If you have yet to put in place an estate and succession plan for your business, you’re going to leave the people you love most—your clients, your customers, your team, and your family—in the lurch when something happens to you. And while that probably won’t be tomorrow, it could be.
We get it. There are plenty of reasons to put off estate planning, and as business owners ourselves, we truly understand the common excuses for why you probably haven’t created your estate plan yet. But we also know what to do about it, so you don’t leave the people you love at risk. Read on for the top three excuses to avoid estate planning, and what you can do to overcome those excuses and do the right thing for the people you love.
1. I don’t have enough time.
When running a company, it can be a serious challenge just to get all of your most-pressing daily tasks done on time. This is especially true in today’s fast-paced business environment, where you move from one task, one meeting, one email, one phone call, one text to the next—and before you know it… a year has gone by, and then another, and it just keeps going.
Hectic schedules can make it difficult to engage in forward-thinking, proactive business planning, especially estate and succession planning, which require deep introspective strategizing and can take many months, even years, to fully develop. And even if you do make time to create a plan, unexpected issues—accidents, illness, lawsuits, audits—often pop up that demand your urgent attention, and planning gets put off once again.
Estate planning is a big-picture, long-term process that naturally lends itself to procrastination, so a lot of business owners never get around to it. However, before you allow yourself to keep putting it off, consider how difficult it will be for the people you love—your clients, your team, and your family—if you become incapacitated or die without creating a plan.
So how do you find the time? Let us handle it with you. Start by scheduling a Family Wealth Planning Session with us, during which we will guide you through our step-by-step process to inventory what you own, where it is, and how to plan for the most affordable, effective, and easeful transition of your business in the event of your incapacity or death.
2. My family and team seem to overlook the importance of planning.
While it’s crucial for you to spearhead the creation of your estate and succession plan, it’s equally vital to involve input and action from your family and key non-family team members. If you’re met with disinterest or resistance from your family and team when trying to establish a plan, it can be disheartening.
But remember, even though you won’t be present for the aftermath of a planless situation, it’s still essential to take action. As the leader, it falls on you to inspire and guide your family and team to treat planning with the seriousness it deserves. Despite encountering resistance, staying focused on the goal is key. Your responsibility is to ensure the longevity and prosperity of both your business and family, regardless of unforeseen circumstances.
Once you’ve completed our Legacy Blueprint process, we’ll involve your family and key team members to ensure they understand how your plan affects them. This step is often overlooked but crucial for success. We’ll make sure everyone is informed and included in the planning process at the appropriate time, ensuring alignment and clarity on what to do in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
3. I don’t know what an effective estate and succession plan even looks like.
If you’ve seen a successful estate or succession plan, congratulations. That’s a rarity in today’s world. But chances are, you were not raised by a business owner who successfully passed on their business to the next generation. And if you weren’t, there’s no reason you would know what an effective estate and succession plan looks like.
A lack of clear understanding about any major endeavor frequently leads to fear of failure, and in turn, procrastination. Nobody, especially the boss, wants others to think they don’t know what they’re doing, and this is probably the biggest reason many business owners never get around to creating an effective succession plan.
When it comes to estate and succession planning, it can be difficult to identify clear goals for a future that doesn’t involve you. This is only natural. If planning were simply another operations’ issue that needed solving, you’d likely have a plan in place in no time at all. However, multi-generational planning is by default something you’re almost certainly unfamiliar with.
This can make it feel impossible to even know where to start with your plan, much less identify what problems might arise and how to address them. But you have to start somewhere.
This is where experienced business lawyers like us come in. We will support and guide you to create a comprehensive estate plan to ensure the company, wealth, and legacy you have built will last long after you are gone. Specifically, this involves putting in place a long-term business succession plan that not only names your successor, but provides a detailed roadmap for him or her to follow, when you’re no longer around to offer your guidance and advice.
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