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One Chance to Do it Right : A Seller's Story [CASE STUDY]
The decision to sell a financial services practice is a difficult one for any advisor to make. After a lifetime of work to build your business, how do you just turn it over to someone else? Will they work as hard as you have? Will they care for your clients as much as you do?
When selling your practice, you get just one chance to do it right.
We recently spoke with one of our clients about their journey to selling their business. Their story provides unique insights into the process, and illustrates the opportunities–and the mistakes–that many first time sellers make.
Early in the fall of 2013, an advisor–let's call him James–decided it might be time to sell his independent financial services practice. After many years of living and working in the Chicago area, James and his wife wanted to relocate to be closer to their grown children and their young families. At the age of 63, it just seemed like it was time to finally slow down and do something else.
James owned a fee-based practice with more than 75% of his revenue from fees or trails, and the rest in the form of commissions or hourly planning work. His total revenue of about $475,000 per year was stable, but not really growing much from one year to the next. James waded into the selling process on an informal basis, giving himself time to get used to the idea and see what interest there was in what he'd built. He told a handful of friends and colleagues, even one of his favorite wholesalers. It wasn't long before he received several calls from advisors who wanted to discuss buying his practice – the word was out!
