We often hear the saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” However, no one would think of applying this when it comes to business. Thinking about the end is often overlooked that it becomes a problem. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or did not transact with the value they think they should have gotten. Holly Flores, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Exit Planning Institute, talks about exit planning, succession, and why it’s important for businesses to take this in mind. She covers the EBITDA which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation, as well as the valuation, the processes, transactions, sales options, and more.
We have Holly Flores. She’s the President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Exit Planning Institute. She is also a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. We’re very fortunate. Thanks for taking the time to come in.
It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here.
Holly, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Exit Planning Institute as well as what you do as a Certified Exit Planning Advisor?
I got to the Exit Planning Institute via my day job as a Value Advisor with Quantive where we do business valuation. Those business valuations are often a triggering point for Exit Planning. What Exit Planning is, some people think of it as a negative because exit, they think I’m coming near the end of my life, but it means succession planning in business. Exit Planning does not mean planning for an exit for tomorrow. It means planning for transitioning out of your business sometime down the road, whether it’s six months from now or five years from now. We often say you always want to start with the end in mind. We transfer that over into other parts of our life but when we run a business, sometimes we fail to have that conversation.
With the Exit Planning Institute, who has done a great job over the past five or so years, bringing that vocabulary to the forefront of advisors all across the country, I wanted to be part of it and see how I could integrate that into my business. From day-to-day, I may work with the business on determining their current value and maybe looking at that for a handful of reasons. First of all, for transaction, for litigation, for tax planning but often that conversation, when they see the value, all of a sudden, the light goes on. They see what it’s worth and they’re excited or they see what it’s worth then they’re a little disappointed and they start thinking about, “What does the path forward look like?”
We hear triggering event and we hear exit and succession and go, “I died.” That’s usually what you get. In going backwards a little bit, the statistics around Exit Planning, succession planning are pretty grim, aren’t they?
They are. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or do not transact at the value that they think they should have gotten. If you think about that, the opportunity that is out there for us to improve upon this is huge. It’s limitless, especially when you think about how many small businesses there are in every city in America. If you are an advisor working with business owners and you’re not having this conversation, then maybe there’s an opportunity that you’re missing as well as there was a part of me that thinks we’re failing as advisors if we don’t have that difficult conversation and say, “Have you thought about what’s next?”
Most business owners think they’re immortal.
