Growing transferable business value: at what level do you play?

You want to educate your clients about transferable business value. Is this you? (1) You want to talk about business value and connect it with personal wealth, and/or (2) you want to do business value growth engagements. Would it help you to have a playbook of techniques, scripts and templates?

If you're a Management Consultant, CPA Business Advisor, CFP Exit Planner, M&A Pro or Fractional CFO working with business-owning clients, this article is for you.

Our goal as advisors to bring sophistication to the discussion both about transferable business value, and about taking control of transferable value by redesigning the business so that it can deliver your client’s goals. 

There is one last blue ocean opportunity with the owners of middle market businesses: advising them about understanding, growing and monetizing the transferable value of their largest asset, their privately-held business.

The key to building a thriving advisory business is connecting your clients with their goals. The confluence of a client's professional and personal goals is at the point where the business connects with their personal wealth. Whether they use their business as a private piggy bank or build it to sell, it’s reasonable for a client to want to extract the value of their life’s work from the business. This is why many of you have earned important credentials for making this connection: CPA, CFP, CIMA, CBEC, CEPA, CVA, and more.

Thinking back over a decade consulting with thousands of pros like you about how to better connect with clients, there are some valuable lessons. Here are a few:

• Clients think they're doing just fine and they believe in fairy tale endings: “I’ll work hard until I’m done, then sell the company for what I need.” [note: no goal, no strategy]
• Successful advisors have proven secrets for finding the 'right' clients who are willing to commit time and treasure into pursuing their goals
• The most effective advisors actively seek help from a broad community of experts (rather than only talking with their peers)
• Our ability as advisors to deliver wins and achieve client goals is exponentially enhanced when we start with the end in mind: the best advisors initially identify -and continuously confirm- their client's ultimate 'why'. Lesson: from the very first conversation, we need to be thinking about goals and execution

These lessons are among the hundreds that powered the creation of the Growth-Drive playbook for growing profits and transferable value. Growth-Drive members are leading successful client engagements and building thriving advisory businesses. Our community of advisors use the playbook: if you're a Growth-Driver you have the knowledge, tools and sophisticated support you for helping your clients to win. Learn how to have this conversation: 

We'd be happy to email you the Pyramid:

What does the playbook look like?

1. It starts with a structured conversation about personal and professional vision which identifies strategic goals,
2. The next step is deep analysis of the business itself, aimed at understanding bottlenecks to growth and transferable value,
3. This understanding in turn informs redesigning the business so that it can reach your client's personal and professional goals,
4. Recognizing that leading the execution of a growth project is a specialized skill,  a select subset of Growth-Drivers get training to then lead clients on the growth journey

So how does this work in a community of experts? Here are a few examples by profession.

• Exit Planners interested in starting the conversation may then want high-quality referrals to vetted pros who can 'do' the plan
• CPAs are learning how to complete the entire growth journey with they client from the first conversation through long-term execution
• Management Consultants start the conversation, analyze the business and create the strategic growth plan, referring in CPAs and Fractional CFOs to provide specific expertise
• CVAs have the opportunity to expand from analyzing value to advising on transferable value -starting the conversation, analyzing the business and advising on neutralizing company-specific risks

Bottom line: senior pros are adding depth and sophistication to client conversations about transferable value. Savvy pros are differentiating their services  by getting the knowledge, tools and support they need for leading clients on the growth journey.

Here are three recommended resources:

1. Growth-Drive has a playbook and offers an online launch course*
2. Select advisors are joining Business Advisor Peer Groups, either powerful inter-disciplinary groups or service-specific speciality groups (e.g. Exit Planning Group)
3. Check out this free online advisor's forum

*The launch course includes the Growth-Drive Playbook of valuable resources, scripts and templates for successfully starting the growth conversation, writing proposals, delivering a business strength and value report, and more. 

Our mission is to deliver the training, tools and support pros like you need for building a thriving advisory business. Stay tuned.

We'd love to know what you think: please comment below or email george@growth-drive.com.