Changing Lanes Without a Major Transition

So you love to drive in the fast lane!

Yet you know that you can’t stay there forever. At some point you will run out of gas!

Don’t wait too long. It’s dangerous to cross a three-lane highway in one swoop. You’ve seen others cause some serious collisions – some involving their own family members.

It’s much safer to gradually move over to the slow lane while allowing your junior driver to transition to the fast lane.

You need to remember to check your blind spot and signal your intentions!

Join us to discover how to change lanes safely, while being aware of the traffic conditions and possible roadblocks. You will then have easy access to the exit ramp when that fuel warning light comes on!

This is much more than an educational session. It is a truly enlightening day-long working session for the entire family.

Who should attend?

• Families who want to see their business become a family heritage or legacy.
• Families in business together who want to have more control over the future direction of their business.
• Families who lack the knowledge or time to develop an integrated succession plan.
• Families who would benefit from a clear approach to developing a succession plan.
• Families who want to recognize the barriers to a successful transition.
• Families who need to better understand how family relationships impact the business.
• Families who are affected by a breakdown in communications.
• Families who want to know how to manage differences or conflict.

As a participating family, you will take the first steps in creating a transition plan that promotes your common goals for the family and the business. You will discover some simple tools you can use to identify what constitutes a viable plan for the future direction of your business.

Ask your trusted advisor for an invitation to participate in our “Changing Lanes” workshop. When you attend along with your Most Trusted Advisor, you can together discuss the opportunities for the future of the business and identify the roadblocks that may stall your journey. Your Most Trusted Advisor can then work with you to implement the steps required.

At the end of the day, you will leave with a much clearer picture of the future and the strategies and tactics that will help you reach your goals.

Education and Training for You and Your Team

The Role of the Most Trusted Advisor is an educational program specifically designed by The SuccessCare® Program for those who provide professional services to privately-owned businesses.

Entrepreneurs and family businesses need advisors who will focus on what is best for both the family and the business — trusted advisors who will help the family work through issues and concerns to build a strong, balanced organization that has the ability to grow with each generation.

A Most Trusted Advisor is one who has high credibility, reliability and intimacy and is genuinely focused on the needs of their client.

Our Most Trusted Advisor training program is designed to help you develop a cross-discipline approach to advising family businesses so as to maximize the effectiveness of your assessment and recommendations, and thus enhance your role as their Most Trusted Advisor.

Program Overview

The Role of the Most Trusted Advisor is a 4-step training program that delivers the education and tools that will help you guide your family business clients through the development of a comprehensive exit strategy and succession plan to enable the transition of the labour, capital and management of the business.

The objectives of the MTA program are:

• To expand your knowledge of the family business industry.
• To increase your confidence around coaching and guiding your family business clients.
• To further develop your skills in all areas of family business consulting.
• To give you an understanding that consulting to family businesses is process consulting not technical consulting. The tactics are needed but the process enables communication.

The program will provide you with:

• Knowledge around the issues that result from a change in leadership of a family business.
• A deeper understanding of family dynamics and how different perspectives impact decision-making.
• Insight into the reasons for the clients’ procrastination in moving forward with proposed solutions.
• Tools to use in discovering the common interest among key players and uncovering the obstacles to mapping out the future.
• Links within the critcal components of a transition plan.
• An approach to use in guiding clients through planning and implementing an exit strategy and transition plan.

As a result you will:

• Be more knowledgeable in the issues that directly affect entrepreneurs and family businesses, and better understand their procrastination.
• Enhance your relationship with your client by delivering high value through your knowledge of the issues and concerns they face.
• Be in a better position to provide leadership and support to the successors of the business.
• Take away valuable tips and tools for building your own family business consulting practice.

The people who have participated in our courses have been extremely positive about our approach and the value they have received.

Program Outline

The Role of the Most Trusted Advisor promotes a multi-disciplinary approach by reviewing the eight components of a transition plan that are needed to meet the objectives of all three areas of a family business: the ownership area, the management area and the family or personal area. Each of the four levels of the program is experiential in methodology and illustrates the issues facing a typical family business through a video case study.

MTA Level 1

A full-day overview workshop that introduces the basic concepts and tools for guiding and advising your family business clients.

The focus is on helping your clients build on the principles for a successful business while creating opportunities and positive conflict. You will understand the importance of recognizing differing perspectives, identifying underlying issues and developing strategies to address these issues. family business.

You will meet and assess a typical family business to identify the obstacles they face in transitioning the business. You will discover a variety of concepts and tools that will not only help clarify the future direction of both the family and the business, but also identify the obstacles that will present roadblocks along the way.

We recommend that your entire team participate in this awareness and education program to ensure that you have the required support systems in place.

You can choose either the one-day in-class workshop or our e-learning version which provides more in-depth learning, convenience, and flexability. Click here for more information on the e-learning version.

MTA Level 2

Further develop your knowledge and skills while acquiring additional tools to enhance your role. Based on the theory behind the positive conflict model, this second course focuses on the many structures that are crucial to the interaction and collaboration between the business entity and the family entity, and vital to the eventual exit of the current leader.

These structures address governance for the ownership and management areas, dynamic strategic planning to promote the common interest, complex estate planning that provides for the transition of ownership, and the transition of defacto control.

MTA Level 3

The third level of the program examines the connection between a strong family unit and a successful transition. It looks at the importance of including the purpose and passion of the family and the business when transitioning the human, intellectual and civic capital.

This workshop reviews the components of a Family Business Senate and how to pass along the principles, values, traditions and philanthropy that define the family behind the business. Participants will leave with a toolkit to use in helping families manage change with positive conflict and stay connected through greater communication.

MTA Level 4

The fourth session in the series focuses on the design and implementation of a comprehensive consulting program. You will explore your role as a family business consultant who is focused on finding sound strategies that meet the clients' needs and determine the objectives of your family business advisory practice.

We will outline an approach to developing a process from the critical questions to ask in the area of business management, future ownership, and family participation to the mechanics of tracking and reporting.

Additional Benefits

These programs are sequential and designated for Continuing Education credits.

If you have a group of 8 or more advisors, it may be more cost effective to schedule an in-house workshop. We will deliver the workshop right to your door or at your next conference or group event.

For further details on any of our workshops contact Ed Rosenfeld at ed@NOWtoNEXT.com or call (212) 579-2613.