78: Do You Have an Exit Strategy for Your Business?
Behind Their Success: Ep. 78
Paden: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to Behind Their Success Podcast. I'm Paden Squires, the host, and today we have on Joseph LoPresti. Joseph is the founder of Clear Path Family Office and Arlington Wealth Management and is the co-author of Exit By Design. He has 40 years of experience helping business owners maximize wealth, minimize taxes, and transition out of their businesses on their own terms. Joseph, good morning. Welcome on Behind their Success.
Joseph: Good morning, Paden. Thanks for having me.
Paden: Yeah, absolutely Joseph. It sounds like me and you are, at least complimentary, type businesses. Kind of tell me, tell me what you do.
Joseph: Yeah, so we, work with, entrepreneurs, to, kind of get over that last 20 yards of their
career. you know, we think many of 'em are very good at getting to the, uh, you know, using, uh,
football analogy, get to the 20 yard line. by being craftsman and, you know, building a great
business. but many of them find, I think, [00:01:00] complexity between that 20 yard line and the
end zone and you know how to get to where they wanna be, which for most of them is achieving
financial freedom and just really more personal freedom, which of course, financial is part of it.
So we try to unravel all that complexity to, you know, get 'em into the end zone and live the life
that they want.
Paden: Yeah. That's very cool. you're helping a lot of entrepreneurs really, you know, at the
back end, kind of a little bit of their career ride, or I guess maybe not, you know, it doesn't have
to necessarily be their last business, but you're helping them, get the business ready to sell,
right?
Or, and then execute the sale. Is that correct?
Joseph: We are, and we really help with a whole array of, Planning the business strategy and
coordinating it with their personal wealth planning centered around, you know, what they want
out of life. because I think a lot of them have good advisors, but many of them I. Many of the
advisors, I should say, uh, work in kind of a siloed professional silo, you know, where they get
[00:02:00] accounting advice or legal advice or financial advice, but there's nobody really
coordinating all that to make sure that it's going to be optimal for the business owner and what,
their life desires are.
Paden: Oh yeah, and, what you're explaining there of, you know, advisors in silos and, and
whatnot. That's, that's completely been my experience. You know, I'm a. C-P-A-C-F-P kind of.
So I'm, you know, very, very similar, similar type business model. And, that's what we've, you
know, we've been really working on insider our own business is, is breaking down those silos
and why I kind of straddle the tax and the wealth world and, and, and helping people because it
is, it's true, it's, it's, most people, you know, they have a financial advisor, maybe they have a tax
advisor. You know, an insurance person and then an attorney, and like getting all that synced up
or even get the advisors not to just constantly be giving you conflict and advice, uh, is tough to
do, right?
Joseph: Yeah, conflicting advice and, and really, um, you know, there's gaps in the planning
[00:03:00] because they are working in these silos and it exposes some dangers in some cases.
I've run into that, and in many other cases, it just misses tremendous opportunities to build
family wealth, as opposed to having. I like to ask my clients or prospective clients, like, when's
the last time you had your accountant, attorney, financial advisor, and business advisor sitting
around a table talking about your agenda and
Paden: answer is never right.
Joseph: the answer's?
Never. I mean, unless they're really big, you know, if they have really big businesses, then they
probably do have. An internal team, uh, you know, that does that. But, uh, that's really what
ClearPoint family office does, is we get all of the key advisors sitting around a table. Talking
about the business owners, the entrepreneur's agenda, not their own agenda.
Because in a lot of cases that's what the advice, you know, comes from, not because it's,
immoral advice. That's [00:04:00] not what I'm getting at. It's just that they don't know what they
don't know. You know, your financial advisor probably doesn't know much about talking to you
about your business strategy.
Paden: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Your attorney doesn't know much about talking about your insurance, or other types of
needs. so having them all sit around the table to talk about your agenda really gets synergies
and collaboration going and, and maximizes opportunities.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, your, your insurance person, your tax person, so your
advisor, your financial advisor. I mean, everybody has their own perspectives, right? Like, you
know, the tax guy's always thinking about the tax perspective, you know, and it, it's just blending
all those perspectives, right? To find, okay, here's the right answer. Of like the blending, all those
perspectives and, this is kind of a right answer, that, that satisfies all the perspectives and you
know, the client's agenda,
right?
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. And the entrepreneur never really done it before in many cases. the
business owners we work with are the [00:05:00] founding business owners who have been,
you know, running their business for maybe 10, 20, 30 years. And they're very good at what they
do, but They've never exited a business before, whether it's an internal transition or they're
gonna sell.
So it creates some anxiety around the whole process. They, they end up procrastinating
because it, it's not what they're an expert at.
Paden: Yeah.
Joseph: So having a. team or, you know, I like to call it a personal chief financial officer that's
gonna know what the business owner is really after in life. And then coordinating all the planning
around that, I think is, is a huge value add for a business owner through their whole career,
really, ideally.
But most of 'em don't start really thinking about it till they get, you know, start to think about that
end game.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. that transition process, that exit, right? Or, you know, depending on what
that transition process or you're selling out to private equity or, or whatnot. But [00:06:00] you're,
you're right. I mean, for, for most people, most business owners, entrepreneurs, that's gonna be
the biggest transaction they ever do in their life, right? so. Man really doing your due diligence
and, doing the, planning beforehand, right? Because so many people, it's like, Hey, I got a check
and what do I do now? Um, there's so much more stuff, you know, if you, if you have a runway
of knowing, hey, you know, in like three months, six months, I'm gonna do this. getting that plan,
in place is, is massive.
Joseph: Yeah, ab absolutely. And even better, you know, if you're thinking it out, say three
years,
Paden: Yeah, because you're gonna have to make a bunch of tweaks to the business, right?
Like you need to make, you know, for most part, for a lot of businesses, you gotta go in there
and fix your financials. Like they're not, you know, they're not on accrual accounting, they're not,
you know, they're not in any position that private equity's gonna come in and, you know,
consider 'em a serious business.
Right. so yeah, they usually spend years, right, trying to tweak and get the business ready to
even. Hey, you know, I got this nice cool asset here. [00:07:00] Um, you know, that's attractive,
attractive to sell. And then often when the entrepreneurs do all that, they spend all the time fixing
their business, right? And then they're like, well, maybe I should just keep it.
It's kind of nice now.
Joseph: I've seen that, seen that a number of times too, where they realize that. Now I have the
personal freedom that I didn't have before because, you know, maybe the business was a little
too dependent on them, or in some cases all, you know, completely dependent on them.
Paden: I mean, and most are right, like
Joseph: Yeah,
right. you know, one of the first things we like to do is establish the current value in the
marketplace for, for a business owner and really help them understand.
what the business is worth in the market, not how it's valued in their eyes or,
from a, just, from a background type of perspective, but what do you think your it's, it's actually
worth to a buyer? Right. And then work on number one, protecting that value, right? They,
they're, they're way beyond [00:08:00] startup now and, and protecting what they've built is
really the first priority.
Second priority then is how do we enhance that value? Um, and you started to get into it by
cleaning up the financials. Uh, but there's a number of different metrics, right, that we're gonna
look at that could show them, Hey, this is what it's worth today. This is what it could be worth if
you work on these specific areas and, and get those, uh, a little bit higher score in those areas.
Um, and then go into the transition readiness of the business and their personal readiness to
transition, because that's a huge factor in, uh, in a, in a business owner's life. And, you know,
having them, having it be. Well thought out, you know, an enjoyable experience. That they are
educated on the whole process of what they're going to experience and that they can make wise
decisions because they didn't get blindsided by something they didn't know.
Paden: Yeah. [00:09:00] Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Like a big tax bill.
Joseph: That's a huge one. That's a huge one, and you really have to do, start that. Ideally
you're starting that, you know, a a few years before. Tax planning and entity, you know, structure
and, and uh, you could weave in asset protection with that. You could weave in wealth transfer,
you know, to take care of their families in a much better way as opposed to just thinking about it
like you said earlier.
Well, I gotta check now. What do I do? You miss, you miss a lot of opportunity to build family
wealth that way.
Paden: Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, you talk about the personal side of the transition, I
think that's huge too, is you know, so the entrepreneur spent the last 20 years building this
business and then they sell it. you know, many entrepreneurs talk about after they sell the
business, like they feel bad with it, they just cut off their cash flow.
Right. In a lot of ways. Right? So you gotta, you know, you gotta understand that and go into
that like eyes wide open because [00:10:00] like, hey, you know, when you're considering selling
a business right? selling this asset, you're gonna lose your cash flow coming out of it, right? Like
whatever cash flow you're getting, it's gone.
Now you're gonna get replaced with a check, but then you've honestly really just created a new
problem where you've got this check that you gotta figure out how to turn back into cash flow,
right? and, you know, that all can be done with proper planning, but, you know, and sometimes I,
I think people don't understand that or consider that like, you know, you're giving up one asset
for really just a different one and, and really thinking through. Is that actually what you want to
do or not? Does that make the most sense for you?
Joseph: Exactly. And that's, you know, in some cases there, that's what I was getting at earlier
where if you talk to a financial advisor, they're going to, most of them are going to say, well yeah,
that makes perfect sense. 'cause now we could invest the money and I know how to do that and
we could, you know, we could get you the cash flow that you need.
But is that always the right advice for the entrepreneur? Um, you know, maybe selling isn't the
best thing to do. Maybe they should [00:11:00] be thinking about diversifying some. Of their
equity in the business, but not all. And in other cases, maybe their best opportunity is just keep
growing it. Uh, so the financial advisor in many cases isn't necessarily equipped to provide that
level of advice to a business owner.
so you really, I think, have to have a team of advisors that, that is experienced in going through
that process. With that, that other business owners have already gone through.
Paden: it's just finding, finding people that have been there before, right. Like that, that have
that experience that, you know, have walked through situations very similar. Right. And, and just,
you know, having them kind of lead you through it. Right. and you're right, most, most financial
advisors, They're not dealing with stuff like this, right? They're, they're dealing with, um, mom
and pop sign for retirement, and that's not, you know, that's not a disparaging thing or anything
on them. It's just they're not, they're not necessarily equipped or have [00:12:00] the knowledge
to handle transactions like this, right?
Joseph: That's exactly right. It's, you know, financial advisors know what they know. Um, but
you know, you brought up a really good thing like that cash flow after the sale or, you know,
during the transition process for example. So that's where weaving in the personal wealth
planning with the business strategy is imperative in my opinion.
What we'll do for every client is we'll develop a lifetime cash flow plan. They could be 10 years
out from selling the business, but we want them to see on paper what this is gonna look like
between now and when they're ready to sell. You know, through the transition life after the sale,
how they're gonna be getting their cash flow.
It also helps you plan for tax efficiency. On a number of fronts, you know, one is through the
transaction, which you've already, you know, alluded to, is a huge [00:13:00] potential
opportunity for business owners, right? They do that advanced tax reduction planning on the
transaction, but then being able to set up their cash flow in a tax efficient way after the sale.
You, a lot of times it's hard to do that if you wait till after the sale, but if you start. Ahead of time
you could set it up. So your cashflow is either tax free or tax advantaged,
uh, after the sale. And that's a big, you know, a big wealth builder because taxes are gonna be
one of the biggest, if not the biggest expenses for a business owner.
It's certainly one of them.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and you're right. And I think, I think the key piece of advice with
all of this is the longer the runway you have, the better plan that you can put into place, right?
Like, you know, just, just putting those pieces in place. And you're right. You know, if you, start
really planning out this, this transaction, say three years in advance, there's a whole lot of
moves you can make to start preparing [00:14:00] things and putting capital in certain places
and, and to, to really set yourself up to.
Make that transaction as, you know, as least taxing as possible. And, um, and, you know, just
allow you to keep as much money as you know as you can from the transaction. Right.
Joseph: Yeah, keep the money for the transaction and keep it in the family, right? Because, uh,
for a lot of business owners taking care of their heirs is, uh, you know, one of their biggest
concerns. And, um, you miss big opportunities. Uh, if you don't plan that out, be proactive with
that planning.
Paden: Yeah, I've been in the industry long enough. I'm sure you have too. You've seen a lot of
situations that, man, if they would've just done a little bit of planning, you know what I mean? It,
it, it would've turned out totally, totally different.
Joseph: Yeah, it's amazing how many stories you hear about. Well, you know, and oftentimes
we'll get referred business owners. That have already sold. And really that's one of the reasons
why, you know, we've [00:15:00] moved into this niche, is because we, we realize that after
meeting those business owners, we could have been, uh, we could have added so much value
to their life had we met them a few years before the sale.
that's why, you know, working with business owners is our niche. And then doing that
coordinated planning. Before the sale, through the, through the, the transaction and after life
after is I think a, a, huge advantage for many business owners.
Are you looking for a new tax experience, looking for an advisor that actually brings you high
level ideas and proactively plan so you aren't overpaying your taxes? Or how about one that
even just responds and communicates in a timely fashion? If any of that resonates with you, you
probably just have a tax preparer and not a tax planner.
Speaker 2: And it is through the tax planning process where all the value is found. And when
Tax Planning's done right, it has a positive return on investment. I'm Payden Squires, I'm a CPA
[00:16:00] and owner of Squires Tax Planning. We work alongside entrepreneurs and high
income earners, helping them pay the least amount of income taxes, both legally and ethically.
We have saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars through specific strategies, and we
guarantee we can find multiple tax strategies that your current tax preparer hasn't told you
about. If that interests you, head over to squire's tax planning.com. There you can take our free
assessment to see how likely it is that you are overpaying on your income taxes.
From there, you can also book a free tax discovery call with our team to see what it would look
like to have us working for you.
Paden: So looking, you know, kind of looking back on your career, Justin, like, what would you
say has been your best skill, you know, that's led to your success or, you know, what's your
superpower? what are you really good at that has allowed you to, you know, build a, a
successful business that you have?
Joseph: That's a really great question. so I think maybe a couple of areas [00:17:00] that,
where my strengths are. One is in educating, people. I, you know, I taught investment courses,
uh, back in the day when we were investment focused advisors. And today, I think one of the
biggest areas that an advisor could do, whether they're a financial advisor or you know, a legal
advisor, what, whatever the profession is, is to educate their client on what their options are,
right?
These are smart people, they're successful people. They, feel comfortable making key
decisions. They don't want them to be made for them, but they just wanna know what their
options are and, and then they can make the smartest decisions. So educating, people on all of
these different areas of decisions they're gonna face, they're gonna face investment decisions,
they're gonna face tax decisions, they're gonna face asset protection and wealth transfer
decisions.
and there's a whole array of business decisions they're going to be facing, you know. How their
key employees are going to be treated and their, customers, their suppliers, their [00:18:00]
vendors. You know who the ideal buyers are, uh, what, what type of transaction. There's just so
many different decisions.
So giving them an education in these areas. So they don't go into it. They go into it with their
eyes wide open, and then I find that they can make really good decisions in most cases.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. totally my experience too. And I, I see myself as like a teacher educator,
right? Like, my job is to be sitting down with the clients. figuring out what their goals are, like
what do you want to happen? And then I'm there to hold your hand through the thing, right.
And just help you, you know, try to do all that in as most efficient way as possible. But it really is,
it's just a relationship, right? You know, I, I tell 'em all the time. It's like, Hey, your decisions are
your decisions. I'm here to just tell, give you the lay of the land, the pros and cons of everything.
Right. And, give you the lay of land, but ultimately it's your decisions to make. Right. And it's, it's
just helping them make confident decisions so they know the pros and the cons of, of any of
those decisions.
Joseph: [00:19:00] That's exactly right. It's laying out their options, making sure they know 'em,
that they're not missing something important in their own thinking,
I think is a big one. And that, they know all their options is, is really, I think one of my, uh,
strengths and another area that I think I'm good at is just strategic planning.
Right. How to take a complex picture, you know, with a lot of moving pieces. And how to lay out
a strategic plan that could help you get from where you are to the other side of it, you know,
where you have that more simple life and prosperity and living the life that you want. That's an
area that I think, not only me, but my team at ClearPoint, Excel at.
Paden: Yeah. And it's kind of interesting, you know, even on the personal side, so they get, you
know, let's say they get past the transaction. Um, they better figure out what they want to do
because like, you know, they can only go to Cancun and sit on the beach for so long before
they'll get bored outta their minds. especially if they're, you know, [00:20:00] this hard driving
entrepreneur having, you know, their whole life. So, so really thinking about life after the sale,
like even just from a personal standpoint of. What am I going to do with my life day to day? Um,
also something very important to, uh, think about before you just kill off your business, right?
By selling it, um,
Joseph: Yeah.
Paden: gonna find something to do.
Joseph: Yeah, we call that a personal action plan, right? What are you gonna do Monday
morning after you sell? You can't, you know, you can't wait till the, the week before to figure that
out, because you're right, these are driven people. They're many cases, their business is their
identity. It's their baby. It's what, you know, what they've built and what they're most proud of.
Sometimes they put that ahead of their, their own children, you know, uh, in terms of their
accomplishments in life and things like that. So. Having that figured out ahead of time. You
know, I had one client tell me, you know, when I was working I used to really enjoy golf 'cause I
wasn't working. But now that I'm not working, I don't enjoy golf because it's like work for me now.
[00:21:00]
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. It, it's, it's a total shift in perspective, right? It's,
Speaker: Yeah.
Paden: setting on the beach for the rest of your life sounds, you know, sounds okay when you
never get to do it right. Um, but, but once you're there, I mean, there's only so many my ties you
can drink and, and then you gotta, you gotta go find some more purpose.
and, it's just thinking through that, like you said, planning, planning through that stuff. But
Joseph: yeah.
and I think some, you know, some entrepreneurs. Have that flushed out in their mind a little bit
better than others. You know, some need help in flushing that out of what life after business
looks like. but again, if you could start the process a few years ahead of time, you could really
design what your life is going to look like.
Maybe you wanna be involved in the business in some way, or maybe you wanna be involved
with other causes, uh, you know, in some way. That you could start, you know, moving towards
in a transition and see [00:22:00] how you like it, uh, as opposed to just, well, when I sell, this is
what I'm gonna do. And then there's, there's a void in their life in many cases when, when you
approach it at cold Turkey.
Paden: Yeah. it's leading up to that, like you said, maybe trying a few things, trying, you know,
maybe. You know, looking at a few different charitable organizations maybe that you're
interested in or, or whatever that is, you know, whatever, whatever drives you. Maybe it's little
League baseball.
I mean, it, it doesn't matter. But, you know, especially that entrepreneur, right? The people
listening to this, the people that build those big businesses, sitting on the couch is not gonna be
a long term thing, um, at, at all, you know, uh, Joseph just kind of looking back. What would you
say has been the most rewarding experience?
I'm sure you've worked with lots of different clients over the, you know, 40 years or so you've
been in business. What, you credit as like the most rewarding experience for you?
Joseph: Well, you know, as it comes to working with clients, I think it's, just helping them
achieve successes as how they [00:23:00] define it. seeing where they were, years ago and
where they are today, uh, there's just a lot of satisfaction in that. For my own personal, uh,
business, satisfaction is working with my daughter.
My daughter, uh, Marissa is, uh, part of my team and, uh, you know, we've been working
together for maybe close to a decade now
and, uh, you know, seeing her growth and really, she's the one I credit her for, kind of pushing us
towards working with business owners exclusively in terms of new, new clients today.
that she saw that as an area where I didn't see it as an area that we could excel. Um, so that,
you know, I, I credit her for, you know, that, that, uh, that focus that we have today.
Paden: that's what everybody should be looking at in their own businesses is that focus, right?
Whatever that is, or that niche or that, you know, that, that specific group that you really speak to
and work with and, and, and all those things. So, yeah. Yeah. That's great. So, you know, you
start your business 40 years ago. [00:24:00] Right? from today's perspective, if you could go
back and talk to yourself, what is one piece of advice you would give yourself? You know, start,
you know, you're starting at the beginning. You could go back to today and you could tell
yourself one thing.
What would it be?
Joseph: I think it would have to be establish your niche early in the career. I started, me
personally, having been 40 years in the wealth management industry, 25 years with my wealth
management company, Arlington Wealth Management, Uh, so had we focused on working with
business owners earlier, I think that we, we would be even more successful than we are today.
Paden: Yeah, same. Same here, same story. You know, I, I, I niched down into entrepreneurs
and business owners myself, you know, as a, you know, I'm longtime CPA and, spent a lot of my
careers just like a generalist, right? Like kind of everybody is. that's is great advice is, is really
find the group of people you serve best and that you speak to best. You know, I kind of consider
[00:25:00] myself, the, you know, the entrepreneur, CPA. and the reason why I think I'm good at
that is because I've run a lot of businesses myself, right? Like we speak the same kind of kind of
language. Right. I'm, I'm, I understand entrepreneurs, you know, at a, at a deeper level and kind
of what, kind of, what drives them.
You know, I'm good at serving them, but I spent a lot of years just being the everything to
everybody, right? And if you're everything to everybody, well you're not really that valuable to
anybody.
Um, it's, it's finding those people that you can serve and give them a ton of value, and that's
when in turn, you can have a really nice amount of value yourself.
Joseph: Yeah, I, I think I find myself in a similar position as you as, as being a business owner.
You know, I, I worked for some of the big banking investment firms early in my career and pretty
quickly realized that that culture was not, uh, didn't resonate well with me. So, you know, starting
my company, uh, 25 years ago now, I go through a lot of the same things that every other
business owner goes through, you know, the same types of complexity and [00:26:00] decision
points that they're going to be making. So I feel like I have that a little bit more of a perspective,
uh, of what a business owner wants or needs, compared to maybe other financial advisors that,
you know, haven't started their own business.
Paden: yeah. And I see that in my world so much where it's, the type of personalities that are
attracted to becoming CPAs, right? They're, they're typically very analytical. They're not, you
know, entrepreneurial. Tight minded people, just generally speaking. gotten a lot of feedback
from the market that, that, you know, entrepreneurs get frustrated by that, right? Because
they're, they're generally way different than their CPAs, which, which is good in some ways.
They, you know, the CPAs need to sometimes put the brakes on some of these entrepreneurs.
But, the struggle in my industry is just very few people are strategic. It, it's very much a
compliance driven, you know, backwards looking industry and not this strategic forward looking
tax planning, you know, kind of industry. It's all [00:27:00] like, let's fill out all the boxes and get
the taxes done.
And that's kind of what the industry does. and that's fine, but it's not, it's not adding a ton of
value to the clients. Right.
Joseph: A hundred percent. And, uh, I, so my experience is, is the same that, uh, you know,
once we started to work with advanced tax planners that were specialists and, you know, in
certain areas of tax planning, I. You, you know, I realize that why, why didn't my CPA tell me
about that opportunity or program? Or why, why aren't they at least not that I would definitely do
a specific tax strategy, but I wanna know about it, right?
Just like, yeah, I wanna be educated, I wanna know what my options are so I can make the best
decisions. And you know, my eyes really opened up, uh, that. Most accountants are going to be
that backward looking more, you know, make, let's make sure you don't get in trouble, as
opposed to how do we make this better type of [00:28:00] advisor.
Paden: And yeah, and a hundred percent, and that's, you know, that's, that's not to say anything
bad about, you know, any accountants. That's, that's just how
Speaker: Yeah.
Paden: is. That's how it runs. And, and it's, it's such kind of a broken industry where it's, you
know, all the works jammed in, you know, we're. We're recording this on April 16th. I, I just, you
know, yesterday was a big day for me
Joseph: Right, right, right.
Paden: and you know, all this work is jammed in such a small amount of time that, everybody's
just trying to get the work done. Right. There's zero strategic, they're incentive is to get the tax
reserve filed and filed correctly. Not, not, you know, Hey, let's take, let's. Plan around this, let's
do this. You know, do you think about doing this? You know, that that doesn't happen. It just
doesn't happen.
Joseph: Yeah, it's pretty rare in my, in my experience as well, Payton.
Paden: Yeah.
Yeah. Joseph, I know you got a book, you've kind of come up, you know, come out with Right.
Uh, fairly recently. Tell us, tell us a little bit about that.
Joseph: Yeah, so I, uh, I co-authored the book with [00:29:00] my daughter, Marissa. It's called
Exit by Design. the book is really about a lot of the things we discussed today. it's about, uh, you
know, coordinating the business strategy with the personal wealth planning and really securing
the freedom that I think many entrepreneurs, the reason they start their businesses, they're after
freedom.
You know, they, they, they struck out on their own. They didn't wanna, you know, they, they
wanted to do things on their own terms, and that's what they value the most. So, uh, you know,
having that coordination of planning around securing their freedom is, is really important I think
for every entrepreneur out there.
Yeah, anybody could get a, uh, e-version of it on the book's website. It's exit by design
book.com.
Paden: Joseph, anything else you wanna leave for the listeners? Any piece of advice before we,
uh, sign off?
Joseph: you know, I would just say, you know, it's, it's probably a little cliche, but start your, your
exit planning early. It, it, it is good [00:30:00] business strategy in general. It does improve your
value of your enterprise and, and in many cases it'll help you personally as well by giving you
more personal freedom.
If you're focusing on things that the business eventually is going to have to do to make a
transition ready, do it now and it'll give you a lot more personal satisfaction and probably make
you more money as well along the way.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, we kind of started off with this whole conversation
where it's like, you know, people, you know, people like fix their business to get it, to sell it. It's
like, well, you know, thinking through this process would allow you to find some issues, um,
probably in your business that you can fix.
And guess what? It doesn't mean you have to sell the business. You just get the benefits of your
business. Being fixed. Um, which is, which is great. Right. Um, and maybe, you know, maybe,
when that happens, maybe you don't wanna sell a business. Maybe you do have a great asset
there that you'd love to keep, but, it's just, like you said, it's really just thinking through that kind
of stuff, um, and seeing how you can make that [00:31:00] asset just a little bit better and one
way or another, right.
Joseph: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And what's interesting is we find that most younger
entrepreneurs today are bringing that exit planning strategy or transition readiness into their
business strategy earlier in the career, whereas I. Boomers really don't think about it until they
get towards the end game.
Paden: Yeah. And I tell you what, there's a whole lot of baby boomers out there right now setting
on businesses that, um, need some transition planning.
Speaker: That's right.
Paden: Um, you know, if they want to get any value out of it, you know, whatsoever they need
to, uh, they need to start putting a plan together.
Well, Joseph, man, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on the show.
listeners, we'll catch you next time.
