This is the third of a short series of Fishing Today articles on the whys and wherefores of succession planning – the process of ensuring the continuity of your business when the time comes for you to move on to do other things.

The previous articles have looked at the importance of working out and writing down your personal, financial and business objectives and aspirations from your business succession process and of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals to help achieve these aims.

After all, if you don't know where you're going, any course will get you there. The next steps in this process are to use your goals to design your succession strategy and to develop a plan to implement that strategy. In other words – what's the best way to go about achieving your goals?

There are five key areas that probably should be considered when selecting and planning your succession strategy:

1. You'll need to determine which succession method fits best with your personal, financial and business goals.
   The two main succession methods of relevance to people in our industry are: to change leadership (in other words – maintaining ownership but hand the reins to someone else); or to exit from ownership (in other words – sell the business). These will be explored in a bit more detail in upcoming issues of Fishing Today.
2. If you are considering maintaining ownership and changing leadership, you'll need to work out who your successor will be.
   Will he or she come from inside your business, your family or from somewhere else? Remember that they will need sufficient training and guidance to understand the business' systems and processes to be ready to take on the role. Also remember that they are likely to require a market salary, which may or may not be something that you have been earning from the business
3. If you are thinking about exiting from ownership, you'll need to decide the method of sale and work out what your business is worth.
   This will help you determine whether your goals (particularly your financial goals) are Realistic. Then you'll need to consider other factors such as taxation consequences relating to the exit from ownership, and how to identify and attract potential buyers.
4. You'll need to discuss the strategy with immediate family and other stakeholders (e.g. employees) to listen to any concerns and to help ensure that they understand and are supportive of your decision and plans
5. You'll need to ensure that the strategy you've chosen will be appropriate for the timetable you've set for the succession process.
   

These actions should be considered and charted before you launch into other parts of your succession planning process. This will ensure that the plan and the process followed is logical, and that key steps are all considered and planned in a way that supports the successful implementation of the succession plan.

And remember, you'll probably find that outside assistance with completing the actions above will be very useful. It'd be advisable either to work through the decisions and planning with your immediate family and/or to meet with a trusted adviser (business or personal) for their input and thoughts.

Tom Lewis manages the Seafood and Food Manufacturing Programs for Rural Development Services and can be contacted on 03 6231 9033 email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it