Business Succession Planning

Business succession planning that honors what you built

Hand the business to the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
With the numbers and the relationships both intact.

Start the Conversation

Succession, done with care

The hardest part of succession is rarely the numbers. It's the people.

Choosing who carries your business forward is one of the most personal decisions an owner ever makes. Business succession planning gives that decision the structure it deserves, so your business, your family, and your team all come through it well.

Watch: on letting go well

Why leaders must kill ego to succeed in business

Handing over what you built asks something of you before it asks anything of them.

Why it goes wrong

Most successions fail quietly, long before the handover.

Not because the owner picked the wrong person, but because nobody prepared them. The next leader was never given real responsibility. The financing was never structured. The family conversation was never had.

Good succession planning deals with all three at once: the readiness of the business, the readiness of the successor, and the honest conversations in between. That is the work we do alongside you.

Your options

Four paths for passing the business on

Each carries different tax, funding, and family implications. We help you weigh them honestly before you commit.

  • To family

    Family business succession done with clear roles, fair structure, and the honest conversations that keep relationships whole.

  • To management

    A management buyout lets the people who already run it own it, with financing structured so the deal actually works.

  • To employees

    An ESOP shares ownership with the people who built it with you, with real tax advantages when structured properly.

  • To an outside buyer

    Sometimes the right successor is not in the building. We help you compare that honestly against the internal options.

How it works

Three steps to a handover that holds

  • Assess

    We look at the readiness of the business and of the people around you, and put real numbers to what the transfer would mean.

  • Design the plan

    Together we choose the path, structure the financing and timing, and map the conversations that need to happen.

  • Prepare the successor

    We work alongside you as responsibility shifts, so the handover is gradual, tested, and genuinely ready when it lands.

Why owners choose us

We handle the numbers and the harder conversations

Plenty of advisers can model a transfer. Fewer will sit with you through the parts that keep owners awake: whether your son or daughter really wants it, whether your key manager can afford it, whether the team will follow.

We have spent our careers alongside owners at exactly these moments. As your Chief Transaction Officer, we carry the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on running the business and on the people in it.

Not sure your business is ready to hand over?

Start with the FieldReady™ Scorecard and see where you stand before you make any decisions.

Get the Scorecard

In their words

"They helped me get organized to present the business — and I never got blindsided because they had already prepared me for every question coming our way… We had simple QuickBooks, but they could put it in a language that moved it to everybody else."

A Doescher Group client

Questions owners ask us

Succession planning FAQs

  • Business succession planning is the process of deciding and preparing who will take over your business, whether that is family, management, or your employees, and making sure the business, the people, and the money are all ready for that handover.

  • Earlier than most owners expect. Preparing a successor takes years, not months. Starting three to five years ahead gives you time to develop leadership, build value, and structure the transfer properly.

  • Most owners transfer to family, sell to their management team, move to employee ownership through an ESOP, or sell externally. Each carries different tax, funding, and family implications, and we help you weigh them honestly.

  • Succession is about who carries the business forward, usually someone already close to it. Selling is a transaction with an outside buyer. Many owners explore both. If you're leaning toward a sale, see our Sell Your Business page.

Let's talk

Let's plan a handover worth being proud of

Start with a conversation. We always leave owners better than we found them, whether we work together or not.

Start the Conversation
Get the FieldReady™ Scorecard