Mastering Exit Planning Webinar Series

In an effort to provide the professional advisory community with as much education as possible, EPI hosted a monthly themed webinar series: Mastering Exit Planning.

The Benefits of Themed Months:

• Newer CEPAs will have a chance to further their education even after completing the CEPA program
• Gives veteran CEPAs an opportunity to hone in their skills
• Provides non-CEPAs, including business owners, with a better understanding of exit planning and growth-oriented topics

A recording of each of the following webinars is available on the Member Center.

Session 1: Rapidly Accelerating Value – Where to Start?

Objective: Introduce the topic or concept, developing a solid foundation and baseline of knowledge.

Highlights of the broadcast with speaker, Justin Goodbread, included:

• Defining the Types of Value that Owners are trying to grow in their business.
• Value Growth: A Proven Process designed to increase the Intrinsic Value of a company by aligning the key areas of the company for efficient throughput.
• Create a Strategic Plan for your Business with measurable, actionable, and accountable steps for the entire organization to rally behind.
• An advisor’s role is to keep the organization focused. Without proper motivation, people (especially owners) quickly fall back into old patterns.
• Ensure that your Value Growth process includes reassessing the business to compare the results of the cycle to the starting point.

Part 2: Understanding Your Client’s Financial Statements & Their Link to Value

Objective: Showcase how the topic or concept is applied in real life with a business owner or within an advisory practice.

Highlights of the broadcast with speaker, Shina Culberson, included:

• To understand and calculate a Value Gap for your client’s you must first determine their Attractiveness and Readiness Score and the Range of Multiples in their industry.
• Ensure the correct metrics are used when calculating the Attractiveness and Readiness Score.
• Market Value is determined by the following factors
  • Internal: Size, Growth, Profitability. Readiness and Attractiveness Score
  • External: Market Conditions and Transaction Terms
• Revenue or EBITDA x Desired Multiple = Value
• EBITDA Adjustments commonly include the owner’s compensation and family members who collect salaries but are not active in the business.
• Case Study work included looking at the adjusted and non-adjusted EBITDA for ABC Manufacturing Company to determine market value.

Part 3: Value Enhancement Go-To Approaches That Deliver Results

Objective: Expose and introduce the attendee to collaborative partners.

Highlights of the broadcast with speaker, Melanie Wall, included:

• Answers the common Exit Planning question: “How do I add value to my company?” by exploring fundamental approaches and value enhancement strategies.
• 250,000 US Companies are projected to exit in 2030.
• Suggests that companies want to sell at the peak of their game, where the business is the most valuable to a buyer.
• Perspective Buyer Personas:
  • Strategic Buyers: can clearly expand and leverage growth opportunities
  • Synergistic Buyers: often competitors and complementary firms that focus on cost savings from horizontal expansions
  • Performance Buyers: often private equity groups or opportunistic buyers.
  • Risk and Weakness Buyers: heavy customer concentration, uneven performance, and messy financials.
• The lower the risk, the higher the multiples.
• Improve the Four Intangible Capitals, 4 Cs, in your business to grow value that will enable your business to sell for higher multiples.

Part 4: Strategic Value Enhancement – A Consultative Approach

Objective: Obtain real life, unfiltered, implementation advice from experts.

Highlights of the broadcast with speakers, Gordon Bell, Melanie Wall, and Kent McKown, included:

• Once you identify your business value, you can then begin to grow, protect, and harvest that value.
• Utilize the “Are You Set For Life” Questionnaire to determine where your owner’s Value currently lies.
• Understanding the owner’s personal goals and objectives is the best way to begin an advisor relationship.
• Learn the owner’s motivations behind the desire to exit their business.
• “A business is an investment. What risks are you taking, and what return are you getting”. – Kent McKown
• Even if your business and your top line are growing, it does not mean that the value of your company is increasing.
• Owner centralized businesses find it hard to build value. This is a result of the majority of the business responsibilities being tied to the owner and not the entire workforce.

The Exit Planning Institute believes in constant professional development. We encourage continued learning and growth. We also strive to bring you consistent, thought-provoking, and topical broadcasts to help your business and your clients.

Take a look at our upcoming webinar series here. Don’t miss out on extraordinary industry content!