Purposeful Personal Financial Planning

In the last couple of articles, I wrote about how you can grow through the process of acquisition and outlined steps to consider or take as it relates to your future goals. Another aspect to consider when looking to grow through acquisition includes the steps necessary to take your business where you want it to go. Have you built strategies to ensure you have the future financial health and wealth you desire? What about the financial foundation that will allow you to flex and be agile in times of change?

You may not be sure how to answer these questions, at least with complete confidence. If you are in the majority of readers scratching their proverbial heads on what the right answers are, keep reading! Let me remind you what we are talking about here is succession planning. We are not talking about retirement or exiting.

Making money should always be something multi-unit franchise owners aspire to do. As an entrepreneur, it is one of the reasons you decided to get into business after all. Planning for your financial future - separate from the business - is a component of succession planning. The power of purposeful personal financial planning and establishing goals for your future financial wealth and health is key to getting what you want in the future.

You can start planning for your personal financial goals and dreaming about how to live the life you wish without “needing” the business to make that happen. Here are three key questions to consider as you start this part of the growth journey. Specifically, if you make the decision to sell your multi-unit franchising organization or divest a portion of your portfolio:

• What happens when the money comes in? It is all about planning! Layout a plan for what you need for the short term, and consider things such as taxes, mortgage payments, college tuition/expenses for your children, charitable causes, etc. For others of you, it might be that new toy you want to purchase. You also have to consider the long-term needs and build a roadmap for what you need financially to live, as well as spend.

• What does it look like if you redeploy the monies into something new and how complex is it? Redeployment of capital is often popular when a business owner decides to sell. The biggest challenge is making the mental and cultural shift from running and managing the business to managing your investments.

• What kind of personal financial planning should be done once an acquisition is complete? The most important aspect of planning here is to assess and reassess. Depending on where you have deployed your capital or where you have invested it, you have to look at where it is and determine if it is for security, or risk, or both, and build a plan around it.

Succession planning is really about setting your business up for your own future financial success. Purposeful personal financial planning and establishing goals for your future financial wealth is a critical part of how you build strategies to grow your business. To dig deeper into the answers to these questions, listen in to this episode of The Rawls Group Succession Palooza.

Kendall Rawls knows and understands the challenges that impact the success of an entrepreneurial-owned business. Her unique perspective comes not only from her educational background but, more importantly, from her experience as a second-generation family member employee of The Rawls Group - Business Succession Planners. For more information, visit www.rawlsgroup.com or email info@rawlsgroup.com.