Succession planning isn’t easy. There’s a lot to know, a lot that can’t be fully anticipated. Demographics tell us that the biggest transition of business ownership ever is coming up. It’s the expectation of a majority of owners that a family member or employee will be the buyer. Because of relationships, emotion and the intimate knowledge of the business and the parties involved, an insider buying out the boss is in a different position than an outside buyer. Our goal with this book is to be the successor’s guide to succession planning. We want to help business buyers and business owners understand the nuances and dynamics of transferring a business successfully from the current owners to their internal successors.

Succession Planning: the nuances and dynamics of transferring a business

What You’ll Learn

Kevin and Michael Vann offer insight into succession planning and the nuances and dynamics of transferring a business. People often assume that buying a business is easier when you know the owner—there’s a layer of trust and congeniality that doesn’t exist among strangers. But if you want to negotiate the best deal for yourself without wrecking relationships, you need to arm yourself with the right set of tools and tactics. You need a successor’s guide to succession planning.

In Buying Out the Boss, father-son team Kevin and Michael Vann reveal how you can handle common problems that arise during transactions between colleagues and family members. You’ll learn to:

Be strategic, not emotional
Avoid informal arrangements
Make sure expectations are aligned
Assess the company’s true value

Create a transition plan
Finance the deal
Close with confidence

Inside transactions can go off the rails when you don’t know what to expect. With Buying Out the Boss, you’ll understand the process and move through every step with confidence.

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READ INTRODUCTION

WHAT’S IN THE BOOK: The Successor’s Guide to Succession Planning

We want to help keep the business in the family, if that’s what they want. If not, we want to help employees or an outside buyer make the best deal possible to keep the company going. We want to help them buy out the boss. Plus, we like the challenge of putting together a good deal.

Part I Prepare

Chapter 1 The Basics – Basics of Succession Planning

Chapter 2 The Elements – Four key elements of every transaction

Chapter 3 Pandora’s Box – Opening Pandora’s box—all the unpleasant issues that can arise when the Succession issue is brought up

Chapter 4 Team Building – How buyers can put together a good working team of advisors

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Read an excerpt from Chapter 2

Part II Advance

Chapter 5 The Process – Basics of expectations, valuation, and realities

Chapter 6 Set Expectations – How to set expectations for the deal that both parties can agree to

Chapter 7 Value Assessment – How to assess the value of the company

Chapter 8 New Realities – Reconciling the realities: how to bridge the gap between what the seller needs and what the buyer wants

Chapter 9 Define Strategy – The strategy needed to reach an agreement

Chapter 10 Transaction Mechanics – The mechanics of the deal, including due diligence, payment structure, and tax and legal issues

Part III Close

Chapter 11 Finance the Deal – The many ways the deal could be financed

Chapter 12 Get to Close – The many ways the deal could fall apart at the last minute, ways to avoid that outcome, and how to keep the deal moving forward

Chapter 13 The Transition Plan – Overview of Transition Planning for the new owner and strategies for avoiding the common business culture problems that come with change

Chapter 14 Expect Legacy Costs – Legacy costs—an often overlooked issue—for new owners

Chapter 15 Value Building – How value building helps ensure future success

MEET THE AUTHORS

meet michael vann

meet kevin vann

THE VANN GROUP

We have an entrepreneurial family, going all the way back to the early 1800s. Our passion is for business; we own several today. When you grow up with a business background and go into consulting and transactions, you learn to solve a lot of problems and do crisis planning—and you learn to deal with conflict, privilege, and bias when creating the plans for the transfer of a business. We appreciate the intricacies of succession planning because we also own a company that had intergenerational family issues. The business was started by two uncles who, at this point, haven’t spoken to each other in years. Seven cousins in our family had minority interests in this good-sized company. Five of them have left the business, leaving two to run it. Because of the family dysfunction, planning for the future is very difficult.

We’ve been consulting for clients for over thirty-five years, dealing with those same issues of succession, whether within the family, or as a non-family transfer. The Vann Group today brings our knowledge and experience to business transfers. Our goal with this book is to help business buyers and business owners understand the complexities of transferring a business successfully from the current owners to their successors, whether those successors are family members, insider employees, or outsiders. Our advice is based on our practical experience with hundreds of clients over the years.

We want to help keep the business in the family, if that’s what they want. If not, we want to help employees or an outside buyer make the best deal possible to keep the company going. We want to help them buy out the boss. Plus, we like the challenge of putting together a good deal.

Succession planning can be so complicated that, ideally, you would begin it from day one, when you start the business. Realistically, there’s a five-year window from the time you start to think that maybe it’s time to retire and pass the business on, to the time it actually happens. Before that, there should always be some planning done to protect your family and the business in the event the worst case happens. Most business owners leave succession planning for much later in the game, but it’s never too late to get started.

There’s a real need for our services today. Demographics tell us that the biggest transition of business ownership ever is coming up, but most of the businesses involved, which are a significant portion of individual wealth, aren’t positioned to be sold. In this book, we hope to provide the dose of reality that buyers need. Buying Out the Boss is the ultimate guide to succession planning. We want to help them understand the nuances and dynamics of what goes on in the emotional side of a business and how to apply that understanding to the purchase process. Sometimes we feel like family therapists, rather than business consultants, but our job is to be the business’s best friend and arrange the best deal for everyone.