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Classics: 4 Tips for Successful Succession Planning with Nick Bour, Inspire Wealth: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Aug 27, 2024

Welcome back to Marketing Smarts! From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini (that’s us) comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. We deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from our combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. We tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

In this Classics episode, we’re talking how to go about successful succession planning with Nick Bour. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re exercising your Marketing Smarts!

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • Marketing Smarts Summary
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Marketing Smarts: Classics: 4 Tips for Successful Succession Planning with Nick Bour, Inspire Wealth

Have you thought about how you’re going to approach the later years of your career? It’s an area so many of us don’t have a roadmap for. Successful succession planning means defining the legacy you want to leave, firming up your business and brand to operate independently, putting your talent in a position to grow and prosper, and planning your exit strategy. We’re of course NOT financial advisors, so we welcomed on Nick Bour. He’s the Founder and CEO of Inspire Wealth, a financial company providing wealth building and retirement planning services to residents of Michigan, Ohio, and Massachusetts. This episode covers everything from financial insight to your legacy. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • How do you go about successful succession planning?
  • What defines your legacy?
  • How do you firm up your business and brand to operate independently?
  • What’s Ray Dalio’s approach to succession planning?
  • How do you put your talent in a position to grow and prosper?
  • What does Chick-fil-A get right?
  • How do you plan your exit strategy?
  • What does talent acquisition have to do with succession planning?

And as always, if you need help in building your Marketing Smarts, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

What is Marketing Smarts?

From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. They deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from their combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. They tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

How do I exercise my Marketing Smarts?

Thanks for listening to Marketing Smarts. Get in touch here to become a savvier marketer. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Anne Candido 0:00
This is Marketing Smarts, a podcast committed to helping you become a savvier marketing leader, no matter your level. And each episode will dive into a relevant topic or challenge that marketing leaders are currently facing. We will also give you practical tools and applications that will help you put what you learn into practice today. Now let’s get to it.

April Martini 0:20
Welcome to Marketing Smarts. I am Ann Candido and I am April martini, and today is another Marketing Smarts Classics. This one is around the topic of succession planning, which we are addressing more and more with clients that are contemplating retirement but aren’t sure what that means for their business. Creating a roadmap that addresses the legacy you want to leave, the current state of your business and how to firm up any areas that need it, and the talent you have are all areas of focus that need to be addressed. And a big component of all of this is the finances. Because we are not financial advisors, we invited Nick Bour, Founder and CEO of Inspire Wealth, to join us on this conversation. Enjoy this episode for the first time or as a refresher, and with that, we will get into four tips for successful succession planning with Nick Bour of Inspire wealth. Please go ahead and introduce yourself.

Nick Bour 1:08
So I’m Nick Bour. I’m the Founder and CEO of Inspire Wealth, which is a full-service financial planning firm in Michigan. And yeah, no, I’m I’m ecstatic. I’m excited to be here as well. You know, have had you guys on on my podcast, and now to be to be able to come on, be a guest on yours, just super excited. Awesome.

April Martini 1:28
All right. Well, with that, we’ll jump into four tips for successful succession planning. So the first one here is define the legacy you want to leave. And this can be a really tricky thing to face, and we feel like this is where to the point of the setup, some of these folks get stuck in their own head, and it’s a very emotional place to be, and it requires a lot of introspection and taking a hard look at ourselves. And so certainly this step is the most emotional part of the process, and it kicks off the process. So ideally, people have at least thought about it, even if it feels a little scary and it’s been in their mind. But if not, that’s okay, and that’s the point of this episode. But what we find is when people take the time to slow down and do the work here, it will come to light for you, so your legacy will start to show itself. So, you know, get over the fear, take some baby steps and do whatever you have to do. And we do have some questions here that we think really help to frame up this homework, quote, unquote, if you will, and the things like, what do I want people to say about me after I’m gone? Or what do I want to be known for, beyond the success of the company or the financial wealth that I’ve built as a result of the company. What do I want to live on in the company after I’m physically not in the place every day, or even if you’re virtual, quote, unquote, in the office, right? What do I want to have continued on my behalf when I’m not here to oversee it? Or what does my company fundamentally stand for? Why do people work here? Why do they stay here? These can be the inroad questions for you to start to do some of that introspection that I talked about before. And while this can be some hard work and some really heavy thinking, what we find is that when people get clear on the legacy they want to leave, the rest of the process starts to unfold a little bit easier. So our recommendation is, put it down on paper, socialize it with people you’re close to get input if you feel like you’re having a hard time really putting your stake in the ground, because only you can decide if it resonates fully with you. So be honest about that with yourself here. And then, as I mentioned, we’re going to have Nick talk about the financial side of the legacy and what that ultimately means, and how these two things tie closely together to set that legacy up for success. Yeah,

Nick Bour 3:53
you know, April, I think it’s so important. I think the the first thing, as you said, the emotional part of this, this is, this is a hard thing for a lot of owners and even some of the executive team to come up with, as far as a admit that they’re approaching that point. That’s, that’s the first emotional thing. You know what? I’ve been doing this 30 plus years, or I’m now in my 60s, and I’m starting to think about this. Usually, it’s not only the emotional struggle at this point, but it’s also sometimes having that outside perspective, even from, you know, someone like you guys, saying, you know, what do you even have a plan in place? Like these are things you guys should be thinking about, if you haven’t already. So I would say, from an emotional standpoint, definitely important to think about. What do I really want my legacy to be? Because if you have a really close knit group, you know, not a ton of employees, so I’ll say 30 employees. Employees or less, and they’ve become more like part of the family. I’ve seen scenarios where you know what, I want to become an ESOP or an employee stock ownership plan. I want to I want to sell the company to all the employees because they mean that much to me, or I want to sell the company to two or three of my key executives. And those are things that can be part of the legacy thought, but it’s also, what do you want, like, like, like, you guys, you know, April, you mentioned like, what do you want people to say about me? What what matters? What does the company stand for? There’s a lot of emotional and also strategic thinking that goes into this. And it’s not a quick conversation, it’s not a quick thought process. This is something that could take months or even years of thinking and planning. But the best thing I could say is just start, just just if you’re starting to think about, you know what? I don’t want to get to the point where now I’m ready I want to retire in a year, because you need planning. A year is too short. And that’s one of the best advices I can give, just from the financial standpoint, is pre plan. Make sure you’re thinking about it before you actually say I’m ready. Because usually my experience is when you say you’re ready, it’s already too late to start planning. And I want to say, I don’t want to say it can’t be done, but it’s definitely you’re starting later than you probably should have started planning.

Anne Candido 6:37
Yeah, I think those are all really, really good point. And I know when we start talking legacy, especially to a lot of our folks are you’re getting to this stage, it starts becoming a very overwhelming thing, because they kind of look back on their their life and their career, and they’re like, What have I done? Like, what have I really done, you know, and those. And sometimes it can be a very, like you said, an emotional back and forth with themselves, and sometimes that comes into competition with whether or not they should retire or not because they did everything they’re supposed to do or not. Or, you know, how are they leaving their companies? And so when you said, like, you know, just get started on something, the one thing that we tell people a lot is like, just start telling your story. Right? A lot of CEOs or executives, or even people who are leaving companies do is they start recording like, almost like an internal podcast of sorts, which is just like a documentary of their stories, their experiences, lessons they’ve learned just start, just to get that narrative down. Because what that starts doing is one that creates a library and materials that people could go back and refer to. And if you don’t think people do that, I can guarantee you that that is not the case, because I come from PNG, and we have a very good friend, Shane maker, who manages the archives, and it’s just filled with that. And that’s one of the big things he’s starting to do now, is he’s starting to get everybody’s stories recorded for legacy purposes. When you start doing that, themes start emerging, and you start to kind of hear where the passion points are. And most often than not, the things that start to come out are more culture related than they are like strategies for business operation, because that’s going to evolve strategies for business operation. And what you do here that the environment changes too frequently to really solidify your legacy on that. But it’s more of like the culture things, what kind of cultures you want to have, or what you want to continue to to progress once you’re gone. What kind of impact do you want to have? Is philanthropy continue to be important, making sure that’s it, if your employees and your talents important, making sure that’s focused. So it starts to become like, what is the impact that you want the company to continue to have, even after you’re extricated from it? Yeah, I

April Martini 8:41
think that that is a really good point. And what I will say is these next three we have here are in support of a lot of what we just talked about. So the next one here will take a little bit more of a double click or deep dive into some of the themes that have already come up, and that is to firm up your business and brand, to operate independently. And so we just talked about, and I think it’s a such great advice to start recording yourself and, you know, just talking out loud and giving the perspective of, you know, the person that’s going to be going away, quote, unquote, because we often see instances where the founder, Owner, CEO, is the face of The company. And so then the process of separating this while still maintaining confidence, both internally and externally with clients, that everyone understands the plan, how we’re going to get from what the business and brand are today to making sure to maintain whatever that legacy is that we want. The good news here is that a successful company can’t be run single handedly by one individual, right? So Nick said, you know, sometimes you have all 30 people who you really believe are family, and you want them to continue. Sometimes it’s a handful. But what this really becomes is building the infrastructure and the steps so that the owner, CEO, whatever, can step away. And this requires alignment at all. Levels, as well as lots of strong communication, consistently and on an ongoing basis. Nick, I think your point is so well taken about like, when you raise your hand and you say, I’m ready to go, first of all, you’re usually like, ready to go, like, now. But also, even if you’re going to say, I’m going to do it in a year, right? That makes it even more overwhelming and puts that much more pressure. It also requires on the other side of this, though, once we start to see businesses and brands firm this up and start to put these things in place, it’s reliant on the owner or founder, and sometimes with the help of outside resources like all of us, to ensure that their feet are actually held to the fire to go and do that, because this really becomes easier said than done. I mean, we talked about maybe you were doing this for 30 years, and so much of your life is tied to your company, and so much of your image and your self worth and all of those things, it can be really easy to jump back in for a whole variety of reasons. That’s where I find myself worth oh shoot, I see something going not how I would do it, or something goes wrong, which, spoiler alert, something will always go wrong. So just get ready for it. But really, it’s about making sure that there is that checks and balances in place. So on one hand, we have the plan to firm things up, and we’re heading down that path. On the other side, the person who is going to be exiting starts to step away and start that process of exiting. And this is also a really good time to take a critical look at all facets of the business and where optimizations need to be made, where there might be outages. One of the things recently we had with a client was the mission, vision, values kind of lived within the head of the CEO that needed to come out. Therefore, the exercise of things like the recordings and all of that, it was like it was so fundamentally tied to him that there had to be the definition outside of him so that people could start to live it and believe in it. Or, if you haven’t taken a look at things in a while, this is a really good time to do that. I mean, sometimes there’s external factors at play, right? You’re doing so well because you have this person that everyone follows and relies on, but suddenly a new competitor has entered the marketplace, and you haven’t really paid a lot of attention to that, but this is the impetus for making sure that all of these things are holding together and they look the way you want them to look, and being brave enough to make changes within the plan as you go through as all of this is coming to life, because that’s really the point of the point right to make sure that the business and the brand are firm in lockstep, and everybody is marching to the quote, unquote, orders that they have and the plan that’s been laid so Nick thoughts here, yeah,

Nick Bour 12:37
you know, this is, I think this is so important, because I think a lot of us especially close knit, whether it’s a family owned business, or whether it’s just, you know, the smaller business where there’s only 2030, employees, where the owner is so involved, you know, I’ve seen scenarios where the owner is their head sales person as well. Or is there the head of their marketing team? Or, you know, and that’s where bringing in outside consultants like you guys, or, you know, like other individuals that can help separate the owner from that importance or that dire connection to the business. Because most business owners, because it’s their it’s their baby, more or less. I mean, if they’ve been doing it 2030, years, and they built it, it’s their baby, it’s like another kid to them. And I will say that you guys probably see this way more than I do, but I have seen it so much where having that separation and starting to make that transition over a few years and being and having the owner still be able to see the business still successful, still still maintaining or growing, as the owner starts stepping back a little bit. Number one, the business is actually going to have more value to it to a potential outside buyer, and because the owner is not the be all, end all. You know, that’s always the biggest concern is a buyer is well, as you step away, is the revenue going to drop? Is the clientele going to start, you know, going away, what? What’s going to happen there? So if the owner, or some of the key executives that are going to be stepping away, if they can start doing this over a 234, year period before the owner says, I’m ready and just starts thinking, let’s start planning that is going to not only maximize value, but that’s also going to show any potential outside buyers that that business is not completely reliant on that owner, that it can operate and flourish and still grow as the owner is stepping away. And I think that’s it’s. I think that goes back to, you know, what you guys, you know, say about firming up your business, making sure that it’s not all just about the owner, that it’s the team, it’s other key employees that are still going to be important, even after the owner starts stepping away.

Anne Candido 15:16
Yeah, I think it also makes a difference if that new person coming in to take that place is external, right? So it’s a talent acquisition as well, if you’re coming, if you want, if you want to replace your CEO with somebody that is outside of the company, the first thing that those prospects are going to look at is like, so what am I walking into? Am I walking into something that’s stable, that’s, you know, can operate independently, like we’ve talked about, or am I walking into a hornet’s nest of these people who are going to be like lost, without the the head guy or head girl there, right? So it’s also a strategy for talent acquisition from the CEO level, or any, any level, frankly, of really having that independence to say, No, we have a solid brand, we have a solid business. We’re looking for the right talent to come in, and that helps to shape that. Now I also think the again, going back to the emotional part, which is what we see is a lot of times that this becomes a hard thing for somebody to look at, especially who’s been in that position for a long time, and not start to feel a little bit of feelings of, if I ever really been needed? Do I? Does anybody really need me? And I, what we always say is like, it’s the ego talking, right? And it’s not unusual for that to start to kind of percolate at these times when you’re having these kinds of conversations with yourself and conversations with other people, but I we always equated to like, well, you remember when you were, like, taking your kids to daycare for the first time and, you know, and they said, bye bye, mommy, Bye Bye, daddy. I don’t need you. I’m like, I’m gonna go off. And part of you is kind of like, oh, they don’t need me to part of us is like, wait, I mean, then we can avoid all of this, like, drama and all this, you know, the sorts of like, the crying and the holding onto the legs and that sort of thing. So you kind of want people to feel like they don’t need you. That’s gonna, I think the biggest goal of success here, the biggest KPI of success, is when people are like, we got it. You know, you can step away. We don’t need you. And I think the person that I’ve seen who’s done doing this really, really well right now is Ray Dalio as he’s stepped away for Bridgewater. But he talks about, and I could get the three phases exactly right, but he talked about his life being in three phases, like the first phase being kind of like the proving yourself phase. The second phase was really building the business, and now this third phase is really teaching people about how to go and operate this business without him. And I think that’s a really great mindset of of the stages of life, of like what you’re giving back and how people are going to value your your input at this stage too. So yeah, I think that that emotional part is going to continue to play really heavy here. But if we could get through the ego part and kind of see the value of being people saying, I don’t need you, I think that really helps here.

April Martini 18:00
Yeah, and I think that that leads very nicely. So thank you for the setup. And to the third point, which is put your talent in a position to grow and prosper. So we’ve already talked a lot about how it’s about your people, no matter how many of those people we’re talking about. Yes, it’s who’s going to take your place. Yes, it’s who can who’s going to lead the charge, but it’s also who are the people that are going to make sure that the work gets done. It’s also, you know, making sure that the people that are there right now will be able to work towards success in the future. And then once you answer those questions, and you identify who they are, and then address outages to the point of the previous point, you have to make sure that they know that they’re the people. First of all, tell them that you identify them as the people. The earlier the better, so that they can start to get in the mindset and honestly decide to opt in or out, right? Because it’s also for them to vet as much as it is for you, so more you can start having that conversation early is really good. But then also, what is that going to look like as far as the succession plan goes, how are they going to get from where they are today to whatever new role you want them to be in? And then, what is their path to continued success in the future? Not that you can map that out and dictate it. We talk all the time on this show about the fact that you can’t predict what’s going to happen five years from now? So we hate that question, but ultimately, what we’re getting to here is okay, if they’re nominated as the person they opt in, how are they going to get to what you envision as their next step, and then how are they going to continue to feel successful and fulfilled beyond that, this is also something you can do, like we said before, whether you’re the owner or the founder. So I thought an anecdote here would be helpful, because we’ve been talking so much about being the person, right? So at the last agency I was at, I knew that I wanted to leave my legacy on that agency, and I also felt compelled to give back to them, because they had helped me. Set my path to be able to go and be an entrepreneur, right? So one of the things that we agreed on when I agreed to work there was that they were predominantly an advertising agency at their core, but they wanted to move more into the upstream of the work. And my desire was to help ensure that what was happening at that, you know, upper end strategy, brand building. What are the strategic pillars? What do we stand for? What’s our brand character? Lived all the way through the advertising and so one of my success criteria was to build their strategy team when I ultimately decided that that clock had started, and that I was not going to stay there forever, and I really had this burning desire to do my own thing. It was all about, how do I put the processes and the people and the strategic thought leadership in place so that once I was gone, there were other people there that were going to be able to continue that? And I gave them a pretty long runway, which perhaps was a risk as an employee, to say, like, Hey, hi, I’m going to be leaving. But I ended up sticking around for a couple of months, or two and a half months or so, to make sure that that happened. And so my legacy and the point of this point was to make sure that the people that I had nominated to be part of the team both wanted to still do that, understood their roles, but also believed that they could do it without me there. So Nick, what are your thoughts here on this one around the talent?

Nick Bour 21:29
I agree with you, April. I think that you know not only identifying is important, but also having them say yes, accepting and wanting to do. Because I think a lot of us will sometimes just assume, especially as an owner of a business, like, Hey, this is a good business. You can make a really good living. You can impact a lot of people, we just sometimes assume, hey, well, why wouldn’t you want to do this? Well, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Everyone’s got different career aspirations and goals and and different things they want to do. We got to make sure this fits what they want, what they’ve envisioned and and you know, there’s, there’s several things from a financial perspective, whether it’s trying to retain some key employees that you that you’re laying out that are going to be part of this, or attracting and and, you know, you guys have probably seen some of this with some of the owners you work with and some of the other CEOs, but, you know these, in my mind, these are what’s called executive benefit plans. So this is putting things in place so that a that if you’re going to attract a key employee to be part of this transition team that this key employee says, Wait a second, you’re saying over and above just a normal retirement plan and a match. There’s additional benefits, yes, and it could be variations we could talk for hours about, because the nice thing that most owners don’t always fully understand and know about plans like this is they are completely customizable, because they don’t necessarily have to be ERISA compliant, meaning you don’t have to offer it to everyone. You can literally say, Okay, I have two internal employees, and I’m trying to attract one new key person, I want to just offer this executive benefit plan for these three individuals, and that’s it. And those are things that I think can be looked at. I think, you know, depending on the business as a whole, if you’re already offering benefits, looking at, hey, you know what, if your employees are extremely important, because, again, it’s a small number, and you want to make sure that the employees know they’re valued and their job is secure, and there’s still potential for growth. Maybe looking at things like, you know what we want to offer an additional ancillary benefit, or, you know what, we’re currently paying 70% of your group benefits. We want to start paying 75 or 80. Like there’s things like that that the business can do now. I say this, you want to be careful as a business, because when you’re looking at a PNL, when you’re starting to plan to sell, you don’t want to all of a sudden inflate expenses that weren’t there before, because that’s going to have an impact on the value when you go to sell. That being said, when you’re doing pre planning and you’re starting to have conversations with the key employees and with some of the others, that’s that is, to me, that’s an opportunity to say, You know what? I want everyone to know how much we value you. I want everyone to know that you still have a job. Because as general employees, I think first and foremost, biggest concern for an employee is my job. Okay? We. What’s What’s the new management going to look like? Am I going to take a pay cut? Are my hours going to get cut? Are the benefits going to change? And I think to me, the more you can assure what I would say your team is, the better and easier the transition is going to be, because it’s going to make everyone feel like this is business as usual. Maybe there’s some things that could get better, but we don’t need to worry about them at this point. Yeah.

Anne Candido 25:28
I mean, I couldn’t agree more, because I think businesses are defined by their people, right? And so the people need to come first in a lot of these discussions. And so how are you going to protect the business and make it independent, and all those things we just we just talked about, is by making sure that the people, the talent, are retained no matter what you’re doing. Rather, if you’re just going to depart your business and a new executive leader is going to come in, whether or not you’re choosing to sell your business, whether or not you’re in your business, in a different leadership role. I mean, I can say when I left PNG, I spent my last several months making sure my people were in position to grow. It was really important to me. I was I fast tracked a promotion. I fast tracked a movement out of our my function into another function, because my whole legacy that I want to leave behind was in the hearts and minds of the people that I manage. I knew I wasn’t going to once I left P&G, everybody was going to be like, hanging a poster of Anne and, you know, the big hall in P&G. I mean, that was not going to happen. But the way that I could leave my legacy was that from other people to know that I was, hopefully, maybe one of the best managers that they had, or that I bottled the kind of manager that they wanted to be. And so what that does is it goes back to one of my original points, is it foundationally identifies culture, and that culture has a tendency, then to continue to spread in ways that really solidify the quality and just the presence of the business and the brand. I mean, we talk about Chick-fil-A all the time as being kind of like the quintessential example of this, and though there was some very specific things that are built in from a principles and value standpoint, like not being open on Sundays so you could spend time with your family. A lot of what still manifests itself in Chick-fil-A, but with S. Truett Cathy being gone, is the way that he treated people. It’s the way that he engaged with his people from the top down, right? And so that continues to live way beyond him, but because he spent the time with his people?

Nick Bour 27:32
No, I agree. And and just to kind of follow up on one thing you said, like that was really important to you, and your legacy when you left P&G is, I think it’s more of not only what your people may have aspired to be in a manager, just seeing what you or having the having you as, in their mind, was the best manager, but it’s also to show them that you’re a person, that you care, that it’s more than just the bottom line, and it’s more than just for the company, it’s that you guys all have families, you have lives outside of here. I want to make sure I’m positioning you all for success, and I think that not only stands to show who you are, but I think that also is an example of what type of legacy that an owner wants to leave and why that’s important, and that just ties into what you said. Yeah,

April Martini 28:29
I think that’s very well said. Which brings us to our final point here, which is to plan your exit strategy. So you heard us talk about it at the CEO level all the way down to the examples that Anne and I just gave within different positions we’ve been in our career. But once you’ve defined the legacy and you’ve done these other things we talked about here, you know, optimize the brand in the business, taking a look at the talent, make sure people feel like they’re set up for success. You have to plan when and how you’re actually going to depart alongside all of that. And we believe that there is definitely an art to finding the right time, and there’s also a point of diminishing returns, both if you go too fast and if you go too late. So with each step of the process, you need to define what role you’ll take and when you will no longer have a role. So we talked about this a little bit already, in the optimization part of you know, choose when you’re going to step back and step back some more and step back a little more, and then also not reinserting yourself after you’ve done the work to get out of it, all of those types of things. But you really have to reach a level of trust in the process, but then also gut feeling of when you’re needed and not and that’s why this plan is so important, because it holds your feet to the fire. It builds in some guardrails. It makes sure that there’s objectivity to your personal subjectivity in the situation. And then on the other side of this, you know, we talked at the beginning about like raising my hand and being ready to go right now, the other piece is you don’t. Have to disappear entirely, right? We have some of these CEOs that we work with. They go on to be chairman of the board for a period of time. There’s others that stay in an advisory role, again with a plan and a length of time, where they stick around for a year, two years, or whatever. And again, their visibility and influence starts to back away, and then people start to step forward, and everybody starts to get comfortable with the whole thing. There’s still others that will be an ongoing resource for as often as people want to tap them, right? So you can go to them for I need help with this particular initiative, or we’d like your advice on something that’s come up that we didn’t face before within the company. All of this is completely fine. The point here is to make sure that you’re leaving when it makes sense, that there’s a plan to getting there, and that everybody is aligned with that, because without the exit strategy, the full transition may actually never happen, which leaves everybody in a state of uncertainty and flux. And, you know, Nick, you mentioned kind of the whole everybody’s initial thing is, what’s going to happen to me, right? The worst thing that can happen is all these big plans are put out there, and then it never actually happens. I mean, I left a company for this very reason where it was set forth and maybe dangled as a carrot a little bit that perhaps I could be one of the people to take over, and then it felt like we would take two steps forward and then four steps back, and we never actually made the progress. And so for me, it was like, Okay, I can’t wait forever. I need to go figure out something else that I’m going to go and do, because I’m impatient and I want to move forward, and also I’m skeptical now that this is actually going to happen. So yeah, lots there. Nick,

Nick Bour 31:40
yeah, no, I definitely think it’s it’s definitely important to involve anyone as part of the team that is is a key piece. And I also think it’s important to start thinking about, what does that exit look like? Is it going to happen over two or three years? Is it going to happen over five years? Because, as you just said, you know, a minute ago, April, it doesn’t have to happen all at once. I mean, a very common one is starting to pull back some of the day to day responsibilities and either assigning those to someone internally that can that is already doing some things like that, but maybe they can handle this, or looking at bringing in an outside talent to to fulfill some of the day to day things, have the owner start stepping back and doing it over six to 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, depending. But then I also think it’s I think there’s a lot of other factors. I think depending on the industry you’re in, what does the economy look like? Like you said, timing is everything. I completely agree with that. I mean, I’m not trying to just look at this from a financial planning or wealth management standpoint, but I mean from an owner standpoint as well, is now the right time, whether you know, whether you’re taking a buyout from the company and taking income, you know, over five years, seven years, whatever it looks like. I mean, it’s, it’s very, very common, in my experience, that, you know, the way most deals are structured as it’s usually done, over either a promissory note or the business buying out over several years, because usually it would hurt the business too much to take that kind of capital out of the out of the company. So there’s a lot of things that go along with that. And you know, I think this goes both ways. As an owner, it’s always hard to say, well, I, you know what I this is the the year, or this is, this is the month. How do you how do you really know until you get there? Because a lot of times you can plan for this, but it takes something in life to happen, whether it’s personally or professionally, for that owner to actually say, You know what, it’s time. And that’s why leading up to it is so important in the planning. Because, as we all can say, for that owner to now say, I’m ready. If you haven’t done planning, okay, you can be ready all you want, but you know what we’re talking two years, three years out, to actually do this right? So you know, and from a from a wealth standpoint, I can’t stress this enough. I have been doing this over two decades, and it is extremely rare that I see an owner or an executive’s professional advisor team communicating, and when I say that, I mean tax or CPA, tax advisor or CPA, their attorney, their current marketing and also coach. Like, like, a lot of what you guys do if there’s someone on the mergers and acquisition side involved, because it’s an outside buyer, or maybe there’s one internal and one outside, it’s making sure that everyone’s communicating. Because so many people just automatically think, well, I have four or five what I would consider key professionals as part of my professional advisory team, until you actually can look at either yourself or have someone else look at you and say, Are they talking like Do you actually know if they’re putting together the most efficient, effective plan for you, and then you get the deer in headlights, because the owner’s like, I don’t know. I don’t think so. They’ve never really asked to talk to one another, and it’s like, okay, can someone please explain to me if you are selling a multi million dollar business, and there’s obviously going to be tax consequences, you know, whether it’s some cap gains, all cap gains, you know, maybe there’s real estate involved, and they’re selling the building as well, or maybe they’re retaining the building. Those are all things from a wealth management standpoint, that if you’re not working in conjunction with that tax advisor, with that legal professional, and that financial planning or that wealth management advisor, there’s no way it’s, it’s optimized for the client. I stress that because that, again, also takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. This is the biggest reason, in the beginning, I was so excited to do to have this, to have this interview with you guys, because I feel like you guys see this all the time, and you know, there’s different nuances for every business, for every owner, for every management team, to where what is really what’s best for them. And I think the earlier you can start having having that communication and dialog, the better you’re going to be, because waiting too long, it can definitely affect and trying to go too fast can definitely impact, not only from a valuation standpoint, but also from the standpoint of, do you need to go out and get talent? Does your does your key employees? Are they ready? Do they need? Maybe they need some additional training that you didn’t think about. Those are just things that I think, when you’re running a million miles a minute, like we all know, all CEOs and owners are, and they’ve got 9 billion things on their on their mind, things get overlooked, and that’s where professional teams, you know, like you guys, like, what we do, like, you know, a lot of other professional what I would say professional advisors do for their clients is so important.

Anne Candido 37:48
Yeah, I totally agree. I feel like in my 20 years at P&G, succession was always dictated by two things. One was the stock price. And whenever the stock price with job, because PNG is a promote from within company. For the most part, still is, yeah, you’d almost have to lock all the windows because and keep all those guys are, like, planning to, like, leave like, off the roof guys and girls, because they would just see their, you know, their stock value, just like, kind of come back down. And so then to be like, Well, I’m just going to stay and then you see all the people at the younger ranks going, Oh, great. That means we’re not going anywhere for, you know, so many more years. So then you get that, that cluster in the middle where there’s no movement, which obviously impacts your talent. And then you have people who are there sticking around because of what their money is, versus really being there because they still feel like they have valued at right? So it becomes like a little bit of a cluster all around that and and so the money in being able to appropriately plan is so critically important, but also understanding, like, how much money you feel like you actually need for the next stage of your life. So that’s one area that we always saw. The other area was, like, I would have titled this section, get a hobby, because you spend so much of your time, like, in your business, as you said, it becomes kind of your identity that you the thought of like, walking away and like, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do with my time? I see it all the time in the NFL. It’s been fascinating to watch this a year upon year. Now we’re seeing what Aaron Rodgers are going to go to the Jets. I’m like, What are you doing? Right? Why? Why? Why? That’s

April Martini 39:28
the diminishing returns we talk about, right?

Anne Candido 39:30
I mean, Tom Brady, it’s like, Dude, you need a hobby. It’s because, I mean, one of the love of the game. It’s like, what else am I going to go do if I don’t have this regimen, day in a day out. And if this is not what I’m doing for a living that I’ve been doing for years and years and years, what am I going to do every day? And so there’s no succession planning for what is my next stage of my life. And so I’m making a little bit of a flipping steam about, like, getting a hobby, but it’s really about finding another passion area and something else that you can put that that mind space. Energy, those that the physical activity that you need that’s not your work, that’s not that business. And so that allows you then to have, like something else pulling you in another direction, that helps you have the right time to say, Okay, it’s time for me to go. And I my anecdote with my dad when he decided to leave his career. I was really worried that my dad was going to work until he died. He was an engineer. It was, how is Bill? I’m like, he’s going to work until he dies, until he picked up the side hustle of selling antiques and all these sorts of different things. He decided it was time to retire when his work was getting in the way of him being able to sell his stuff. Yes, like, he couldn’t make it to all the different antique shows and all the stuff he want to do, and he goes, Yeah, just works, getting in the way I’m done. And I was so grateful for that, because it gave him an out. Or else, I do think he would have worked until he basically, like, fell over. So I think that’s the other side of planning. Your exit strategy is making sure you have something to go into, which is not just golf every day. That’ll be fun for like, a couple weeks. Literally, yes, literally so. But what else are you going to put your yourself into? And that helps to kind of draw you out, as well as give you something to look forward to. Yeah,

Nick Bour 41:16
this is something that I just in my business have started talking to what I would say, you know, my, my, my growing part of my business, which is like my age demographics, like the the the Gen Xers, that are, all of a sudden, you know, they’re starting to accumulate wealth, and they’re starting to they’re starting to realize a lot of different things. And maybe they don’t want to do this career, maybe they don’t want to do maybe they want to become an entrepreneur, and they haven’t been like, you know, April, maybe more of your what happened with you? Like, hey, you know, this isn’t kind of going the way it was. It was kind of promised or shown it could go. And now I’m starting to think, Well, I do want to do something on my own, and I say these things because I’ve started having conversations with these types of clients, saying, Listen, you know what? I don’t care what it is now, but let’s get you positioned for what I call the work optional lifestyle, because it’s going to help you find that next passion, whether it’s volunteering, whether it’s a side hustle, whether it’s something that you just love to do, but you don’t think you can make a living on it. Now, okay, and I’m using, I’m using an example. Maybe you love baking, maybe you love like, you know what, like your dad, and loves selling antiques. Like, that’s awesome. My mother in law is she owns a little business that she makes, like, handmade cards and like, all these, yeah, would love that. She doesn’t make money on that. And she’s joked about it. She’s, you know, she goes to different shows, and she’s got her cards or her notebooks in little different, small, independently owned shops. And you know what? It keeps her busy? Like, like you say, when, when your business have have really been your identity for the last 2030, plus years. In a lot of ways, you’re like, What am I going to do? Like, what? What is literally going to take up my day? And that’s where to me, it’s starting to think about, what is my passion, or what, what has kind of grown within me over the last 510, years? What do I really enjoy? And starting to think about how that could take up time, and you can feel like you’re getting some fulfillment in something else in your life. Yeah,

April Martini 43:48
great. I think 100% all right. And that brings us to our final segment here, which is a brand that may or may not be using their marketing smarts, but obviously when we bring a guest on the show, we assume that they are, they would not be here. And I think Nick proved that today with the discussion. But we just like to hand it over to you, Nick, tell people where they can find you. Put a bow on things. Say anything you don’t feel like you’ve got to say, just kind of bring us home, you

Nick Bour 44:16
know. And I appreciate that you guys, you know. Listen, I think all of us, when I talk to whether it’s a business owner or an executive, you know what? You may feel like things are headed in the right direction, just from an investment perspective, just my years of doing this, I feel like there’s a lot of clients that feel investment management is the majority of what all financial advisors or financial planners do, and for a lot of us, that’s not true. It’s taking into account health care expenses, and it’s taking into account how do I minimize taxes? How do I make sure I have different buckets structured? Because maybe I need. Access some of my funds before 59.5 Well, then don’t have all your money in retirement accounts. You know, those are things like that that, you know, my part of my objective for how I grow my firm is, I want people to understand that we go well beyond just wealth management or just Investment Management. And I would tell anyone, whether you work with an advisor or not, just make sure you’re thinking about things like this, because it’s a lot more than just the investments. So you know, and again, you know, we’re, we’re based in Michigan. I’m actually inspire wealth is in Brighton, about 30 minutes north of Ann Arbor, but we do a lot of work in Ohio. We do a lot of work in Michigan. And I tell anyone you know, listen, don’t feel like you’re bothering or there’s obligation. If anyone wants to just have a 15 minute conversation to ask a few questions. I’m always happy and willing to just to help to make sure you can feel like you’re in the right direction. So you know best, easiest, best way to find us. Inspireyourretirement.com. Is the website or inspire wealth. Mi is our YouTube channel. I would say those are good places to start. And I want to say thanks to to Anne and April for for having me on. And, you know, I feel like we’re, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve kind of done this before, because, you know, you know, had you on mine. But I feel like, you know you guys, you’re the type of entrepreneurs and the type of business professionals that I feel like you guys get it, and there’s very few and far between out there, as I think we can all, we can all admit and agree to so I just appreciate you guys, and I appreciate what you’re doing, and I want to stay in contact and be able to continue the conversation and continue being a resource for each other. Awesome.

April Martini 46:57
Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual, so just to recap, four tips for successful succession planning. Number one, to find the legacy you want to leave. This is the most emotional part of the process, but it’s really important to do the work here so that you feel like what you’re leaving behind resonates with you. Number two, firm up your business and brand to operate independently. Make sure that there’s processes and protocols in place and a roadmap that can be followed so that the business is squarely where it needs to be. Number three, put your talent in a position to grow and prosper. Our businesses are all about our people. Make sure you’re keeping the ones that you want there, and make sure you communicate that they’re part of that inner circle. And finally, number four, plan your exit strategy. Alongside all of this other part of the process, you have to make sure that you’re leaving at the right time, and that includes not too late, but also not too soon. And with that, we will say, go and exercise your Marketing Smarts! Still need help in growing your Marketing Smarts? Contact us through our website: ForthRight-People.com We can help you become a savvier marketer through coaching or training you and your team or doing the work on your behalf. Please also help us grow the podcast by rating and reviewing on your player of choice and sharing with at least one person. Now, go show off your Marketing Smarts!