'With your family you should walk, not trade.' A well-known saying and a common one from entrepreneurs planning to sell their business to third parties. But is this saying actually true? Judging from the many successful business transfers within the family that I have had the pleasure of assisting, I can only draw one conclusion: far from it.
ls you want to sell your business and thus face this choice, it is important to be able to make it at least on the basis of good alignment. Find out what you want, but also what the people close to you want. Perhaps transfer within the family unexpectedly then turns out to be an option after all. Fortunately, the first three phases of business transfer to third parties or to the family are similar. So you can make good use of these phases to figure out which form of transfer is most appropriate.
The personal phase
Of course, it starts with you, the entrepreneur, yourself. At this stage, therefore, find out what your personal wishes are and how you feel about transferring the business. Does it hurt somewhere when the business leaves the family? Or does it actually bring the peace of mind you are looking for?
It is also important to communicate about this with everyone involved. Only after you have heard everyone can you be sure that you are not making incorrect assumptions. So talking a lot is the solution, but this is not always easy. After all, how can you be sure you're getting the "real" answer when you ask if your son/daughter wants to take over the business? An external adviser can play a key role here, by leading the conversations (both one-on-one and jointly) from an objective role and getting the real answers to the surface.
The financial phase
At this stage, think about what your life after entrepreneurship should look like and the financial picture that goes with it. Perhaps you want to make that desired trip around the world or you have other plans that require a lot of money. In that case, it may be wise to sell your business to outsiders for as high a price as possible. Don't need as much money and don't need to get the top price for your business? Then you can also choose to transfer the business inexpensively to your children. There are special tax schemes for this, such as the BOR scheme.
The business phase
Not only you, but your business itself must be ready to transfer. Is the business turnkey and ready to sell? Then you can start the market on the sales process pretty soon. But perhaps, on the contrary, there is still a lot to be done to achieve the best possible sale. Then it is wise to keep the business in (family) ownership for a while longer and address these issues first. By having a business appraisal performed, you will find out where the real value of the business lies and which aspects you can still work on to get your company ready for the sales process.
Start on time!
Whatever choice you will make, in all cases it is important to start transferring your business on time. It may sound very far off, but 10 years before the actual transfer date is really nothing extreme. You only transfer your business once, so take the time to handle this process carefully. Only then will you get happy returns later on the transfer of your business.
