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

Chapter 2 How to Start Creating Your Succession Plan

When considering your succession plan, your actual starting point depends on what you want or need your business to do for you, your family, your staff, and your clients. Remember that the goal of most succession plans is not to remove you as the founder and put you out to pasture; the goal is to build an enduring business around you that can provide an income stream for life while providing leadership and mentorship to a team of internal successors while gradually handing off the reins over a period of 5, 10, 15, or even 20 years if the planning process starts early enough.

Defining Your Goals

There is a high degree of customization for every succession planning strategy. In fact, over the past 16 years, we’ve never done any two plans that were exactly the same. Plans are kind of like a set of blueprints for your dream home. While the building materials and assembly techniques for most homes are very similar and the tools consist largely of hammers, saws, drills, and the like, every home is as unique as the person(s) it is constructed for. That’s how it is with designing and developing a succession plan—it is a plan that starts with you, and your goals and dreams.

The problem with setting specific goals for a succession plan is that you’ve probably never done this before. You’ve walked through other people’s homes and gotten some great ideas while figuring out what you like and don’t like, but most advisors never get to ...