The Key To The Family Business Leader's Ultimate Success: Beginning With Your "Fourth Quarter" First
My Dad could see that I was getting frustrated. He had introduced me to puzzles at a young age. He always liked to work out how the pieces needed to fit together.
Working on a book of mazes, I kept making the wrong turns and hitting dead ends. “The secret to solving maze puzzles”, he said, “is to start at the end and work backwards.” Little did I realize as a young boy how this well known “secret” drove my Dad’s approach to his life and his many Family Businesses. Or how it would drive my future approach to working with Family Business Leaders around the country.
Reaching The Results You Want
As Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has reminded us, “Begin with the end in mind.” For Family Business Leaders, this means “Begin with your Fourth Quarter First.”
This is the key to ultimate success which I’ve seen time and again put into practice by successful Family Business Leaders. It is the mindset they’ve asked us to deploy with them.
Eventually, every Family Business Leader will reach what we call the “Fourth Quarter” of their time as a Family Business owner. At that time, every owner wants to accomplish certain personal, financial, business and estate planning goals. Yet, way too many fail to do so. They went through the first three quarters of their life as a Family Business Leader without fully considering what would be needed to successfully win their Fourth Quarter too. Our Family Business Team has been working for years to change that.
Efforts by Family Business Leaders to be fully satisfied with their eventual success have been, on average, less than satisfying. For example, some studies show that over 75% of former business owners regretted the decision to sell their Company because the sale did not accomplish their personal or business objectives. What was the reason the business owners gave? They did not understand all of their options, so they didn’t make informed decisions.
Create Opportunities Now So You Have Options Later
Over the years, we have worked with hundreds of Family Business Leaders from around the U.S. to help them overcome these odds and achieve a successful outcome for the time and capital they have invested in their businesses. Using our “Fourth Quarter” Game Plan system we are working with Family Business Leaders to help you to create and understand your options and to take the active steps which we suggest you look at taking today so you can successfully retire from, pass on, sell or exit from your Company someday tomorrow.
What Will Be Your “Fourth Quarter” Outcome?
What do you hope will be the future outcome of the time and financial investment you are making or planning to make in your business? Based on over 40 years of working with owners of small, middle-market and large Family Businesses in practically every business sector, I’ve found the answers to this question tend to be very similar. Most owners of Family Businesses have some or all of the following hopes or wishes:
- That your income from the business will continue to grow and provide an increasing standard of living for you, your family and your colleagues.
- That your business will help you accumulate sufficient financial resources for a comfortable retirement.
- That your business will not suffer or be lost through the negative influence of either internal or external adversities or claims.
- That both your business and your family can financially survive your unexpected, premature disability or death.
- That you can retire upon your own terms, while leaving your business in the good hands of successor leadership which you have selected and mentored.
- That ultimately you can either pass on a successful and valuable business to your family, or sell your business to your fellow owners, leadership team or an outside buyer of your choice at optimal price and terms, while minimizing potential federal and state taxes.
- That you can accomplish all of this with minimal shareholder, management and family squabbles.
- That your Trusted Advisors will work together with you on understanding your options to help you make informed, timely decisions.
These tend to be common Family Business Leader wishes, whether you own all or part of your business, whether your business is small, middle-market or large, whether you are in the business of selling products or services, and whether you started the business yourself or inherited or bought it from someone else.
How Do You Achieve The Future Outcome You Want?
Almost all of the Family Business Leaders we have worked with over the years are very good at what they do. They also all realize that a business is not successful or profitable simply because they might wish it to be so. It’s a basic and well understood principle of business – to be profitable and successful, you need to actively take the steps needed to efficiently provide, at a competitive price, products or services that a significant segment of the consumer or business public needs or wants.
You know you can not simply wish or hope this will happen on its own. The successful Family Business requires years of hard work, planning, dedication, and good business decisions. Likewise, you can’t simply wish for your future Fourth Quarter to be successful and then expect it to be. You need to actively cause your Fourth Quarter to be successful – by starting very early on.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with my own family in a number of their business operations, which have included restaurants, supermarkets, ranching, farming, retail merchandising, construction and real estate. They have provided good examples of the “entrepreneur’s work ethic,” not just by working hard in their businesses, but also by working hard on their businesses.
I’ve also had the opportunity to get to know many Family Business Leaders. Most Family Business Leaders whom we’ve worked with tend to realize, some sooner than others, that the future outcome they want for their business, family and colleagues will be realized only if they apply the same skills to work ON their business as they have applied to working IN their business.
How is this done? It’s done by realizing that your business should not rule your life. It’s done by realizing that you need to take the steps necessary to rule one of the most important but too frequently overlooked aspects of being a Family Business Leader – the proactive, successful future transition and future exit process. It’s done by asking two fundamental questions and then taking decisive action based on the answers.
Question 1: What Will Be The Probable, Almost Certain, Future Outcome Of Our Present Course, If Left Unchanged?
Question 2: What’s Missing, The Presence Of Which Will Make A Substantial Difference In Producing A Better Future Outcome?
I encourage Family Business Leaders to take some time to answer these questions thoughtfully. What will be the outcome of your present course? The probable almost certain future outcome of a Family Business Leader’s investment of time and capital depends on how well you understand this.
What we do through our “Fourth Quarter” Game Plan system is to work with you ON your business through various Family Business Continuity tools and strategies (“Main Plays”) which have a proven track record of producing a better outcome for those who utilize them.
Learn From The Past And Create Your Future
So, where do we begin? The first step is to understand the “probable, almost certain, future outcome of your present course, if left unchanged.” Will your business endure? Will you be able to transition or sell your business? Will your business be in a position to be sold at optimal price and terms, with minimized taxes, when you are ready to depart? Will you have a capable successor, whether amongst your family or key employees or recruitable from outside the company? Are you prepared for the unexpected?
Understand What Is Right. Deal With What Is Wrong
We begin this review by making certain, together with your other Trusted Advisors, that we each have a solid understanding of your business and personal objectives—and your priorities.
We deploy our Family Business Continuity “Second Opinion” Protocol to quickly achieve this focus.
This Protocol helps you and us quickly answer the second of the above 2 questions, i.e. “What’s Missing”.
There are many different Business Profit, Asset Protection, Succession and Estate Planning tools and strategies from which we select for Family Business Leaders to successfully provide the missing plays, the presence of which equips you and your business for achieving a substantially better present and future for yourself and your Company, family and colleagues.
Fourth Quarter Game Plan – Main Plays
These are some of the 24 Main Plays from our “Fourth Quarter” Game Plan System:
The Profit Playbook
- The Profit Strategy Team
- The “Business Model Command” Initiative
The Protection Playbook
- The Business Asset Protection Protocol
- The Business Continuity Agreement
- The Leadership Recognition and Reward Program
The Estate Playbook
- The Business Owner Estate Plan
- The Family Bloodline Opportunities Trust
- The Family Peacekeeper Protocol
- The Family Buy-Sell Agreement
The Succession Playbook
- The “Rubber Meets The Road” Report
- The “House-In-Order” Checkup
- The Inside Route Exit Plan
- The Outside Route Exit Plan
Stop, Look Both Ways, Proceed With Care
My purpose, as a Family Business Continuity Attorney, is to work with you and your other Trusted Advisors to determine which of these tools and strategies (Main Plays), can best help you achieve the ultimate success for your Fourth Quarter.
Are You A “Family Business”?
The U.S. Bureau of the Census reports that 90% of all U.S. businesses are Family Businesses. Michael F. Gerber, the author of The E-Myth Revisited says: “Every business is a family business. To ignore this truth is to court disaster.”
I’ll Wait Until…
“I’ll wait until… the economy bounces back… or until we reach our next revenue milestone… or until my family pushes a bit harder about my plans…” or until this, that or the next thing. This is what we call the “Wait and See” Game Plan. It is a recipe for ultimate failure.
Instead, we follow two main principles: “All plans are firm … until changed.” And, “Don’t wait for perfect, go for great.” These enable us to move ahead with speed, clarity and focus, while keeping the ability to adjust as the future plays out.
The Key To Ultimate Success
Our firm has helped plan ahead for, design, negotiate and implement the continued success and transition of hundreds of Family Businesses with values ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars. Each Family Business presents unique objectives, hurdles and opportunities. And each Family Business Leader’s ultimate success was dependent on the focus on Family Business Continuity actions deployed early.
The key to success is to get started well in advance - to become engaged early in the Family Business Continuity process. The best results are achieved when you as a Family Business Leader “begin with your Fourth Quarter First”, whether you are presently in your First Quarter, Second Quarter, Third Quarter or Fourth Quarter.
For a “Quick Start” way to achieve this, we welcome Family Business Leaders and their Trusted Advisors to request a copy of our Family Business Continuity “Second Opinion” Protocol (which can also be downloaded at www.FourthQuarterFirst.com ).
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