Life's biggest decisions
Handing it over is not the same as selling it
A sale ends with a wire. A succession ends with people you know still running the thing you built, which makes it the harder of the two.
Why now
Why this moment is different
In a sale, the buyer brings capital and a management team. In a succession, you are usually supplying both. The successors rarely have the money to buy you out outright, which means the transfer is financed somehow, and often the business itself is what services that financing.
That makes your retirement dependent on the company continuing to perform under someone else. It is the single biggest difference from a sale, and it is why building personal assets outside the business matters more here, not less.
The people question is not soft. A management team that survives the founder leaving is something built over years, and the most common failure is a business whose value was largely the owner's own relationships and judgment. Buyers discount that; successors simply inherit it.
And a buy-sell agreement without funding behind it is an intention. Your family finds out which one it was at the worst possible moment, which is why the funding is the part we look at rather than the existence of the document.
What goes wrong
The mistakes we see most often
The plan exists only in your head
Whether it is family, a partner, or the management team, everyone else is guessing until it is written down and funded.
A buy-sell agreement with nothing behind it
An unfunded obligation is a promise that the business or the family has to find the cash for, usually at the worst possible time.
Assuming a child wants it
This conversation is uncomfortable enough to postpone indefinitely, and postponing it is how a succession plan turns into a forced sale.
A retirement funded entirely by the business
If the payout depends on the company performing under new leadership, your retirement carries the same risk the successors do.
Moving ownership too late
Transferring interests is generally easier and cheaper before there is a valuation event in view. Afterward, the options narrow.
Leaving the tax treatment to the closing
How the transfer is structured drives what everyone keeps. That is a decision with a long lead time, not a detail for the paperwork.
How we help
What we do with you
We start with the two questions separated: who should own this, and who should run it. They frequently have different answers, and treating them as one question is what makes succession plans collapse.
Then we work on the parts with the longest lead time. Personal assets built outside the company so your retirement is not carried by it alone. A transfer mechanism and its tax treatment, agreed with your CPA and attorney. A buy-sell agreement with funding actually behind it. And an honest read on whether the leadership is there yet.
We also run the number that most owners have not seen: what your retirement looks like if the business pays out as planned, and what it looks like if it does not. Knowing both is what makes the rest of the plan decidable.
The work behind it
What this usually touches
- What this involves →
Business exit planning
Two owners can sign the same purchase price and keep different amounts, sometimes by a wide margin. The difference is structure, timing, and planning that happened years earlier.
- What this involves →
Estate & legacy
Most estate problems we find are not missing documents. They are documents that no longer match the accounts, the titling, or the family.
- What this involves →
Life insurance & cash value
The useful order is obligation first, product second. Most people meet it the other way around, which is why the subject carries so much suspicion.
- What this involves →
Retirement income
It is the question most people ask late and quietly. Answering it properly takes an afternoon, and the answer changes how you feel about the next ten years.
Who this usually is
How this starts
Three steps, and the first one costs you an hour
Step 01
Tell us your story
About an hour, no cost, no obligation to do anything afterward.
- How you got to this point, in your own words. Career, family, the decisions that shaped the last ten years.
- What keeps your attention at odd hours. Usually it is more specific than money in general.
- What success looks like to you. Not a number we hand you, the version you would describe to a friend.
- Who is already in your corner: your CPA, your attorney, anyone else we should be working alongside.
Straight about money
The first meeting is free
If we go ahead together, planning carries a fee, and you will know the number before you commit to anything. For households above $1 million in assets we manage, it is typically waived.
Straight answers
Business succession: common questions
A sale converts the company into cash from an outside buyer who brings their own capital and management. A succession transfers it to people who usually have neither yet, which means the deal is financed over time and often by the business itself. That puts your retirement income and the company's performance on the same thread, which is the risk a sale removes and a succession does not.
The work that changes the outcome has a multi-year lead time: developing leadership, building personal assets outside the company, and moving ownership while it is still straightforward to move. Starting three to five years out is common. Starting later is still worth doing, with fewer options available.
No, it changes who the successor is. Management buyouts and employee ownership are both real paths, and both need the same things: leadership capable of running it, a funded mechanism to transfer it, and a retirement for you that does not depend entirely on the outcome.
It depends entirely on whether there is funding behind it. An agreement establishes what is supposed to happen; funding determines whether it can. Checking which one you have is a short conversation and worth having before it matters.
This material is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as tax, legal, or investment advice. Neither GGM Wealth Advisors nor Cambridge provides tax or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.
Let's start with a conversation
Bring whatever is on your mind: a vest date you are unsure about, an offer you are weighing, a business you might sell in three years. Nothing to prepare, no cost, and you will leave with something useful whether or not we end up working together.