Looking for a good niche to expand your business?
Think about exit planning. Here's why: You have 10,000 boomers turning 65 every day — something that will continue to happen for the next 18 years. Many of these boomers who are at or approaching retirement age — whether that means 65 or maybe 72 — are small-business owners, and the majority of them currently have no business succession plan in place.
It's not that they plan on just closing up shop when they retire or running the business until they die. Most want to retire someday and want their businesses to live on. And they are counting on the proceeds from transitioning or selling the business to partners, family members, key employees or outsiders. But while they need to be able to cash in on the business once it is time to retire, it is staggering how few small-business owners actually have a written succession plan in place. (Most studies find about 30 percent of small businesses have exit plans in place.)
Maybe it's that they don't want to think about retiring. Maybe the ideal successor hasn't presented himself. Maybe they don't know how to accurately put a value on their business. Maybe it just keeps lingering on their to-do list.
Maybe they just haven't met you yet. Or maybe they've met you, but you haven't yet inquired about what they would like to see happen to their business once they decide to leave it. Don't just assume your small-business owner clients and friends have this all taken care of because, more often than not, they don't. This is a topic that definitely needs to be discussed, and you could very well be in the ideal position to nudge the business owner into an action that could well end up saving his retirement.
Exit planning is the main theme topic of the January issue of Life Insurance Selling, and you can read much more on the subject — including tips for advisors who need to create their own exit plans at the links below. And I would also encourage you to sign up for a free, live one-hour web seminar on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 2 p.m. ET. Business succession planning experts Guy Baker, M.S.F.S., CLU; Tom Fowler, CLU, LUTCF; and E. Dennis Zahrbock, CFP, CLU, ChFC; will share their insight into this lucrative market. These guys know exit planning backwards and forwards, and this is a great chance to pick the brains of some true industry leaders. I hope you'll join us on Thursday.
Life Insurance Selling's January exit planning coverage:
