Prepare For The 4 D's: A Business Legacy Conversation

By Arlin Sorensen, O and Founder of the Heartland Companies which includes HTG Peer Groups

This is the second post in a series on making sure your legacy is in place financially.

Part of planning and preparation means being ready for the unexpected. There are four D’s that can drastically reduce the value of a company.  It is true for a sole owner, but obviously the likelihood increases with more people involved.

When a sale is forced because of any of these things, there is a significant likelihood it will have a negative effect on your company valuation and cause you to sell well below market value.

Unfortunately one of these events happens about half the time according to the data.  We discussed several questions to answer when thinking about creating business value in my first post in this series.

These four D’s are definitely another factor to consider as any one of them can easily cause you to come up short of your target and force you to sell before you are ready.