{"id":59036,"date":"2025-12-12T11:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/59036\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:10:07","slug":"family-business-experts-present-on-succession-planning-done-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/59036\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Business Experts Present on Succession Planning Done Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Greater Reading Chamber Alliance<\/p>\n

Berks Family Business Alliance (FBA), a special program of the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance (GRCA), hosted Laurel Cline, Managing Director of Cherry Bekaert, and Brian Boland, Head of Kozloff Stoudt\u2019s Estate Planning and Administration Department, who said that now is the time to think about the people side as well as the legal side of succession planning.<\/p>\n

The presentation titled \u201cPreparing for the Future,\u201d which was held at GRCA\u2019s Center for Business Excellence in Wyomissing, brought together an intimate group of 25 family business owners.<\/p>\n

Cline told the group that when building a people strategy in your business, especially when you are looking to retire, sell, or scale the business, it is essential to identify critical roles, required competencies, and whether the business already has the talent available within the business. This strategy can take three to five years to clearly define.<\/p>\n

\u201cI typically get involved in working with organizations when they\u2019re thinking about that next phase of growth or preparation to sell, and they don\u2019t have the family members available to meet the competencies that they need, or today they don\u2019t have individuals in the organization that have the competencies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When this issue arises, Cline said that long-term incentive plans can help retain the talent in the business who do possess or have the aptitude to acquire the needed skills, but who may not be a part of the family or ownership.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to think about what\u2019s going to motivate that talent, what are they looking for, and, depending on your strategy, how do you best attract, retain, and incentivize that person to do what you need for your business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cline gave an example of one of her clients whose business experienced an untimely death in its second generation, and the third generation was not quite ready to take the reins. She said she worked with the business to determine who had the potential to fill that void, how to set them up for success, and set expectations for their performance, all while motivating those employees to stay with the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, it\u2019s just something as simple as we want to pay competitively, or we know we\u2019re going to be not as competitive on base salary, but we\u2019re going to offer people a better variable comp plan or bonus plan,\u201d said Cline.<\/p>\n

A few examples of long-term incentives that employers can offer include stock plans, stock appreciation rights, Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans (SERP), and book value plans.<\/p>\n

Boland, who focused on the legal ramifications of business and estate planning, told the group that he is in the same position as them. He is currently working on closing the books for the year, reviewing performance, and making sure that good performance is rewarded.<\/p>\n

He emphasized that when business owners meet with a legal team, it\u2019s important to give them the entire story, so they can best fine-tune what is right for the business. Sometimes, that means protecting the business assets from those who are not family. For example, asking those marrying into or who are already married into the family to sign a prenuptial agreement or postnuptial agreement, saying they are not entitled to any company stock.<\/p>\n

Attending FBA Peer Groups can be helpful to family business owners who want to discuss more sensitive topics, such as prenuptial agreements or even more quirky topics better talked about without family around, Boland said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to toss around some very personal ideas and help each other. We may not come up with an answer that first time, but help them move along the path that gets them a little closer to an answer that hopefully makes the business a little bit more successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Patrick Dolan, President of Dolan Construction, said the event helped him look beyond today. \u201cIt had people thinking about their future, their retirement, the implications on the estate plan, and just an overall broader picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boland said the attendees were already ahead of the curve by attending the session because many clients come to him and want to make big changes, such as private equity or an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). He said he often has to ask those clients to put the brakes on and understand why they want to make that decision and what problem those changes would actually solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just the fact that you are here, and you are hearing and thinking about these things in advance, you are ahead of the game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Greater Reading Chamber Alliance Berks Family Business Alliance (FBA), a special program of the Greater Reading Chamber…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-59036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}