Business owners
When you own the business, your company and your household draw on the same money and the same years. Growth, how you pay yourself, a future sale: they are one plan, not three.
Planning for business ownersJace Cox
I plan with business owners and with families going through a major financial change. The work starts by finding out what has to be decided first.
People usually come to this in the middle of something: a business that has outgrown the way its owner gets paid, a sale on the horizon, an inheritance, a retirement date, a new job. The decisions tend to arrive together. My job is to put them in order and explain each one plainly.
How the planning runs
Decisions, in order
When a lot changes at once, the useful question is rarely what to do. It is what to do first.
Name what is changing
A sale, a death in the family, a new role, a retirement date. We start with the event itself and everything it touches.
Separate now from later
Some decisions have a real deadline. Many do not. Knowing which is which takes a lot of the pressure off.
Connect the pieces
Business and household, saving and spending, this year and the years after it. A decision in one place usually moves something in another.
Keep the plan current
The work is an ongoing planning relationship, not a one-time transaction or a stock pick. The plan is revisited as your life keeps moving.
Two situations I plan for
Families in a major transition
Retirement, an inheritance, a career change, the sale of an asset or a business. Something has changed, and the decisions are arriving faster than you can sort them.
Planning through a transitionWriting
The Next Play
My writing on financial decisions, in three formats. It is the easiest way to see how I think before we ever speak.
Start with a conversation
Scheduling includes a few short questions, so our first meeting starts with some context about your situation.