate how well staff are trained to and comply with standard operating procedures. 
• Successor readiness to assess how prepared the business is to maintain optimal operations in the event of a planned or unplanned change in leadership.

Annual planning with EVA

Adding an EVA to your annual planning process can be done without adding significant time for preparation and the results will add richness and depth to the conversations and analysis you’re already engaged in as part of your annual planning process. 

The EVA starts with you completing two short, one-page assessments of business attractiveness and personal readiness. While you complete those surveys, we 

• Do a financial recast using a trailing 12-month P&L report to determine your real vs. tax number 
• Determine the Range of Multiples for your industry 
• Use your Assessment data to plot your company on the Range of Multiples
• Use industry benchmarks to test your financial forecasting and determine whether you have a Profit and/or Value Gap
• Identify which factors are driving value and the areas where value acceleration strategies can yield the most benefit 
• Work with you to determine if you have a Wealth Gap and how best to align your personal, business, and financial goals into a comprehensive Value Acceleration Plan 

From there we typically engage your leadership team to present the EVA findings and Value Acceleration recommendations. Then we support the integration of this information into your annual growth plan - in strategies, tactics, and KPIs - that can integrate into your current business operating system (like EOS or Growth OS) or through our Value Acceleration accountability framework. The result is a plan that protects the value you’ve already created and focuses on high-value growth activities that get you the most out of your business on your personal timeline. 

Ready to add an EVA to your 2026 planning process? 

Back in February, Dr. Donna Marino and I hosted a LinkedIn Live conversation about the how myths, personal beliefs, and emotions play a significant role in family succession planning.

That conversation became the inspiration for an article we co-authored for Family Business Magazine in which we talk about the need for frequent, candid conversations and the important role trusted advisors play in helping families navigate the complex and often complicated landscape where family relationships and business continuity collide.

My family business

My personal experience with family business succession planning is one of unspoken expectations, avoidance, and a distinct lack of planning. Despite having years during a long illness to talk with me and my siblings, as well as his own brothers, about the current state of the business and what might happen when he was gone, my dad stayed silent on the matter. It wasn't until he died that we found out he left the business to one of his brothers and that my uncle was only willing to accept the bequest if we (his nieces and nephews) used my dad's life insurance to pay off the debt.

What followed was months of conversations about "this is what your father would have wanted" and coming to terms with how my uncle's feelings of entitlement and being 'owed' something collided with the reality that my dad's business was not financially viable and the things my uncle had done to help my dad 'run' the business during his illness prolonged the inevitable need to cease operations.

In hindsight, one might say that my siblings and I could've started the conversations my father wanted to avoid. I even thought that myself - that I had failed to push the issue and force the conversation. Realistically though, as I approached my 40th birthday I was still my dad's child. I knew he would shut down and shut me out if I brought up things he didn't want to talk about or deal with. I knew I couldn't force him to do anything. And I didn't want to fight with him. He wanted to avoid the reality of his illness, his mortality, and a failing business, as well as the emotions and expectations of his children and siblings, so we didn't talk about it. Frankly, no matter how many times I rehearsed my opening line and talking points, when the time came I could never bring myself to address the situation directly.

That saddens me because it meant he dealt with a lot of financial worry by himself when he didn't need to, and he left a lot for us to deal with in his absence. It also saddens me because I know our family's experience is more of the rule than the exception. But it doesn't have to be that way.

"One of the things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so it's almost a non-event when it happens." Anne M. Mulcahy, Family Enterprise Foundation

Collaborate and communicate

To be clear, I didn't know how to start these conversations with my family and we didn't have someone like me or Donna Marino to help us figure it out. When it's you and your family, old habits, communication patterns, and decades of relationship baggage make it hard to do this work alone. In fact, it may be an unreasonable expectation. I know first-hand that it's not enough to know what you should do. You need someone who has the experience and emotional distance to initiate and facilitate some of the hardest conversations you may ever have.

With that in mind, I suggest the following for those who want to become more intentional about their relationship to their family business, explore what a 'good' transition might look like, and engage an advisor to help you talk about tough topics and make important decisions.

If you're the business owner:

• Host family meetings to talk about the business and its future.
• Ask your children and other family members whether they want to be involved in the business and in what capacity.
• Ask yourself which family members you think are well-suited to be part of the business and in what capacity.
• Talk with family about how long and in what capacity you want to continue working in the business.
• Discuss what the business means to you and your family, and how you want to use the business to convey and preserve your values in the next generation.
• Meet with potential successors to acknowledge and discuss their readiness and willingness to work toward taking on new roles and responsibilities. Acknowledge knowledge and skill gaps and co-create plans to support their learning and preparation.
• Don't let old hurts, misunderstandings, disappointments, or assumptions go unaddressed - seek resolution to find common ground to move forward.
• Be candid about your fears and worries, as well as your hopes and aspirations.
• Act with and from love.

If your the family member:

• Share your interest in talking about the about the business and its future with the owner.
• Ask yourself whether you want to be involved in the business and in what capacity.
• Reflect on your readiness and willingness to work toward taking on new roles and responsibilities. Acknowledge knowledge and skill gaps and propose a plan for how you will prepare to take on more responsibility.
• Share what the business means to you and what you're committed to doing to preserve it's legacy and values for the next generation.
• Express your interest early and clearly.
• Don't let old hurts, misunderstandings, disappointments, or assumptions go unaddressed - seek resolution to find common ground to move forward.
• Be candid about your fears and worries, as well as your hopes and aspirations.
• Act with and from love.

For more information about how Purpose First Advisors can help you and your family plan for the future, visit our strategic business advisors page or schedule a free consultation.

Sometimes the people who can get you to really think about what's next - how long you want to keep working, what will happen if you suddenly can't work, how much you want to work, what selling could look like - are spouses, children, and employees.

Who in your life wants to know - deserves to know - what your succession plans are?

Even if you're scared, overwhelmed, or intimidated by the prospect of things changing, might the concerns and need for clarity from people you care about be the encouragement you need to prioritize finding someone to talk with about business exits, leadership transitions, and ways to preserve your legacy?

The questions my client's employees were asking her about the future combined with her growing desire to work less got her to make the call.

“I thought I’d work forever and forever is now,” is what she said when I asked her what had changed, and why she was reaching out to talk about selling her business.

She took a sip of her coffee and said, “I’m well past retirement age, my employees want to know what my timeline looks like, and I don’t want to work this hard anymore. At the same time, I’m trying to cut back on my hours but I keep going to the office. I’m freaked out about what I’ll do when I’m not working but also tired and ready to work less.”

“This all makes sense and almost every business owner I talk to can’t imagine not working. Frankly, I’m really glad your employees have been bugging you for a plan and you’re ready to talk.”

“Yeah, it's time. I’d like to start slow, maybe with an with an emergency succession plan and go from there.”

I smiled and said, “That’s a great place to start. That process will open up your thinking about how you run your business, what you might want to keep doing while you scale back your hours, and what legal documents and internal processes you need in place to ensure business continuity in the event you become incapacitated (or fly off for an extended Tahitian vacation.)"

“Oh, I’m the only one who writes proposals, does invoicing, does the banking - there's a lot of things that no one else does,” she said.

I exclaimed, “I know! That’s why your employees want to know what the plan is and I want to help you train them to do these things so a potential buyer will be confident that the business can run profitability without you.”

She smiled, lowered her head and raised her eyes, “I get it. I’ve just never had to train anyone on the things I do and so many little details and nuances live in my head.”

“Yeah, " I said “and it means that you’ve built a $3m business with one hand tied behind your back.”

"My job is to help you think about what will make your business most attractive to potential buyers and create as many of those conditions as possible. High owner dependence makes your business less valuable. So does a lack of standard operating procedures and cross-training.”

I went on to say, “For you to work less, others need to work more or we need to hire other people to take on different roles. You need to train them and let them practice doing new things. You need to teach them all the things you do instinctively that make this business successful.”

She leaned forward and said, “I do have one person I’ve been showing how to do some things and she might even be interested in buying the business.” she said. “It’s important to me to help her do that when we’re both ready.”

I smiled and said, “That’s so good to know. What a wonderful thing to work toward!

I made a note and explained, “that means it’s also important for you to start making financial decisions based on demonstrating consistent, reliable cash flow. If your employee eventually needs a bank loan to make this deal work the bank will want to see the numbers that tell them the business can service the debt.”

“Fortunately, we have time to document, train on, and delegate your responsibilities before we go to market. And we have time to get your financial documents in order in anticipation of due diligence and an underwriting process.”

With a sigh and a smile she said, "It's a good thing I’m not ready to be ‘done, done’ tomorrow. This sounds like a lot of work!”

“It is.” I put down my pen and said, “which is why it's always best to run your business to be exit ready and transferrable regardless of whether you are ready to or interested in selling. Now the most important thing is to get started and make these changes."

“Let’s get focused. I’m ready to do it,” she said, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.

Getting focused helped this owner increase revenue 34% and profit 137% YOY, update her estate plan, review her wealth management strategies, create an emergency succession plan, identify a prospective buyer, and set an asking price 40% higher than initially anticipated.

Even if you think you’re going to work forever, you might change your mind. Let’s talk about integrating succession planning and value acceleration strategies into your annual growth plan to position your business to be as appealing as possible to potential heirs or buyers. That gives you more business exit and transition choices whenever you decide to change your role in the business or sell.