PLANNING MAKES PERFECT // SUCCESSION PLANNING
PLANNING MAKES PERFECT
AN ENTREPRENEUR’S BUSINESS IS ALWAYS FOR SALE
BY JAMIE ZACHARY
T
he good, bad and ugly – Jeff Cook has seen it all. Yet one case stands out for the partner of Calgarybased professional chartered accounting firm Cook & Company as to why entrepreneurs always need to plan for the future. In this case, Cook’s clients were aging. Over the years, they’d spark the occasional conversation about putting the business up for sale or turning it over to their children. Yet times were good and the children were not interested in running the business, so the clients didn’t see any urgency in selling.
When the economic downturn hit, the business was impacted hard. The clients were eventually forced to surrender their assets and client lists for next to nothing. “If we had paid it a bit more attention four or five years ago, we might have avoided that from happening,” Cook says. “Entrepreneurs need to be aware that it takes years of planning to maximize the value of their businesses. It’s not a quick process, and it’ll need constant improvement, constant maximization and maintaining of value, and constant years of preparation.”
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NOVEMBER 2018 // BUSINESS IN CALGARY // BUSINESSINCALGARY.COM