Elizabeth Mower - Business Owner Exit Planning Trends During COVID-19

In the field of Exit Planning for business owners, the original organization focused on this topic is a company called BEI. For the last 25 or 30 years, BEI has been training professional advisors to do comprehensive and customized planning for business clients, and then equipping those advisors with software and tools to manage each client's Exit Planning journey. Today I'm joined by the President of BEI, Elizabeth Mower. Elizabeth leads BEI in fulfilling its mission to help business owners benefit from their life's work, and she's joining us today to talk about what she sees happening right now in terms of owners of closely held businesses creating plans for the future. Elizabeth spent the first phase of her career working directly with business clients, but for the last 15 years or so, she has been dedicated to helping advisor deliver better outcomes to their clients. In this interview we discuss the answers to these questions:   Are business owners doing more or less planning for the future during the COVID-19 pandemic? What would you say are the ways that the current situation for owners is the same as it was during the Great Recession, and in what ways are things different today? A lot of business owners are more busy and more stressed out these days, and if we assume that's true regardless of geography and industry, are you seeing any trends or bright spots that would help a business owner take steps today that move them toward whatever it is they want the future to look like?   BEI has a massive amount of content for both business owners and their advisors available for free at BEI's website, which is ExitPlanning.com. Business owners can also ask their most trusted advisor for a plan that is powered by BEI's planning platform. If they want to find an advisor who is specially trained in Exit Planning, business owners can go to ExitPlanning.com and use the Find an Advisor tool under Resources. Or, to get started in thinking about the future, business owners can take a look at BEI's most recent book, which is called ExitPlanning: The Definitive Guide. You can go to ExitPlanning.com/definitiveguide (or even to Amazon) and get the book. It comes with online self-assessments and checklists that business owners can use to start to map out their futures. And for professional advisors, we suggest that they go to ExitPlanning.com and follow the blog, listen to BEI's podcast (it's called Why We Plan) or learn more about BEI's tools and resources for advisors.