What's your business succession plan?

Many independent producers work with clients on business succession planning matters.

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Do you have a succession plan for your own business in place?

If you do, first off, congratulations on your forward-thinking approach. That puts you ahead of the curve. Second, how did this plan come about?

How did you determine what your practice is worth? How did you recruit and evaluate potential successors? How have you structured the plan to make it work for both you and your successor while ensuring as seamless a transition as possible for your clients?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, since we started working on the special section (“Help Wanted“) in the April issue of Life Insurance Selling. The section is largely devoted to addressing the question of who will recruit and train the next generation of producers. It looks at how the industry can avoid a serious distribution crisis caused by an aging producer workforce — because that workforce is not being replaced at a sustainable level by adequately trained younger producers.