Doyletech’s Corporate Succession and Transition Planning (CS) service consists of three distinct yet closely-related components: (1) Business Valuation, (2) Business Transition, and (3) the Executive Placement Program.

1. Business Valuation

A business is worth only what someone will pay for it. The Doyletech Business Valuation Calculator provides you with an in depth analysis of the potential value of your business and the things you can do to increase that value. There are three things that impact the value you will gain when you sell or transfer your business:

1. The history of business performance, and the likelihood that performance will continue into the future.
2. The likelihood of a successful transition.
3. Tax and estate planning to maximize the benefits you retain after transfer.

Business Performance

• Have earnings been steady through the years?
• What is your market share?
• Are you reliant on a single or small group of customers?
• What differentiates you from your competitors?
• What is your market share and the potential to increase it?
• What are the barriers to entry for other competitors?
• Can the company offer new products?

Business Transition

• How closely tied to day to day operations are you?
• Do you have systems in place to monitor company performance?
• Do your financial statements need significant restatement for new owners?
• Are you willing to facilitate the transition?

Transfer Planning

• Are you assuming a share sale over an asset sale?
• Do you have a tax shelter plan for the proceeds of a sale?
• Are you willing to spread the proceeds of a sale over several years?

The Doyletech Business Valuation Calculator looks at all these factors, presents you with a valuation range and highlights the areas you should focus on to improve the valuation of your business. There are three service levels to choose from:

• Basic: $349 for one year unlimited use. Provides a valuation range and a management report on areas to focus on that will improve valuations.
• Advanced: $649 for one year unlimited use. This level includes all the benefits of the basic service plus a comparison of your company’s performance to similar businesses. Includes Canadian data for maximum accuracy.
• Premium: $1349 for one year unlimited use includes a one time ½ day session with a Doyletech consultant. We’ll review your data, probe your management team and provide extra focus on the “soft issues” affecting your valuation, along with a customized plan to address them.

2. Business Transition

Whether you are selling your business, or transferring it to a family member, the way you manage that transition can have a huge impact on the success of the exercise.  The Doyletech Transition Analysis Program is a consulting engagement that builds on the output of our Business Valuation Calculator. Even if you have addressed the accounting and legal issues of a business succession, inevitably it is the harder to measure “soft” management issues that have the biggest impact on the success or failure of a business transition.

Our engagement for a transition analysis is done in three parts:

• Initial Meeting and Interviews

Building on the information from our valuation calculator, we’ll meet with you and your team to identify the key issues of your business pertaining to transition: What time line are you looking at? Who really makes decisions concerning the short and long term issues affecting the business? Is the team ready for a new leader? Is there someone within the company who could (or thinks they should) take on the role? How will you handle your customers and suppliers? Are there any logistical issues to consider (retirement, illness, building ownership, time constraints). We’ll cover all the issues in our in depth interviews

• Building the Plan

We’ll work with you and your team, including your advisors, to set out a transition customized for your specific situation. Doyletech focuses on the management issues and we rely on our legal, accounting, and business brokerage partners to ensure the plan is comprehensive. Self explanatory, it will outline a specific plan for you to follow, the impact of each item, and the timeline needed to ensure you have everything set for a seamless transition to a new owner.

• Follow-Up

We’ll continue to be available to you if circumstances change.

Pricing for our transition services vary according to the amount of work that needs to be done, but we are happy to provide a fixed price quote for our services before starting any work.

3. The Small Business Executive Placement Program

If you are selling your small business, the reality is that the uncertainties associated with it will mitigate against high valuations. One option to selling your business is to find someone else to run it on your behalf.  The Doyletech Small Business Executive Placement Program is designed to help small business owners explore this option.  In short, you use some of the money you current take out of the business to pay a replacement manager and continue to live on the rest without selling your business.

We use our extensive network to maintain a list of potential managerial level candidates. We complement this list with a focused recruitment campaign that gives us a large pool of candidates to work with. Before a candidate is added to our roster, they undergo extensive screening to ensure we understand exactly their strengths, weaknesses, and the ways they could best contribute to a small business.

For any executive placement engagement there are three phases:

• Needs Analysis

We use our Transition Analysis tools to evaluate the character of your business and identify the type of person best suited to replacing you.  Size of company, industry, key management skills, and leadership team personalities are all considered.

• Candidate Interviews and Transition Planning

We facilitate the interview process, and once a candidate has been selected, we prepare a transition plan to ensure that the transition to a new manager is as seamless as possible.

• Facilitation

Replacing a lifelong owner is a major disruption to the business. We work with you and the candidate through the transition process to ensure that the plan is being executed and that issues are handled in an expedient, forthright manner. Most importantly, we show you how to work with your new manager in a way that lets you monitor performance without “getting in the kitchen”.

Pricing for our executive placement service is calculated as a percentage of the candidate’s annual salary, usually in the range of 15% to 30%. We offer a full money back guarantee and payment plans over the transition period are available.