As a successful business owner, you’ve likely considered the day you’ll exit your company and what the next chapter of your life will look like. Although many business owners consider it, far too few start planning with enough lead time to exit on their terms. Exit planning is a complex process that truly can never start too early. When navigating those complexities, there is efficiency and success in numbers!
Our Peer Advisory Board (PAB) on Exit Planning can streamline your journey. Robert J. Zarlengo, Inc. launched its PAB in 2017 to provide business owners with a laser-focused approach to their eventual exit. The board consists of closely-held business owners that meet every other month. The group is facilitated by Bob Zarlengo, who, after successfully exiting his CPA firm after almost four decades of ownership, now focuses his work on assisting business owners with exit planning. He has applied his expertise to craft more than 60 successful exit strategies in the last several years.
Members of the Peer Advisory Board on Exit Planning share insights and resources, discuss strategies, and uncover solutions as they plan their individual exits. Participation on the Board provides owners with an unprecedented opportunity to share experiences with peers who are on parallel paths – and a truly unique, synergistic environment that will serve to compound your exit planning success.
Bob guides Board meetings as members explore, in depth, various exit planning topics including:
- Identifying Your Exit Objectives
- Quantifying Financial Resources (cash flow, business valuation)
- Maximizing and Protecting Business Value
- Handling Ownership Transfers
- Learning how to Construct Your Advisor Team
- Understanding Tax Implications of Various Transition Strategies
Other well-known groups, such as The Alternative Board (TAB) and Vistage, share the Peer Advisory Board model, but these groups address a variety of far-reaching elements of business. Exit planning may be touched upon as a singular topic, but not nearly in the detail necessary for a business owner to build and execute their individual exit strategy.
The Peer Advisory Board in a Snapshot:
- Meets six times per year, every other month
- Board consists of closely-held business owners
- Discuss challenges, share resources and cultivate solutions throughout the exit planning process
- Each PAB Board member receives six one-hour individual consultations with Bob Zarlengo, opposite the board meeting months.
- Board membership requires a minimum one-year commitment in order to provide continuity and afford the greatest opportunity for each member’s success.
The exit planning process starts with a vision of the future and the objectives, both business and personal, that each owner wants to achieve when he or she eventually leaves their business. The existing situation of each company is evaluated and the gap between the current state of the business and the owner’s exit objectives is identified. Then a course is charted to get there.
What benefits can closely-held business owners expect when they join the Peer Advisory Board?
- An inexpensive way to gain valuable, strategic insights into exit planning
- A process by which to formulate your own exit strategy using tried and proven methods
- A sounding board, with peer insight, for issues that surface as you plan your exit
- Accountability to your own exit planning strategy
- Access to ideas you may not have considered
- Comradery with other like-minded, closely-held, business owners
- Resources that will ensure your successful exit when the time comes
How the Board Can Help You TODAY
Each participant emerges with an exit “destination” and a road map and strategy to get there. But there’s more! Along with developing a strategic plan for their future exit, Board members will find that this plan benefits the health and stability of their business today. A strategic exit plan charts the course for many aspects of your business for the long-term. It is designed to optimize and protect the value of your business, and it provides systems to monitor your progress. Few businesses have this degree of strategy, long-term planning, and accountability in place without having gone through the exit planning process.
For more information or to be considered for membership on the Colorado or Virtual Peer Advisory Board, email Bob Zarlengo at BZarlengo@RJZinc.com or visit https://rjzinc.com/about/exit-planning-board/.