Have you ever thought about selling your farm or business? Do you know how to start?
If you answered “no,” you’re not alone. A recent Business Development Bank of Canada study found that less than 10% of all business owners in Canada have a formal succession plan. It’s a wake-up call for business owners to start one sooner rather than later.
“Generally speaking, business transitions take between 2-7 years,” says Alison Anderson, Founder, and CEO of SuccessionMatching.com, an online community of business buyers, sellers, and succession planning professionals.
“Business owners who don’t plan well enough in advance can be forced to divest for pennies on the dollar, or miss out on hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in tax savings and other opportunities. It’s a very unfortunate situation to be in, which is why we work hard to help our members avoid it.”
Strengthening Rural Communities
Businesses that shut down instead of transitioning to new ownership result in job losses, decreased tax revenue, and a scarcity of product and service providers that negatively affects everyone in the community. It’s for these reasons that the Community Futures Network of Alberta (CFNA) and SuccessionMatching have partnered on the SuccessionMatching Community Project (SMCP) which aims to bring together community leaders into a partnership that solves local succession planning problems.
Community Futures Alberta is eager to be proactive about succession planning in Alberta.
Start planning now, and in the future, your community, your family, and you will be grateful you did.
Planning for Transition
Whether you’ve thought about it before or not, what’s important is that you start thinking about it, and planning for it, now.
You may be comfortable being part of the statistic of business owners who don’t have a formal succession plan, but you don’t want to be part of the statistic of business owners who lost out on the full value of their business when they finally exited.
Get in touch with Community Futures today
