Business Succession Basics: The Exit Options, the Timeline, and Your Succession Plan

Know every way to leave your business, what each one pays and costs, and build a written succession plan that protects the company if something happens to you tomorrow.

Who it is for: Every owner, whether the exit is next year or in ten.
Runtime: 50 minutes · Headliner course

Pre-order: this course is still in development. Your purchase includes its materials as they are published in your portal. No release date is confirmed. Buy 5 or more and every course is 30% off.

See the full track See the full curriculum

After payment is confirmed and your access is set up, the files listed below can be downloaded from your portal. Any unpublished materials will be added when ready, at no additional charge.

Files currently available

Succession Plan Template.
Exit Options Comparison Model Guide.
Exit Options Comparison Model.
Business Continuity Checklist and Instruction Letter.
Exit Readiness Scorecard Guide.
Exit Readiness Scorecard.
Five Year Exit Timeline.
Slide deck.
Visual: Roadmap.
Visual: Four Doors.
Visual: Value Bridge.
Visual: Timeline.
Visual: Continuity Stack.
Visual: Buy Sell Structures.
Visual: Taxes by Door.
Visual: Three Doors After Tax.
Visual: Allocation Waterfall.
Visual: Decision Tree.
Visual: Tricks and Traps.
Workbook.
The narrated lesson. 50 minutes, cued to the deck, with chapter markers by lesson. Added to your portal when published, at no extra cost. This purchase does not guarantee that the narrated lesson is available today.

What the course covers

01Why plan: continuity, value, family, and taxes5 min
02The doors: family, management or employees, a third-party buyer, and liquidation9 min
03What a business is worth and what buyers actually pay for6 min
04The three-to-five-year timeline6 min
05The emergency plan: the if-something-happens letter, insurance, and the agreement provisions7 min
06Taxes by door, in one picture5 min
07Worked example: an owner at 58 with 1.2 million dollars of earnings walks through three doors, after tax8 min
08Tricks of the trade and traps: start with the estate plan, incentives for key people, separate the real estate, and the child who does not want it4 min

How it fits: Headline course. Requires 5.1. Foundation for 8.2 through 8.6.

The standard every course holds

A narrated lesson of 45 to 60 minutes, produced as audio
A designed slide deck you download and keep
A computational workbook that runs the actual legal tests
A toolkit of checklists and protocols
A legal authority appendix carrying the two-pass vetting protocol

Written for a diligent reader with no legal education. Professionally narrated using a studio voice model of Brian T. Boyd. The course is recorded instruction, not a live consultation.

Where this course sits

Track 8: Succession Planning and Mergers and Acquisitions

This course is one step in a track built around a single outcome. See the full build order and the other courses that get you there.

Back to this track

Educational material from the private client curriculum of Brian T. Boyd. This is legal education for a general audience, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by purchasing, viewing, or using it. Tax outcomes depend on your facts and your state.