Business Succession Seminars Offered

ASHLAND, Ohio –In an effort to aid small business owners, Ashland University is offering a values-based business succession planning pilot program.

According to Paul Ditlevson, director of Legacy Estate Programs at Ashland University, national statistics show 80 percent of small business owners have no substantive succession plans in place, yet more than two-thirds of them expect to leave their businesses within the next 10 years. To fill this void, a group of nationally recognized business and estate planning professionals, family wealth counselors, and faculty and staff of Ashland University and its centers have collaborated to bring this pilot program to fruition.

Paul Brooks, co-founder of Renaissance Inc., speaks at the recent values-based business succession planning pilot program.

The values-based business succession program is being offered in collaboration with Ashland University’s Dauch College of Business and Economics, Morgan Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Legacy Estate Programs, and the Sandberg Christian Leadership Center at Ashland Theological Seminary. The first session attracted 20 participants and an equal number of faculty and staff. The multi-part program continues with sessions January 28-29 and May 6-7, 2009.

Ditlevson said the purpose of the program is to provide an educational blueprint for family business owners to gain the confidence to move forward assertively and knowledgably, confident in the advising team they employ, skilled in the administration of their own process and equipped with the tools they need to affect the outcome they most desire for their family and business.

“This program will serve as the mechanism used to help bridge the gaps between spiritual, social, cultural, political and educational aspects that each successful business faces at a time of succession,” Ditlevson said. “It also will assist in helping families deal with the emotional, personal, financial, taxing and philanthropic issues that most often confound both the owner and the business successor.”

Read F. Wakefield, director of Ashland University’s Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, helped to plan the values-based business succession program. “For 14 years prior to joining Ashland University, I assisted business owners in valuing their businesses and selling their businesses to third parties. I look forward to being a significant resource during the next two sessions that will focus on the transactional processes and succession planning,” he said. “This program educates business owners on the critical issues and transactional processes to be considered and their critical leadership role to plan and prepare for the succession in order to maximize their resulting tangible and intangible values.”

“I have witnessed firsthand the tragic results of business owners' failure to plan for the transition of their businesses to successors. And then there is the business owner with whom I worked over an eight-year period that tripled the value of his business by diversifying his customer base, consistently growing his revenues and developing a competent management team that was not dependent on the owner's marketing, technical and business skills. Proper, informed and timely succession planning is not that difficult and has superior results.”

Whether the goal is to preserve the business assets for generations, to achieve the maximum return on the original investment or to ensure the best possible opportunity for the employees and community to enjoy the benefits of a successful company, these issues must be addressed most effectively in a thoughtful, timely and comprehensive manner.

The program features some of the country’s leading advisers. Among the presenters at the recent session were Paul Brooks, co-founder of Renaissance Inc.; David Cohn, founder of David Cohn Associates; Richard Tanner, president and founder of Ownership Advisors; and Jay Steenhuysen, founder of Steenhuysen Associates.

Cohn stressed the importance of business owners building a good team of advisers. “A good team must be competent, have good chemistry and collaborative,” he said. “That last ingredient is often missing.”

Early in the succession planning process, business owners must answer three key questions, Cohn said: “What matters most? What do I care about? And what do I want to see happen?

“You can’t create an effective plan without answering these questions first.”

Many attorneys say business succession documents often go unsigned as those involved fail to address these key issues. “There are above the line and below the line issues,” said Ditlevson. “There are both personal and family dynamics issues. Many involve legacy issues such as ‘how am I going to be remembered?’ and ‘how will the business be remembered?’

“People tend to concentrate on the transaction rather than getting ready for the transaction. The intent of this program is not to replace financial advisers, but to get fill in the gaps and get everyone working together.” 

Those looking for information about how they can get involved in future business succession programs can call the Legacy Estate Programs office at 419-289-5090.

Ashland University is a private, comprehensive institution located in north central Ohio between Cleveland and Columbus. On-campus enrollment is nearly 2,100 undergraduate students while total enrollment, including graduate and off-campus centers, is more than 6,100.