With so many challenges and calls on our time, how can we streamline and reduce irritations in our firm? Especially for succession planning.

We all have competing demands on our time and certain aspects that we mutter about on a frequent basis. Some of these mutterings we don’t even notice anymore. Succession planning can focus our attention.

Despite this ongoing friction, we typically only actively seek-out and tackle niggles in our firm, when we are either thinking about exiting or succession planning  (sometimes too late to maximise the chance of our successfully exiting on our terms), or, when things have become overwhelming, and it becomes hard to make effective change.

I use the analogy of moving house. Shortly before moving home we tend to:

1. Repair items that have irritated us or are easy to see (to avoid price reduction or purchasers being dissuaded from buying)

2. Repair anything else that others may think will cost more, or take longer to fix than the reality is, or we have resources that they may not (for the same reasons)

3. Declutter for staging, depersonalise for potential, or tidy up to enhance features of the home (increase value and purchase opportunities)

4. Declutter so to only take what is needed or pleasurable into our new home (personal joy and experience a fresh start in the new home)

5. Purchase new items to replace those that have been irritating us such as the broken saucepan or faulty lamp (personal joy and have things around us that enhance our lives).

Often, many of these repairs or purchases are inexpensive, and take less time to resolve than we thought. We then begrudge that we spent the last five years muttering at the squeaky door and that the new owners have the lovely polished wooden floors we always wanted.

The same can be true for our firms. Why should people coming in have the benefit of streamlined systems, organised document banks, a freshly painted office, and phone systems that do what they are meant to!

So why wait? Now is a great time to sit down and think about ALL of the things you could do to:

1. Streamline for improved viability, profitability, or increase the chances of sale

2. Enhance any features, or upsell, any particular features of the firm or its team, to increase the value or attractiveness of the firm

3. Remove or delete anything that slows the firm down, makes it less profitable, is out-of-date, unwieldy, irritating, or might be confusing

4. Upgrade any systems to improve profitability or attractiveness

5. Depersonalise it so that the value of the firm can exist without you

6. Plan for annual reviews and maintenance to keep it at that level

Now that you have the list, you can start to prioritise and tackle the significant areas in turn, thereby giving you the benefit of those changes now. Enjoying your own streamlined, decluttered, feature improved, and more profitable firm soonest.

Having completed it this year, this can be a useful exercise to undertake every year.

I would love to know what your first change will be.

Simona