The Powerball lottery, as of today, is sitting comfortably at $1.5 billion. Whoa! And if your office is anything like ours, your co-workers are already discussing how they’re going to spend their millions.
Truth be told, you can count the number of lottery tickets I’ve bought on one hand. (I can’t even win free concert tickets on the radio, so winning billions of dollars is really out of my league.) But if I want a chance at winning billions, I have to enter the game. Don’t play, don’t win. Pretty simple rules.
The same principle holds true for family business owners. You can’t let chance govern your company’s future by not preparing a succession plan. Knowing how your family business will transfer from the current generation to the next is critical to the long-term viability of your company.
Developing a succession plan takes time. It requires the thought and input from a wide variety of people in, as well as outside your company. It requires progressive thought-leadership. To help you get started, here are some helpful questions to help you start your succession plan:
- Where’s the passion to lead the business?
- Who will be in charge?
- Who has the “goods” to lead?
- When should you plan?
- What should the plan look like?
So how do you win the lottery? You buy the ticket with the winning number! And winning the family business lottery is just as simple. You don’t leave it to chance. You get involved in the “game’. You develop a strategic succession plan that will guide your company into the future long after you’ve retired to the beach house or mountaintop villa.
Need help with your succession planning? Let us help!
-by Elle Hansen
