by Abe Sherman – CEO, BIG – Buyers Intelligence Group
April 5, 2022
Successful business transitions require time and careful planning – in most cases, many years of planning. Transitioning ownership, whether within families, to employees or to outsiders each come with their own unique challenges. This is of particular importance in the jewelry industry since the majority of businesses are privately owned. Done well, businesses can thrive for many generations. However, poorly planned and executed transitions are very costly, in dollars and interpersonal dynamics.
Given all that’s at risk, I am pleased to announce that the American Gem Society has decided to take on this subject by creating the Business Transition Taskforce for the benefit of all industry stakeholders. This isn’t a topic specific to retailers, but all businesses in our industry.
Transitioning from one owner, family or group to others has many challenges and is fraught with roadblocks along the way. The Business Transition Taskforce will be addressing each of these challenges beginning at the 2022 AGS Conclave in Oklahoma City, April 25-27. This is only the beginning of the conversation, setting the stage for the myriad issues that outgoing and incoming parties must address over time. This task force has been created to introduce topics, experts and content into the Conclave program so that you will not have to deal with these issues alone, or try to find help on your own.
Some of the broad topics that will be addressed include, but are certainly not limited to:
- Planning for a transition
- Proper financial planning (e.g. Tax planning and Estate planning)
- Training incoming owners (e.g. Financial education, Legal, Merchandising, and Marketing)
- Funding the buy-out
- Expectations of Business valuations
AGS’s goal for the Business Transition Taskforce is to make these subjects part of future Conclave, focusing on various areas by building a group of experts and providing content to help everyone understand these subjects in group settings as well as for individual study.
I was honored to be asked to participate in Business Transition Taskforce especially since so many of our clients are going to be facing these very issues at some point. More importantly, we have been exposed to what happens when transitions go badly, the toll it takes on family relationships, financial hardships caused by poor planning and new owners who didn’t realize what they had gotten themselves into until it was too late.
I encourage anyone who is fretting over how to transition their business over the next ten years to join the first AGS Business Transition Taskforce series of presentations and open group discussion at the 2022 AGS Conclave. https://www.americangemsociety.org/conclave-2022/
The group conversation is open to all attendees – The Business Transition Open Discussion, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning, April 27, at 10:15 and will be listed on the website Schedule of Events and in the mobile app.
I believe this will be one of the most important programs that the AGS has developed in many years and will remain so for many years to come.
