Who else has vivid memories of their summer camp days? Some memories you might look back on fondly. Like roasting your first s’more over the bonfire while your camp counselors sing a campfire song in a key that certainly was not accurate. Other memories might be a little more jarring, like that weird creature you saw while swimming in the lake. Surely it wasn’t a fish, right? Fish weren’t that color or nearly that big.
Regardless of your potentially traumatic lake experience, summer camp was the place you learned to foster new friendships, build your confidence, and learn how to fend for yourself should something go wrong. Some of those same lessons from summer camp can also be seen in the exit planning industry.
We know not everyone has been to a summer camp, so we compiled a list of summer camp movies to highlight some important matters to consider during the exit planning process.
Train Your Replacement
What is it about the 1990s that led to the release of not one, but two films set at a summer camp in which two young girls switch places to trick their parents and guardians into falling in love? These films are of course The Parent Trap and It Takes Two, two classics featuring the acting talents of Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen twins respectively.
For those of you who were not either a child of the nineties or parents of a nineties child, these films featured twins, or in the case of It Takes Two, two eerily identical strangers. The girls meet at a summer camp, learn of a connection between them, and swap clothing, accents, and names, in the hopes of convincing their respective guardians to fall in love with each other. Each film features a montage of the girls teaching the other everything they must know about themselves to execute the ruse on the grown-ups successfully.
While the idea of meeting your long-lost twin at summer camp is a bit far-fetched, Annie and Halle in The Parent Trap, as well as Amanda and Alyssa from It Takes Two, provide excellent examples of training your replacement before an exit. How do you expect the next owner of your company to effectively manage the business's daily operations without a deeper understanding of your business, your employees, or the business processes?
One way to ensure the business will continue to succeed under new leadership is to have well-documented procedures and processes in place. The structural capital in the business can either help or hinder the future owner, depending on the strength of this intangible.
In a family business, there is more opportunity to train a potential successor. Perhaps your daughter has been working in the business for a few years, slowly learning more about the responsibilities of the owner. Before selling the business to her, you take the time to educate her on what makes for a successful owner and how to move the business forward. Conversely, an owner might know they want one of their children to take over the family business after they retire, but if they have no set plan for how to transition their business to the second generation, the business might not continue on to the next generation. Failing to plan has led to 47% of family business owners who would like to retire in the next five years not having a successor.
Ensure Everyone Knows the Plan
Once again the 1990s prove to be the decade of summer camp movies. A lesser-known, and perhaps more “cult classic” film than others, Camp Nowhere has a bit of everything. Teens tricking their parents, an out-of-work drama teacher being pursued by the federal government, and of course, summer camp.
For those of you who have not seen this wild ride of a film, we will cover the major plot points of the movie for you. Morris, or “Mud,” and his friends have no desire to go to their respective summer camps this year. They meet Dennis Van Welker, portrayed by Christopher Lloyd who adds yet another film to his repertoire where he helps teens he has never met go on an adventure without their parents' knowledge. Mud blackmails Dennis into helping him and his friends trick their parents into paying for them to go to a new “summer camp.”
Dennis dresses up like various camp counselors to convince the parents to pay to send their children to “computer camp,” “theater camp,” “military camp,” and “fat camp.” However, none of these camps exists and the children use the money to rent an abandoned commune to spend the summer doing whatever they would like. The conflict arises when the parents wish to visit the camp for a Parent’s Day. Mud and his friends then spend a day transforming every portion of the commune to represent each of the various camps they fooled their parents into believing they attended. All in all, this film represents how to execute a plan, work with a large team with differing opinions, and how to change course should a problem arise in your initial plan.
How detailed is your exit plan? Do you have the team in place to help you execute your plan? While we do not recommend your exit plan involve deceiving your family or blackmailing an out-of-work teacher, we have to commend the teens in the film for executing an elaborate and complex plan. Each person knew their role to play, understood their strengths, and was instrumental in the plan coming to fruition.
Business owners work with a team of trusted advisors to exit their businesses. Each member of the team has a specific role to play in the exit, but all must be aware of the entire plan in order for it to result in a significant transition for the owner. In business, unexpected issues may arise when working on an exit plan. We refer to these as the 5 Ds: Divorce, Disagreement, Disability, Distress, and Death. To best mitigate the impact of the 5 Ds on a business and the owner's life, owners must first fully understand the negative consequences each can have on their organizations and work with their teams to lessen the impact of these consequences on the business value.
There Is Always Room for Improvement
Our next film in the saga of summer camp movies takes us to Camp Chippewa where poor Wednesday and Pugsley Addams are sent for the summer after the birth of their baby brother. In true Addams Family fashion, Addams Family Values features macabre humor and elaborate schemes. In this film, Uncle Fester unknowingly marries a criminal mastermind who wishes to steal all of his family’s wealth and destroy the Addams family dynamic. By sending Wednesday and Pugsley away from the family, changing everything about her new husband, and shunning the rest of the Addams family, Debbie effectively tears the once close-knit group apart.
While at Camp Chippewa, Wednesday and Pugsley, but let’s be honest mostly Wednesday, formulate a plan to both destroy and escape the camp. They become viewed by the other outcasts at the camp as heroes and gain a large following of those who want to learn how to stand up to the counselors and popular campers. Wednesday’s tactics are expectedly morbid and bleak, but she gains a following nonetheless.
What steps are you taking to improve your business? Have you sought advice and insights from industry experts? How have you utilized education and training to build your business acumen and strengthen your business value? While there may not be any summer camps geared toward business owners or advisors, the opportunities for continuing education are abundant. As Michael Sheppard stated on the Exit Is Now: Plan Accordingly Podcast, “If you understand how to learn, you will always get better.”
Educate yourself on trending exit planning topics by reading industry articles, attending webinars and networking events, or investing in exit planning credentials, such as the Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA®) credential. Exit Planning Institute offers a variety of education on value-building strategies, exit options, and practice growth techniques for professional advisors. By continually learning and expanding your education, you position yourself as a trusted resource for your clients.
You will most likely not be attending a summer camp this year, but that does not mean that the lessons learned in summer camps past will not play a large part in your business. Did we miss any of your favorite summer camp films? Let us know by sharing this article on your LinkedIn!
