Succession planning for a business owner is not the same as a will

For a great many business owners, seventy to ninety per cent of net worth sits in one illiquid, undiversified, operationally dependent asset. A will decides who inherits that asset. It does not decide whether the asset survives the transition, which is a different and considerably harder question.

The questions that come first

1. If you were unavailable for six months from tomorrow, who signs, who decides, and who do the customers call?
2. Which relationships are the business’s and which are personally yours? The second category does not transfer.
3. Is the next generation interested, capable, and aware that they are expected to be both?
4. What is the business actually worth to a buyer who is not you — and how much of that value walks out with you?

Succession planning done early looks like operational work: documenting processes, broadening relationships, building a management layer that does not depend on one person. Done late, it looks like a distress sale.