In Conversation - Craig West - Succession Planning

Australia has a large number of baby boomer business owners that are currently heading towards or preparing for retirement with no real plan for an exit from their business. The first thing to do is begin with the end in mind, start to think about what is my exit look like?  There's a lot of goal setting to be done here, I think you need to be really clear. Why did you go into business in the first place? 2:47 Begin with the end in mind8:41 The family business challenge12:51 Employee share schemes15:28 The employee challenge20:21 Rewarding employee loyaltyCraig West is a strategic accountant who has over 25 years’ experience advising business owners. His background as a CPA in public practice, provided invaluable experience in the key issues of concern to business owners. Following 6 years of study to gain two masters degrees, Craig focused on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) for business sales advising on strategic management of tax issues. This experience formed a very strong view that business owners (and often their advisers) were unprepared and unaware of the steps required to prepare a business for exit.Craig now acts as a strategic mentor for mid-market business owners and has written four critically acclaimed books on employee incentives, succession planning, asset protection and exit strategies. Craig has conducted numerous seminars and keynote presentations throughout Australia & internationally, including adviser education programs for the Institute of Chartered Accountants, IOOF and CPA Australia.Craig’s practice Succession Plus is the largest Business succession and exit planning firm in Australia, with offices in every state and provides advice and strategy for clients looking to prepare their business for a successful exit. Succession Plus launched into the UK market during 2019 and into New Zealand in 2020In March 2014, Craig was appointed Executive Chairman of the SME Association of Australia, Australia’s largest small business organisation representing over 300,000 business owners. In October 2014, he was awarded the Exit Planner of the Year at the Exit Planning Institute Annual Conference in Texas USA, as a result of his innovative development of an exit planning process to help business owners maximise business value and achieve a successful exit.During 2015, Craig commenced Doctoral studies on the topic of using Employee Share Ownership plans (ESOP’s) as a Business Succession and Exit planning tool. Craig’s proprietary structure - a Peak Performance Trust - has won the Australia wide award for the Employee Share Ownership Plan of the year twice in four years.In November 2018, Craig launched SME Experts, in partnership with Mark Bouris’ Mentored on Podcast One and quickly grew the monthly podcast audience to over 26,500 downloads, in October 2019, he released a new podcast focused on medium sized business - Mid-Market Matters.Craig is passionate about encouraging business owners to think strategically, maximise the value of their business and achieve a successful [email protected]