What we do
Your Port of Departure
We help our business owners answer the following important questions:
Understanding the value of your business today is the launch point for starting your journey toward attaining personal financial freedom for life. Blue Sea Advisors LLC can perform that fair market valuation for you, expeditiously and affordably.
In the past, business valuations used to be quite costly and take several weeks to complete. But by harnessing today’s latest technologies and big data sources, Blue Sea Advisors LLC can provide you with a very accurate, affordable, and secure fair market value business valuation report–generally within 48 hours. And that’s just the start. We’ve designed our entire client-centric business model around helping you maximize the value of your business before you exit, so you can finally enjoy the personal financial freedom you’ve worked so hard to obtain, and leave behind a fitting legacy to your life’s work.
If you’re ready to assess how prepared you are now, and how to fill any gaps that may exist in your current overall financial situation, please give us a call for an appointment. We’ll establish up front what our process involves, what you can expect, and determine if there is a good fit and business case for moving forward.
Welcome aboard, and feel free to explore our quarters to see how we can help you set the right course for the challenging, fulfilling, and adventurous journey ahead of you.
If you’re a business owner, your company is most likely your most important and valuable asset.
We think your business longevity plan needs to be an integral part of your retirement and estate planning strategy. That’s why we work closely with you to help you value your business, shape and clarify a growth, succession or transition strategy that can be implemented within a realistic time frame, and grow the transferable value of your business so that it provides you and your loved ones with the lifestyle you seek during your retirement decades.
It all starts with knowing what the current value of most important asset is. Do you know what your business is worth?
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO
We believe the vast majority of American small to medium-sized business owners are unsung work heroes. They are the backbone of the American economy. They are the creative and visionary risk-takers who place their capital on the line and incur debt in order to serve their customers better than the competition. They are the job creators who provide opportunities for career growth and continuous learning challenges for their employees, making their skill sets more valuable over time. They think relentlessly about how to solve their business challenges, what new technologies to invest in, what talent they need to bring on board, and how to serve their customer base better and more efficiently. They develop unique capabilities in their operations, discover underserved niches in the marketplace with unmet needs, and do their best to excel in their areas of expertise.
These are people that ultimately deserve the promise of personal financial freedom and security, the opportunity to re-wire their life to pursue their passions in their later years, take some or all of their chips off the table, and hand over their business responsibilities to those they choose. These are people who deserve to enjoy their remaining years, while creating a fitting legacy to their life of service and personal sacrifice.
These are the people we want to help navigate through their inevitable business transition process.
Read Our Article about the challenges that business owners face,
A Hero’s Journey
How We do it
The term “Longevity Planning for Businesses” refers to a series of sessions with a client that begins with listening closely to their core problems and eliciting thoughtful responses to key issues that should be considered along their business journeys in order to create maximum transferable business value.
A “Longevity Plan” is actually a composite of a number of sub-plans, which includes a Cost and Tax Reduction Plan, a written Continuity Plan, a Strategic Growth Plan, an Internal Succession Plan or External Exit Plan, a Retirement Income/Wealth Management Plan, a Risk Management Plan, and a funded Legacy Plan for personal or charitable beneficiaries. These plans are processes that require action on the part of the owner, his internal leadership team and his outside professional team to execute.
Blue Sea Advisors LLC’s role is to first design the architectural blueprint of this Longevity Plan based on the business owner’s personal goals and objectives. Once the owner has a compelling Longevity Plan in place, we become the “Process Manager” during the journey, helping to maintain focus on and consistent progress toward the goals and objectives of the business owner, and bringing in top industry or professional resources to efficiently handle any issue that is blocking the way.
Various “vertical trades” are generally needed to build out the Plan, such as advanced tax planning attorneys, cost recovery specialists, risk management professionals, estate planning attorneys, HR recruitment firms, Continuous Improvement gurus, EOS Implementers, intellectual property attorneys, sales and marketing experts, Industry 4.0 automation experts, structured innovation process consultants, etc.
Blue Sea Advisors LLC’s role is to help the business owner establish important priorities, make continual progress in executing on his plan, and to perform a cost/benefit range analysis before engaging in new initiatives from the viewpoint of current and future net operating profit, ROI, risk mitigation, and business value creation. Our proprietary toolset is well-designed to help answer those critical questions for the business owner.
Much like an architectural blueprint, The Blue Sea Advisor’s Longevity Plan model is designed to allow the business owner to design a comprehensive plan, establish firm priorities, and share the Plan confidentially and collaboratively and as needed with other members of his trusted advisory team.
Like a construction blueprint, there may be site conditions that warrant changes along the way. The best way to handle changes in circumstances is to document them so they can be shared immediately with the right members of the “crew” building out the plan—the owner’s trusted advisory team. In the past, it was not easy or even possible to keep all the key advisors on board and aligned. Disparate planning documents became obsolete and largely ignored. With the Blue Sea Advisors’ Network, the Longevity Plan is designed to become the client’s “living” source document to chronicle key changes in circumstances and priorities, so that everyone on his advisor team can consider such changes from their unique perspective with the right factual information at their fingertips.
Death, disability, chronic illness, divorce, industry disruption, economic downturns, changes in trade policies and regulations, competitive threats, interest and currency rates fluctuations, etc. all operate to perhaps change in some way some of the underlying assumptions within the original Longevity Plan. When these things happen—and they will–all the involved external advisors must be on the same page to allow valuable collaboration with the owner to occur seamlessly. The Blue Sea Advisors Network can serve as the bench from which an owner can rapidly pull together an Advisory Team to help him through changed circumstances and make appropriate adjustments to priorities or the Longevity Plan itself.
No single professional or leadership team member can perform that function for the owner. Their “deep vertical” business models or roles are not built to accommodate the design, review, and implementation of a comprehensive Longevity Plan that takes into account the financial, tax, strategic growth, operational, human resource, leadership, succession, disruptive technologies, and competitive ramifications that arise in the business journey, let alone the retirement income stream, wealth management, risk exposure, estate planning, and legacy considerations that need to be addressed along the way.
This Longevity Plan, then, becomes the collaboration tool and framework of reference within which his multiple advisors can make their most salient recommendations. Modifications to the plan can be made due to changed life circumstances, and everyone within the client’s important team of advisors can be simultaneously brought up to date. This collaboration process keeps everyone on his advisory team aligned and engaged in the business value enhancement process over time.
Blue Sea Advisors LLC provides a pre-quoted fixed fee for architecting each component or module of the Longevity Plan blueprint, as set out in our Modular Pricing model. We have designed it to “pay for itself” through enhanced profit and value creation inside your business. The Modules on our Price List can be purchased on an a-la-carte basis within a fixed range, or on a “packaged discount” series with a firm price.
Module 1 will help create a “found money” war chest from the outset. Module 2 includes our comprehensive Diagnostic Check-Up tool and follow-up SWOT session with the Leadership Team, where we diagnose the areas where the real constraint to further growth and profitability is likely hiding. Then we utilize our leading business valuation software to establish a baseline fair market value for the business. We also educate the owner and his leadership team about the key global metrics that should be considered in each and every change initiative. We then supply the “What If” financial metrics tool and key operating ratio dashboard with which to make the best ROI decisions on proposed changes to the current system.
Module 3 is designed to establish a strategic growth planning process that is actually implementable, with roles and responsibilities clearly established, a compelling Vision for the team to work toward, and the adoption of the right methodologies, managerial systems, and metrics to gauge progress along the way. Module 4 will involve the design of a customized data dashboard for the organization, so that everyone is focused on the key daily operational metrics that will drive long term performance and value enhancement. Module 5 completes the first packaged series with an often-overlooked opportunity to build enterprise value: risk mitigation. It does a business owner and his team no good to have the best functioning, most profitable company in the industry with the most loyal customers, if it can all go awry from an unanticipated but potentially foreseeable event, such as a cyber breach, a disabling or fatal truck or car accident, a fire or tornado, a theft of intellectual property, a product liability lawsuit, the death of a key leadership team member, etc. An expert business risk audit from an experienced insurance advisor can provide invaluable service, often at no charge if additional policy coverages are obtained, especially with the ”found money” from wasted expenses and taxes the business was previously incurring.
Modules 6, 7, and 8 are designed for those closer to exiting their business. They address issues surrounding succession planning for the company’s ownership and management leaders, key leadership retention incentives, determining the desired exit strategy and ideal next owner, whether internal or external, due diligence preparation, virtual data room set up, selection of the M&A transaction advisory team, addressing communication timing and confidentiality, retirement planning, wealth management, estate planning, legacy planning, and tax-sheltered charitable deduction options. Nothing you’ve accumulated is going with you on the train ride home, so it’s best to plan now for how you’d like it to be apportioned for your loved ones and favorite causes.
In the end, Longevity Planning is all about nurturing the business community you have assembled, living life well, thinking responsibly, acting with generosity of heart, and modeling leadership. We invite you to call upon the Blue Sea Advisors Network to help you along this challenging and wonderful journey.
Click here here to discuss which pricing module would best suit your individual circumstances.
MISSION and GUIDING PRINCIPLES
We at Blue Sea Advisors LLC and Summit Legacy Advisors LLC are founded on the principles of professional integrity, the primacy of our clients’ needs, and a commitment to client-centric, holistic, comprehensive business growth and transition planning.
Blue Sea Advisors strive to achieve transformative business value expansion for Michigan-based lower middle market companies ($5 million to $35 million in annual revenues) in the manufacturing industry through applied business intelligence and strategic change know-how. We help identify and focus resources on our clients’ key constraints to growth and higher profitability. In that process, we help them prepare for a successful business transition to external or internal buyers within their desired time frame.
We’ve assembled and established trusted relationships with a network of vetted industry experts in business valuation, strategic growth planning, constraint management, lean process flow, installation of key metrics on the real value drivers of the business, transition planning, succession planning, and personal financial lifestyle planning. We help implement these plans as a trusted advisor, mentor, and fractional COO, tapping a deep network of expert resources to be engaged as and where needed for maximum ROI. The intellectual muscle within our network exceeds those available in any one consulting, accounting, law, or merger and acquisition firm.
We begin by listening to our clients’ objectives and financial goals, analyzing gaps and risks that could disrupt their accomplishment, and designing personal and business insurance solutions that could mitigate them. We commit to finding our clients the most advantageous insurance coverage solutions from the nation’s top 10% of insurance carriers, comparing and evaluating their respective underwriting requirements, optional riders, unique contractual features and benefits, and premium costs.
With both of these objectives in mind–maximizing transferable value and protecting it throughout the business transition process–we aim to help our business owner clients achieve personal financial freedom for the duration of their lifetimes and enable them to leave behind a fitting legacy to their life’s work.
