NO. 23: THE BASIC PREMISE (of my newest book for next generation professional service providers, due out March 7th!)

• The following is an excerpt from Acquiring Your Future Through a Succession Plan: A Primer for Next Generation Professional Service Providers, the companion book to Building With the End in Mind. These are the only current books available that provide detailed instructions to the founding generation of owners and, separately, to their next generation ownership prospects!

This book is about one generation helping another. But as a thirty-something year old Professional Service Provider (or PSP), you actually have several good choices in front of you. Time is on your side. Your choices include working as an employee or a contractor indefinitely, buying another PSP’s practice and/or starting your own small business, or buying an equity interest in the business where you work or would like to work. This book delves into the concept of ownership, particularly exploring how the next generation of PSPs can invest in their workplace and become partners through a formal succession plan. I certainly won’t and don’t ignore your other choices, but the mechanical aspects of this buy-in approach are certainly given priority.

The process of building and operating a multiple-owner and multiple-generational business is called Succession Planning. As you will learn, most succession plans require at least two or more up-and-coming PSP’s per business. This means that we (as in myself and all G1s) collectively need to help you, and many others like you, prepare and become educated on why you should seriously consider investing in the business where you work (or another similar business that makes you an offer) and not start your own. The Professional Services landscape is littered with one-generational books and practices that end with the founder’s career; relatively few have any significant value and are sold. Your help and support are needed to move beyond this base model. The benefits of building on top of an existing business are many, and impact far more people than just the PSPs directly involved.

But don’t think this is going to be easy or that the future is patiently waiting for you on your terms. So you are talented, ambitious, and you want more. Terrific. You need to genuinely want this, earn the chance, and then settle the opportunity by signing one or more personal promissory notes and servicing the debt for a period of up to ten to twenty years, and working even harder and smarter. “Opportunities and Obligations” was the alternative tag line for the title of this book and it is accurate. I thought you should hear this up front.

Regardless of the path you choose, I cannot help but think as I sit here writing this in my mid-60s, how much my career could have been positively impacted if I had the information in this book as a thirty-something year old lawyer and next gen PSP. I didn’t know most of these strategies even existed.

Like most every PSP I’ve ever met, my goal with this book is to make a difference. Maybe we can do that together.

Thanks for reading,

David Sr.