AGE MATTERS

Age matters – we all hope it doesn’t, but the reality is that the age of your clients and their corresponding assets can have a drastic effect on the value of your business. An aging business is a dying business in the eyes of a buyer who is considering the long-term buying potential of the your book of business. One of the most important things to increase the value of your business, and one of the most difficult items to change, is the age of your clients and the amount of multi-generational planning that takes place in your company.

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Growth is King

One of the most important drivers of value in any business is growth. Historical growth, while no guarantor, is a useful proxy/tool for projecting a business or asset’s ability to produce revenue in the future. As a buyer, you will pay more for a practice that is growing each year than one that is getting smaller. One of the biggest mistakes advisors/reps/agents make is waiting too long to sell their businesses, often having contemplated selling for several years before they finally made the decision. By the time many decide to actually sell the business, they have been coasting for a few years, causing their growth to stall or even decline – making it a suboptimal time to sell. For financial service practices, growth of the business can happen in three specific ways. Anyone contemplating selling their business, or a buyer looking at practices to acquire, should pay attention to the following growth metrics.