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Exit and transition planning

Before you make the move,
know your number.

Years of work come down to one decision. Know what your family needs, what you’d actually keep, and what has to change before you sell or hand over the business.

See an owner planning example Help with my next step as an owner

Start with your question. No finished plan needed. Not planning a sale? Wealth management for business owners

The questions that matter

Four questions every owner should answer
before selling.

Answer these and you’ll know whether a sale, a handoff, or keeping the business actually works for you.

Transferability

Can the company run without you?

Find where customers, decisions, know-how or leadership still run through you, and what has to change before someone else can own it.

Estimate a business value range→Check your readiness→

Your number

How much does your family need from the sale?

Work backward from what you spend, what else you own and what your family relies on, to the amount the sale actually has to produce.

Estimate the sale price you may need→See who this planning is for→

What you may keep

What reaches your bank account, and when?

Separate headline value from cash at closing, debt, costs, estimated taxes, later payments, and amounts that depend on future performance.

Estimate what you could keep→Compare ways you could be paid→

What could derail the decision

What could blindside you?

The tax, legal, valuation, customer, leadership and deal-structure issues that could change what you keep, or stop the deal altogether.

See what can change the outcome→See how the decision gets coordinated→

Where you are now

Start with where
you actually are.

There is time

Make stepping back an option before it’s a necessity.

Use the time to make the business less dependent on you, build the proof buyers pay for, and decide what a future sale has to fund.

Prepare before a sale→A buyer called

Know whether the offer actually works for you.

Check who the buyer is, what they want, and how they would pay. Decide what to share and which questions need answers before you move forward.

Review your first steps→A family or management handoff

Protect your independence while the next generation takes over.

Settle who leads, who owns, how you get paid, what’s fair across the family, and how your income holds up after you hand over control.

Plan the handoff→Before you sign

Know what you are agreeing to before the window closes.

Pressure-test the price, payment structure, obligations, and post-close role before exclusivity or signed terms narrow your options.

Review the offer questions→

What you will know when the work is done.

Know whether the move works—
before you commit.

Not a thicker binder. A clear answer: does the move work for you, what could change that, and what has to happen first.

Illustrative · fictional ownerSee a planning example→

The outcome you need

The income, family priorities, timing, and future role the business decision needs to support.

What could change the answer

The tax, valuation, readiness, payment and transferability assumptions that could change the result.

What you may actually keep

A working estimate that takes the price through debt, costs, taxes and payment timing to the money you can actually use.

Which paths still work

The trade-offs between keeping the business, transferring it, selling it, or using more time to improve the outcome.

What has to happen before you commit

The unresolved decisions and specialist questions that need an answer before price or timing pressure narrows your options.

The next move

The first action, the person responsible, and the decision point that comes after it.

Every owner guide

The owner library, by decision.

Every guide and tool for selling, succession and the years around them, grouped by the decision in front of you.

Preparing to sell

Exit paths and succession

When a buyer calls

Deal terms

Tax and estate before the sale

New York and Florida

Rochester and New York

Your next step

Get clear before the decision gets expensive.

A sale, a buyer, a family handoff, or stepping back. Tell us which one, and the question you need answered first.

Help with my next step as an owner