Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business, + Website

Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business, + Website

by David Grau Sr.
Released June 2014
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118866474

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Book description

This book is going to challenge you and everything you think you know about succession planning.

For independent advisors, succession planning is quickly becoming the cornerstone to a strategic growth strategy designed to perpetuate their business and their income streams beyond their own lifetime, while providing a multi-generational service platform that attracts and rewards younger advisors. This makes succession planning one of the most, if not the most, important practice management tools in this industry today.

As an independent financial advisor, now is the time to address the question of what will happen to your practice and your clients after you "exit the building." In most cases, the answers are right in front of you. Thankfully, Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business has arrived to transform today's practices into businesses designed to endure and prosper and serve generations of clients.

  • Learn how to create a "Lifestyle Succession Plan" that can provide a lifetime of income and benefits to the founder even as he/she gradually retires on the job

  • Unlock the power of equity management - the best planning and building tool an independent advisor owns

  • Learn how to attract and retain the best of the next generation to help you build a great business and to support your succession plans and care for your clients and their families

  • Determine precisely when to start a formal succession plan and related continuity plan so that your business can work for you when you need it most

  • Understand why succession planning and selling your business are completely different strategies, but how they can complement each other when used correctly

    • 95% of independent financial service professionals are one owner practices. To the positive, these practices are among the most valuable professional service models in America. But almost all advisors are assembling their practices using the wrong tools - tools borrowed from historically successful, but vastly different models including wirehouses, broker-dealers, and even OSJ's and branch managers. Revenue sharing, commission splitting and other eat-what-you-kill compensation methods dominate the independent sector and virtually ensure that today's independent practices, if left unchanged, will not survive the end of their founder's career. It is time to change course and this book provides the map and the details to help you do just that.

    For independent practice owners and staff members, advisors who want to transition to independence, as well as accountants, attorneys, coaches and others involved in the financial services space, there are invaluable lessons to be learned from Succession Planning for Financial Advisors. Written by the leading succession planning expert in the financial services industry, former securities regulator, M&A specialist, and founder of the nationally recognized consulting and equity management firm, FP Transitions, David Grau Sr., JD, has created an unmatched resource that will have an enduring and resounding impact on an entire industry.

    Table of contents

    1. Preface
    2. Acknowledgments
    3. Introduction
    4. Chapter 1: The Succession Conundrum
      1. Practices Built to Die
      2. What Exactly Is a Succession Plan?
      3. Why You Need to Create a Succession Plan Now
      4. Your Clients Are Watching You!
      5. Why This Industry Struggles with This Concept
      6. The Evolution of the Solution
      7. Mind Your Own Business
      8. The Opportunity at Hand
    5. Chapter 2: How to Start Creating Your Succession Plan
      1. Defining Your Goals
      2. Building a Foundation for Success
      3. Facing Your Biggest Challenges
      4. Equity—A Powerful Business-Building Tool
      5. Valuing a Financial Services Practice
      6. Practicing Equity Management
      7. Building Profit-Driven Businesses
    6. Chapter 3: Transforming Your Practice into a Business
      1. Assessing What You Have Built
      2. A Building Problem, Not a Planning Problem
      3. A Parable
      4. Building Your Ship
      5. Rethinking Your Compensation System
      6. Balancing Revenue Strength and Enterprise Strength
      7. Selecting the Right Entity Structure
      8. Remodeling Your Cash Flow
      9. Production Model versus Business Model
    7. Chapter 4: Creating Your Succession Team
      1. The People Problem
      2. The Secret Formula: G-1 + G-2 + G-3
      3. Plan Before You Build and Hire
      4. Mining the Talent Pool
      5. Turning Employees into Equity Partners
      6. Onboarding Talent with a Book of Business
      7. The Case of the Super Producer
      8. Help Wanted Ad
      9. Solving the Talent Crisis in This Industry
      10. A Conversation with the Next Generation
    8. Chapter 5: The First Step—A Continuity Plan
      1. A Dress Rehearsal for Succession Planning
      2. What Exactly Is a Continuity Plan?
      3. Basic Components of a Continuity Plan
      4. Types of Agreements
      5. Funding Your Continuity Plan
      6. Continuity Plan Dos and Don’ts
      7. A Powerful Acquisition Tool
      8. Communicating Your Plan
    9. Chapter 6: Charting Your Succession Course
      1. Exit Strategies versus Succession Plans
      2. Selling Your Practice
      3. Mergers
      4. What Doesn’t Work in This Industry
      5. Employee Stock Ownership Plans
      6. What Does Work? A Lifestyle Succession Plan
      7. Goals of a Lifestyle Succession Plan
      8. The Family Business—A Special Case
      9. “Yes, but . . .” (Obstacles to Overcome)
    10. Chapter 7: Succession Planning Step-by-Step
      1. Where to Start
      2. Assembling Your Support Team
      3. Enjoy the Planning Process
      4. Doing the Math
      5. Establishing a Fair Price
      6. The Nuts and Bolts of a Plan
      7. Documentation
      8. Bank Financing—Expanding Your Options
      9. Beware of Benchmarks and Survey Results
    11. Chapter 8: A Tale of Ownership
      1. Succession Planning Case Study
    12. Chapter 9: Course Corrections
      1. Returning to the Harbor
      2. Empowering the Next Generation
      3. Growth Is a Sign That Your Plan Is Working
      4. What to Do When Your Plans Change
      5. What to Do When Their Plans Change
      6. Handling the Culture Shift
    13. Conclusion
    14. About the Companion Website
    15. About the Author
    16. Index
    17. End User License Agreement

    Product information

    • Title: Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business, + Website
    • Author(s): David Grau Sr.
    • Release date: June 2014
    • Publisher(s): Wiley
    • ISBN: 9781118866474