What If Your Succession Plan Only Works on Paper?
According to MassMutual, 80% of privately held businesses in America are unsellable, including profitable ones. We fix that before your estate plan needs to execute.
Schedule a ConversationThe Hidden Flaw in Your Estate Plan
You've structured the entities. Set up the trusts. Drafted the buy-sell agreements. Your estate plan is technically sound.
But when it's time to execute, whether that's a family succession, management buyout, or sale to a third party, your client discovers what every estate planner dreads: the business can't actually transfer.
Not because the documents are wrong. Because the business is built entirely on the owner's personal relationships, institutional knowledge, and daily involvement.
Without documented systems, a capable management team, or clean operational handoff protocols, the business loses 40–70% of its value the day your client steps back. And according to the Exit Planning Institute, only 20 to 30% of exits are family successions. The rest are sales to outsiders who will walk away from a deal the moment they realize the business is just the owner in a different hat.
That makes your beautifully crafted estate plan worthless, regardless of who the intended buyer is.
We Build Transferable Businesses So Your Estate Plans Actually Work
We work with business owners to reduce personal dependency and create genuinely transferable value. Whether your client is planning a family succession, management buyout, ESOP, or sale to a strategic buyer or private equity firm, the fundamental problem is the same: the business must be able to operate and create value without the current owner.
What We Do
- Document institutional knowledge before it walks out the door
- Build management teams capable of running the business without the founder
- Create clean financial and operational structures that survive ownership transition
- Optimize the 8 Drivers of Value that determine whether a business can actually transfer
The Result
If it's family succession, the next generation inherits a functioning asset, not a full-time crisis.
If it's a third-party sale, the business can survive due diligence and close at full value.
Either way, your estate planning work holds up under real-world transition.
A Trusted Resource for Your Practice
Complimentary Assessments for Your Referrals
When you refer clients to us, we provide complimentary Value Builder Assessments, a detailed scorecard across the 8 Drivers of Value that impact transferability and enterprise value. Your clients get an estimated business valuation and a clear diagnosis of what's preventing a successful ownership transfer. You get concrete data on where their estate plan is vulnerable, before it's too late to fix it. No cost to you or your client.
Protect the Estate Plan You Built
When a business can't transfer, whether to family, employees, or a third-party buyer, your estate plan fails. Not on paper, but in execution. We do the operational work that makes your legal structures executable before your client needs them, regardless of the exit scenario.
Strengthen Your Client Relationships
Identifying exit readiness gaps your clients haven't considered positions you as the advisor who sees around corners. Connecting them to solutions makes the relationship stickier because you're protecting the entire plan, not just the legal framework.
Transparent Process, Regular Updates
We handle the operational work: systems documentation, management development, financial cleanup, transferability assessment. You maintain your role as trusted legal counsel. We keep you informed throughout the engagement so you know exactly where the business stands and whether your estate plan needs adjustments based on what we discover.
How It Works
Initial Assessment
We evaluate where the business stands today and assess its readiness for ownership transfer, whether your estate plan contemplates family succession, management buyout, or third-party sale. The operational requirements are largely the same regardless of buyer type.
Build the Foundation
We develop systems, strengthen the team, and create a financial structure that can operate without the founder running everything.
Create Exit Optionality
Once the foundation is solid, your client can execute your estate plan with confidence, whether that's family succession, management buyout, ESOP, or sale to a strategic acquirer or private equity firm. The transferability work is identical regardless of buyer type. Either way, the plan you built can actually work.
Ideal Clients for Referral
We work with founder-led businesses generating $250K to $20M+ in revenue, where the owners have estate planning in place but the business itself isn't ready for any ownership transition, whether to family, employees, or third-party buyers.
Owners with exit plans in the next 3–10 years (family succession, sale, or management transition)
Businesses with buy-sell agreements that can't execute because the business isn't transferable to anyone
Founders whose estate plans assume business value that only exists while they're running it
Multi-generational businesses where transition is planned but operational readiness isn't there yet
Owners whose estate assumes a liquidity event (sale) but the business can't survive due diligence
Owners with most of their net worth tied up in a business that can't transfer in its current state
Meet Kevin Oldham
Kevin Oldham is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) and Certified Value Builder with 20 years of experience building, growing, and exiting companies. He's also invested in over 30 startups through BetaBlox, a Kansas City based incubator that invests in early-stage companies.
His core frameworks: Value Builder System, 8 Drivers of Value, exit planning methodology, buyer personas, market positioning, and transferable company design.
Work that gets results.
We Partner With the Whole Advisory Ecosystem
Estate attorneys see the ownership structure. CPAs see the numbers. Business brokers see deal readiness. Wealth advisors see the retirement gap. We fix the operational problems that sit underneath all of it.
See how our partnership program works and how advisors across disciplines refer clients who need pre-exit value acceleration.
Partner With Us to Protect Your Clients' Exit Plans
Schedule a call with Dan, our Head of Partnerships, to discuss how we can support your practice. We'll start with a complimentary Value Builder Assessment for your first referral.