The Exit Planning Institute® (EPI) is proud to welcome Million Dollar Author as a partner, adding a new resource for Certified Exit Planning Advisors (CEPA®) who want to expand their reach and connect with more business owners.
Million Dollar Author works with advisors to turn their knowledge and experience into books designed to create greater visibility and business development leverage. For CEPAs, Million Dollar Author’s services offer a way to introduce themselves to a wider range of potential business-owner clients and help those owners understand the importance of exit planning earlier in their ownership journey.
Running a successful exit planning practice can sometimes be a balancing act between delivering best-in-class service to current clients and consistently finding new business owner opportunities. Traditionally, business development can require significant time investment in face-to-face networking.
A book showcasing an advisor's expertise, Steve Gordon, founder of Million Dollar Author, says, can reduce that time commitment and bring business owners to them on a wider scale.
“The book lets a business owner experience an advisor’s expertise without first writing a check and sitting in a private conference room. It takes what makes an advisor great, puts it between two covers, and lets those ideas introduce the advisor to the world,” he adds.
A book can help an advisor articulate a clear perspective on the problems they solve, the clients they serve, and the approach they take. It may also strengthen other marketing efforts by providing content for speaking engagements, podcast appearances, and more.
“We have seen this happen more than 400 times. It is the most predictable thing I have ever seen in marketing. That is why we are on a mission to tell people, ‘Do the other things, too, but do this first,’” Steve says. “A book creates a foundation of positioning that makes everything else work better, SEO, advertising, networking, and speaking. It is rocket fuel for all of it.”
The partnership reflects a shared focus on helping business owners make decisions early enough to improve their eventual outcomes. This aligns with the idea presented in EPI Chairman and Creator of the Value Acceleration Methodology™ (VAM), Christopher Snider’s Walking to Destiny, that exit planning is a good business strategy.
Steve sees an opportunity for CEPAs to utilize books to reach business owners earlier in their journey, before a transition or exit becomes imminent.
“Books can position CEPAs so that they reach business owners before those owners are ready to exit. Instead of viewing only their tax CPA or contract attorney as their advisor, owners may discover and trust an exit-planning advisor who wrote a book that makes the process understandable,” he says.
A book does not replace face-to-face interactions between advisors and business owners. It can create an accessible starting point, however, helping owners recognize a need and identify the kind of guidance that may help them address it.
At the heart of this partnership between EPI and Million Dollar Author is a commitment to help business owners benefit from exit planning and Value Acceleration.
Steve has seen the difference that early guidance from a trusted advisor can make with both family and friends who have exited their businesses. Those experiences shape his view of the opportunity that Million Dollar Author offers CEPAs and the EPI community as a whole.
“Even if we achieve (a significant exit) for a small percentage of the EPI community, think about the number of businesses it could affect,” he says. “We will never know every impact, but I tell our team that every book we write is a force for good in the world. Our clients solve real problems for people.”
By making exit planning and Value Acceleration easier for business owners to discover and understand, advisors can have more meaningful conversations that lead to significant exits.
The Exit Planning Institute® (EPI) is the exit planning market leader, providing education, tools, resources, and the ecosystem to support professional advisors across the globe on all things Value Acceleration. EPI’s offerings include the Certified Exit Planning Advisor credential, the annual Exit Planning Summit, EPI Academy, an extensive Chapter Network, and more.