In this episode of Executive Connect, host Melissa Aarskaug sits down with Eric Brotman, founder of BFG Financial Advisors and a leading voice in succession planning for professional firms.

Eric shares lessons from more than three decades of building and transitioning a successful advisory practice. He explains why many entrepreneurs delay succession planning, how leaders should think about the difference between growth plans and exit plans, and why businesses must be designed to outlast their founders.

The conversation also explores the role of mentorship, apprenticeship, and ownership structures in developing the next generation of leaders. Eric discusses how equity ownership creates alignment inside companies, why technology should support rather than replace human development, and how leaders can build cultures that encourage long-term stewardship.

For founders and executives who want their companies to thrive beyond their leadership, this episode offers practical frameworks for starting succession planning the right way.

Chapters:

(00:00) The relay race mindset of succession
(00:17) Why leaders delay succession planning
(01:21) Why business owners must plan earlier
(02:30) Common reasons founders avoid succession conversations
(04:04) Growth plans versus exit plans explained
(05:36) Why founders must learn to let go
(07:53) Evaluating whether your firm is truly valuable
(09:08) Gradual ownership transitions and internal buyers
(10:51) Creating pathways to equity for future leaders
(13:42) Aligning teams through profit sharing and ownership
(16:08) The role of mentorship in leadership development
(17:07) Building mastermind groups and advisory boards
(20:55) Employee councils and internal feedback loops
(23:04) Developing second and third generation leaders
(25:13) How technology should enhance human service
(29:21) When leaders know they are ready for succession
(30:27) The Joy Revenue Blueprint framework
(33:42) Generational perspectives in the workforce
(35:06) The first step in succession planning
(38:21) Hiring and grooming the next CEO
(40:00) Passing the baton to the next generation
(41:01) Why leaders must start succession planning today

Eric

(0:00) I had to realize I’m not the only one who can do this. (0:02) In fact, I’m not even the best at it. (0:04) And that doesn’t mean I consider myself a failure.

(0:06) It means I consider myself as someone who’s passed the torch. (0:09) The race can keep being run. (0:11) Any relay, if you’re going to do it yourself, it’s a solo race.

(0:14) If you’re going to build something that outlasts you, it’s a relay.

Melissa

(0:17) Most leaders wait far too long to think about succession. (0:22) And then they’re surprised when the clock suddenly feels too short. (0:27) Today’s guest has spent three decades helping leaders avoid that mistake.

(0:33) Eric Brotman built one of the most respected financial advisory practices in the country, mentors future firm owners, and literally wrote the book on planning ahead. (0:45) But what he teaches isn’t just about exit planning. (0:49) It’s about building organizations that outlast their founders.

(0:53) So if you’ve ever wondered when to start thinking about succession, the answer is simple, earlier than you think. (1:01) Welcome to Succession Planning with Eric Brotman. (1:05) Welcome today.

Eric

(1:07) Thanks, Melissa. (1:07) I’m so glad to be here. (1:08) This is going to be fun.

Melissa

(1:09) Now you’ve spent decades leading and advising financial firms. (1:15) Why is succession planning something leaders simply cannot push to the back burner?

Eric

(1:21) Well, the best time to start succession planning is kind of like the best time to start financial planning, which is yesterday is always better than today. (1:28) And today is always better than tomorrow. (1:31) Financial advisors, particularly, but just in general, business owners are so busy running the business and they’re so busy being in it that they often don’t work on it.

(1:41) And for business owners are different. (1:43) Business owners are different than every other type of American other than maybe some independently wealthy trust babies. (1:50) And that is that their largest asset, our largest asset is our business.

(1:54) And for a lot of families, your largest asset might be your 401k or your house or things of that nature. (2:00) For business owners, it’s the business. (2:03) And if you don’t treat that like the most important element of your balance sheet and figure out how to create financial legacy, then you’re leaving money on the table and not in a small way.

(2:13) You’re leaving it on the table in a big way. (2:15) So while that’s not the only reason to try and preserve the business beyond you, some of its legacy, some of its ego, candidly, but also a lot of it is financial and people miss the boat and they walk away from monetization of their life’s work.

Melissa

(2:30) Yeah. (2:31) So why do you think that leaders avoid these succession conversations?

Eric

(2:37) Well, there’s a wide spectrum of business owners, lots of different personalities. (2:41) Some believe that no one can do it as well as I can and therefore no one could run this company like I do. (2:47) I have bad news for all of you.

(2:48) In most cases, that is not true. (2:50) It’s not even close. (2:51) There are lots of people who could run it.

(2:54) They may not have been able to start it like you did. (2:56) They may not have been the entrepreneur with the vision to create what you’ve created, but they absolutely can manage and run what you’ve created. (3:04) And by the way, most entrepreneurs like to grow and create businesses much more than they like to manage, supervise, and be stewards of one.

(3:11) So in a lot of ways, it’s smart to do succession planning so you can continue to do the things that fill your tank. (3:18) The things that excite most entrepreneurs are doing it again and again, rather than feeling like now they’re stuck on this hamster wheel they’ve generated. (3:26) So I would say that that is one set of personalities.

(3:31) Another set of personalities are those that look a little like an ostrich with their head in the sand thinking, well, I’ve got plenty of time. (3:37) This isn’t gonna happen to me or I can work forever or I never wanna retire. (3:41) I wanna work till I’m 83 or whatever it is.

(3:44) And while I wildly respect that and don’t think people should sit around in retirement, and yes, I did write the book on that, I do think we have to be prepared for the possibility that a day will come where we either change our minds and don’t want to be in the grind anymore or where for one reason or another, we can’t either because of an accident or an illness or life just happened.

Melissa

(4:04) Yeah. (4:05) Now you often say leaders need to understand the difference between a growth plan and an exit plan. (4:12) Can you break down why timing matters and how leaders can tell which one they’re actually building towards?

(4:20) Ready to lead smarter and invest wiser? (4:24) On the Executive Connect podcast, we unpack executive strategies for wealth and influence. (4:30) Hit the subscribe button now.

(4:33) Don’t just watch, act.

Eric

(4:35) I can. (4:35) Growth plans are eternal and exponential. (4:39) So one begets two, begets four, begets eight, and that’s sort of the fun part.

(4:44) You see that scoreboard, we all have been keeping scores since we were young people and business owners like lots of folks are very competitive in their own way, often with themselves, but sometimes with others. (4:54) So there’s a bit of a scoreboard and that is the first piece of that equation. (5:00) Exit plan is different.

(5:01) Exit plan is how do I make myself irrelevant? (5:05) And that’s hard because we spend all of our time trying to prove either to ourselves or others that we are the cat’s meow, we’re the best, we can do this. (5:13) And then we have to flip that script and say, I was only kidding.

(5:17) These other people can do a great job. (5:18) You don’t need me. (5:20) And so I think in order to have that be a spectrum and a glide path rather than a thud, it’s really important to start surrounding yourself with people who can handle a lot of the big, not only day-to-day, but even some of the big visioning so that you can begin to pass the torch.

(5:36) I mean, I did that in January of 26, after 32 years, I stepped down as the CEO of the firm that I created. (5:43) It is the best thing I’ve ever done. (5:45) And I’m not gonna say I wish I had done it sooner because I wasn’t ready sooner, but I had been planning all along and you’re never really ready.

(5:53) It’s kind of like being a parent. (5:55) Until you have your first child, you don’t really know what’s gonna happen and it’s a big deal. (5:59) And there’s other life stages like that.

(6:01) I have not yet experienced being an empty nester. (6:04) Although like you, I’m getting close and that’s sort of a scary thing. (6:09) And so we don’t really know how that’s gonna feel.

(6:11) Same thing’s true with a business. (6:12) When we pass the reins, there’s a tendency to sort of pass them, but hang on to it anyway. (6:19) That’s not healthy.

(6:20) We have to let the next generation or the next set of leaders lead. (6:25) And we have to do our best to be supportive, but also stay out of the way. (6:28) And we’re not great at that all the time.

(6:30) That doesn’t come naturally to most of us.

Melissa

(6:32) Yeah, and I think anything in our life that doesn’t have a plan can take us in the wrong direction, right? (6:39) I think, personally, professionally in our businesses, without a plan, we don’t really know where we’re going and we don’t know really what we’re aiming for, have a vision for what we want. (6:49) And I often find that a culture will shift a lot when leaders start planning intentionally.

(6:58) I feel like when people feel like, okay, I’m next in line, I feel like it’s like a light switch. (7:05) Something switches for them and something switches for the person that’s stepping out, like you were just saying for yourself. (7:11) I think there’s a certain level of understanding that happens when a leader can be honest and transparent versus just saying, well, I think at some point when I get to this age or this amount of money or whatever they’re calling it, then they start thinking about it and kind of it’s too late then.

(7:31) So you asked a very powerful question. (7:34) If you were on the outside today, would you buy your firm? (7:39) Would you join it?

(7:41) And do you even have potential successors internally who are willing and ready? (7:47) Walk us through that and how leaders should evaluate that honestly.

Eric

(7:53) We have to be honest with ourselves at every stage and we have to look at our business with objective eyes, which is hard to do, which is why some people will hire a coach or a consultant or even do a financial analysis with a third party to say, what is the company really worth? (8:08) Not because you wanna sell it necessarily, but because you wanna understand it. (8:11) What is the value?

(8:13) And you start looking at some of the financials, whether it’s EBITDA, whether it’s the profit margins, whether it’s the growth track that it’s on, the clientele. (8:22) I mean, in our business, it’s really important to have clients who are younger because older clients tend to spend their wealth, whereas younger clients tend to be growing their wealth. (8:30) So even someone paying you the same amount of revenue is not the same client.

(8:35) But at any rate, to me, it is a way to figure out if I was looking to buy companies and we’ve now done three transactions as buyers, would I buy mine? (8:44) And the short answer is yes, all day long. (8:47) And anyone in their right mind who looked at it objectively would.

(8:51) That’s one of the key elements of this process. (8:53) Now, it also makes it harder to sell emotionally because you don’t always wanna sell an asset that you know is growing and worth holding. (9:01) So you may not wanna part with it.

(9:03) You don’t sell the watermelon on the vine until it’s fully grown because you’re selling it per pound. (9:08) So you have to think about it, but selling it gradually and finding those internal buyers becomes incredibly important rather than a switch that gets flipped, Melissa. (9:17) Rather than saying, today I’m a business owner, tomorrow I’m independently wealthy, have a new tax problem and I’m looking for things to do.

(9:23) That’s not really a great plan as opposed to I am landing this plane, here’s my glide path, I’m going to sell some portion of the company internally over the period of five years, 10 years, 30 years. (9:35) I started selling stock in our company when I was in my late 30s. (9:38) People thought I was nuts.

(9:39) They really did. (9:40) They said, what are you doing? (9:41) It’s not ready for sale.

(9:43) And I recognized that I had some incredible humans on this bus and that if they didn’t get a bite of the apple and an ability to participate and an ability to own some of the equity, the best people would leave.

Melissa

(9:55) And so instead- I love that. (9:57) I love that. (9:58) I think there’s so much, there’s a lot of companies now that are doing this.

(10:02) And I would say some of those companies, to your point, are some of the best run, best culture companies. (10:09) Because like you said, they have a bite of the action and it’s their company. (10:13) They spend differently, the company’s money, they show up differently.

(10:17) I would say that they don’t have this eight to five mentality where they’re keeping track of a clock and really trying to maximize what they’re getting from the company versus showing up every day, giving all that they can to the company. (10:31) And so I love that you understood that really young. (10:36) And so for those that don’t understand what clicked for you, what signals show successors that they are truly ready and that they have some people internally that are ready to step up to that plate?

Eric

(10:51) Having a plan for succession includes having a path to equity for internal folks. (10:58) So literally having a written plan to equity, these are the expectations of someone who would be considered for equity. (11:04) It’s never guaranteed, but who would we consider?

(11:07) Maybe it’s a certain amount of tenure or a certain amount of success depending on what role they’re in. (11:12) There’s various things. (11:13) Plus, honesty and integrity is a non-negotiable and other types of things, being a part of the team, taking on leadership opportunities.

(11:20) There’s lots of different ways to both qualify and quantify who would make a good equity holder. (11:26) They’re also, to your point, you asked a little bit ago, how do you know if you have people internally who are willing to do that? (11:31) They not only have to have the financial gumption, they also have to have the grit and the nerve for that kind of risk because equity is never given.

(11:43) Equity is sold and bought. (11:44) It can be bought potentially at a discount. (11:47) It can be bought.

(11:47) It can be self-financed. (11:48) There’s lots of different ways to help your younger people get on that bus, but it’s never given. (11:56) Equity that’s given is not appreciated in the same way as if you’ve bought it.

(11:59) And for those of us who started a company like I did, bootstrapping, borrowing from everywhere and being over our skis going, I hope this works because if not, I’m living under a bridge. (12:08) For those of us who started that way, it’s not that we want to make it difficult for our successors, but they’ve got to have skin in the game. (12:15) There has to be alignment.

(12:17) So do they have the financial wherewithal or the risk tolerance to handle that? (12:23) Are they willing to step up to the plate and become leaders? (12:27) As you mentioned, it’s not supposed to be an eight to five.

(12:31) There are stockholders in our firm who work in a totally new way ever since they’ve been stockholders. (12:37) There’s others who don’t. (12:38) And I think some of that’s human also.

(12:40) But being a stockholder in our firm, that’s not a job. (12:45) That’s an investment. (12:46) Your job is your day job.

(12:48) It’s what you do. (12:48) It’s your role within the organization. (12:50) And maybe that’s plural.

(12:52) Maybe it’s lots of roles. (12:53) Being a stockholder is not a job. (12:55) It’s an investment.

(12:57) And it is just like any other investment you make. (12:59) Is it a good investment for you and your family and your own wealth? (13:02) And in our case, I can say, undoubtedly the answer is yes.

(13:06) People would buy all of my stock tomorrow if I let them. (13:10) And that kind of enthusiasm is exciting. (13:12) It also is good for me to know that there is an appetite.

(13:14) We now have nine stockholders here in a company with 25 people. (13:18) So that’s a pretty significant percentage of folks who are in those quarterly shareholder meetings and talking about profit margin and talking about expenditures and looking at, I know I call it the B word, the budget. (13:29) I don’t like to use that at home, but it’s okay.

(13:32) And so talking about those things and looking at who are the team leads, how are we gonna hire? (13:37) When are we gonna hire? (13:38) How are we incenting our non-owner employees to also feel like part of the success?

(13:43) You know, we put in a profit sharing plan and I don’t mean the qualified plan where there’s profit sharing. (13:48) I mean a true profit sharing where if we hit our target and we hit our multiples, that we are able to then share with the non-owner employees as well. (13:57) And that creates insane alignment.

(13:59) People are excited. (14:01) And to do it right and to share the success, the organization rather than milking every dollar you can out of it, which I beg business owners not to do. (14:10) Don’t treat it like your personal ATM.

(14:13) Don’t squeeze it until there’s nothing left in the tube. (14:15) Because if you do it right and if you generate enterprise value, instead of taking home taxable ordinary income, you can build long-term capital gains by selling the stock. (14:27) And your tax bill thanks you.

(14:30) It is a not only legal, but reasonable and thoughtful thing to do. (14:34) And if you can reduce the tax burden on yourself by a third, why would you not consider doing that while also helping make sure that your legacy is complete, that the company will outlive you?

Melissa

(14:46) I love that because I think that’s the key too is legacy. (14:49) We’re all kind of pulling towards something or some kind of goal or some kind of end game. (14:54) And so when I think about legacy, you know, it’s not just about our kids.

(14:59) It’s about what we’re leaving for the world, what we’ve built, what we’re contributing. (15:04) So talk to me a little bit, like as someone who’s always had a mentor and all the things that I’ve done in my life, I feel like I was able to jump a lot of steps that other people either didn’t or didn’t understand. (15:19) And so I, you know, we’ve talked a little bit about these wealth codes.

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Eric

(16:08) Mentorship’s extremely important and it’s not the only important element. (16:12) I believe in having a lot of stakeholders and having a lot of people involved and have grown to believe this more over time. (16:18) I had a wonderful mentor early in my career who helped shape me as a professional.

(16:23) I spent three, four years with someone who I watched do things the right way and have incredible success. (16:31) And he wasn’t a teacher. (16:33) He wasn’t sitting me down and saying next do this, then do that.

(16:36) He just allowed me to watch and to learn and to experience and it was invaluable. (16:42) I would not be where I am today without that relationship. (16:45) There are other relationships though that have also mattered.

(16:47) I had an executive coach for many, many years and that coaching was incredibly successful. (16:51) It kept me accountable to someone. (16:54) I believe that every organization, ours specifically but every organization should have multiple stakeholder groups.

(16:59) We have three stakeholder groups that I am a firm believer in that I think every business should have at the very least, the minimum. (17:07) One of them is an executive dialogue group. (17:10) They’re called masterminds where you’re in a group usually locally with eight to 10 people who are in similar stages of their careers but in different industries where you can help each other learn from each other, grow together.

(17:21) I started a group like that in 1995 that met monthly for better than a decade. (17:27) We were a young professionals group. (17:29) We’re no longer young but we’re still professionals.

(17:31) And now we just get together for dinner every quarter and have a good time because we’ve sort of outgrown some of that. (17:36) But for our young people here, I encourage them to get an executive dialogue group, have that. (17:41) I also think it’s important for professionals to have study groups.

(17:45) Study groups are people who are in the same business that you are, ideally not locally so that you’re not feeling direct competition with them necessarily but you can talk shop in a very, very profound way and learn from each other because they’re making some of the same kinds of decisions that you’re making. (18:01) They’re going through something aligned with you. (18:03) You can learn from each other and grow together.

(18:05) I think that’s important. (18:06) And then I believe in advisory boards. (18:09) We started an advisory board in 2008, primarily with clients but also with some centers of influence that has continued to this day to be an incredibly valuable source of information and transparency.

(18:21) We told clients, we want you to participate in this. (18:25) We’d like you to come to a meeting once or twice a year and we’re not serving dinner so that you can tell us how great we are. (18:33) We want to know what we can do better and you’re not going to hurt my feelings.

(18:36) And we give them permission to say, this is terrific but this is not, and let’s try and fix something. (18:41) The advisory board has now spawned multiple focus groups that have helped us make decisions because we can’t be good at everything, Melissa. (18:50) We wanted to hire, I’ll give you a perfect example.

(18:52) We wanted to hire a marketing firm. (18:53) We had never had an outside marketing firm before. (18:55) We had already tried to do it ourselves with moderate success years ago.

(18:59) And we had to write an RFP to send out to marketing firms. (19:03) I didn’t know the first thing to put in that. (19:05) I didn’t, if I knew that I could have done it myself.

(19:08) So we brought members of our board together and some outside folks who understood the marketing world. (19:14) We created an RFP, we sent it out to local firms here. (19:19) We got back a number of bids and then we let our focus group decide which group we were going to hire.

(19:25) And the group that they chose was not the group I was leaning towards. (19:29) And the group they chose was absolutely incredible, did a great job. (19:33) I listened to our advisory board because if you don’t, they’re wasting their time and you’re wasting yours.

(19:37) And it helped create a really good marketing machine for us that has been good for the firm and helped us grow for many years. (19:44) So I didn’t know the first thing about that. (19:46) And that’s true of so many things.

(19:48) You know, leverage the talent you have in the room of people who care about the outcome and want you to succeed. (19:55) They will tell you what you want to hear if you give them permission. (19:58) You must give people permission to say things that are going to hurt your feelings.

(20:01) It’s okay. (20:02) We’re adult people. (20:04) You know, I need to know where we can get better, where we can improve, where we’re messing something up.

(20:09) Because if I don’t know that, I have no idea what it’s like to be a client of our own firm. (20:13) Despite best efforts, I don’t really know because it’s inside baseball. (20:18) So you have to ask, young people particularly, but everybody should have stakeholder groups that they can rely on to tell them the truth because employees sometimes won’t.

(20:28) You want them to. (20:29) But if there’s an employer-employee or a supervisor-supervisee relationship, sometimes there’s less comfort in saying, hey boss, you’re messing this up. (20:37) It’s good if you can create that and if you can create a safe space for it, but there’s still trepidation if there’s an employment relationship.

(20:45) You need people who aren’t in that space. (20:49) I’d also say that one of the other things that we did, we created an employee council here where the employees meet once a month themselves. (20:57) It’s kind of like in the athletic world, a players-only meeting where the team owners and managers and coaches are not invited and the players talk amongst themselves.

(21:05) We have created that. (21:06) Our team votes for their representatives from year to year. (21:10) There’s rules in terms of how many years you can do it so that we get different people involved.

(21:15) And twice a month when we do our executive meetings, the employee council comes in and says, here’s what’s going on. (21:20) And it gives us a pulse of the firm. (21:22) It allows them to talk in a very anonymous way amongst themselves and come up with, here’s some things we could do better.

(21:29) They’re not afraid to make suggestions if their name is not in it. (21:33) And so it becomes a really valuable piece to say, you know, the pulse of the firm is really good. (21:38) Some of the employees are concerned about X or they’re really enthusiastic about Y.

(21:43) Can we do more of that? (21:44) That’s so valuable because they’re not gonna tell us. (21:47) Even if we ask, we’re not gonna get the unfiltered answers unless we use some kind of organizational team to do it.

Melissa

(21:56) Yeah. (21:57) No, and I think you’re right. (21:58) I think the 360, you know, understanding, we’re all just humans.

(22:03) We have strengths, we have weaknesses, but I often find if we don’t know what our weaknesses are, we can’t true up with, you know, putting somebody in place to help us with our weaknesses. (22:15) And so I love, you know, those mastermind discussions and getting people that you can bounce ideas off, or if you have, you know, things that you’re up against, not just professionally, but personally, I’ve never navigated this situation, or I have aging parents, or I have, just having another ear sometimes helps us solve our own problems. (22:35) Just being able to communicate it, then we kind of come up with, oh yeah, right, I understand this.

(22:41) So I love that. (22:41) And I absolutely agree with everything you said. (22:43) So once a firm has their future leaders organized, lined up, how does it know that it’s actually ready for this kind of growth?

(22:53) And then you mentioned bandwidth for new clients, paths for G2 and G3, and scalable technology. (23:01) Talk us a little bit through that.

Eric

(23:04) Well, in terms of G2 and G3, where we have second generation and third generation advisors, that just means that they’re the next ones up on that totem pole. (23:15) I think it’s important for people to have financial advisors who are younger than they are. (23:19) Kind of like, I think it’s important to have doctors that are younger than you are, because at the moment you need them the most, you want them to still be in practice.

(23:25) You want them to be there. (23:27) Now, you don’t necessarily want the young doc or the young financial advisor who just got licensed and is starting their first day by themselves. (23:34) You want some experience.

(23:36) So I think if we can marry someone with 30 years of experience with someone who’s got three years of immediate textbook knowledge, because let’s face it, what we learned in the textbooks in the late 90s is only so useful today. (23:49) It’s so much has changed in any industry we’re in. (23:52) So I do think making sure that we have a path for G2 and G3 to grow.

(23:57) And in our industry, our industry is broken on so many levels where most people who come into our industry are said, all right, list 100 or 200 people you know, start calling them, sell them something, and we hope you’re still here in a year. (24:09) We’ve created a different approach, more of an apprenticeship where we’re actually growing these folks. (24:14) We are not asking them to call anyone they know to sell anybody, anything ever.

(24:18) We want them to learn the business, to become great stewards, to work with existing clients. (24:23) Let the people who’ve been at this 30 years make the reign because they have the right relationships. (24:27) And let the people who are holding the buckets be the people who have the energy, the knowledge and the tenure in front of them to do it.

(24:35) You know, our clients, a lot of them want their kids to have financial plans and their kids are in their 20s or 30s or even 40s. (24:42) They want them to have financial plans. (24:43) Well, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have wanted my dad’s accountant or my dad’s financial advisor or my dad’s doctor, anybody.

(24:51) You wanna have your own relationship. (24:53) So if you can build it such that your client’s kids are working with someone with whom they can identify and build their own relationship, it’s a much healthier thing than saying, oh, here’s my dad’s guy. (25:05) I’m gonna work with him or her or whatever.

(25:07) So that’s the G2. (25:09) Technology has to be a part of any conversation for any business. (25:13) You don’t want technology to replace the human element.

(25:16) You know, just because there is a, you know, we remember when voicemail started and you were pressing one for this and two for that. (25:23) Do you yell at that prompt? (25:25) Because I do.

(25:26) And you hit zero 12 times. (25:28) Like, let me just talk to a human being. (25:29) I’m not pressing dose for aspirin.

(25:30) Oh, give me a person. (25:31) That is technology that did not improve service in any way, shape or form. (25:35) All it did was upset people.

(25:37) We need to have technology that enhances what humans can do. (25:41) Technology that helps make sure that deadlines aren’t missed, make sure that followup is handled, make sure that communication is open. (25:50) And if you can do that, and I don’t know the role that AI is going to play, but I will tell you that for a lot of firms, AI is taking the place of the note taker.

(26:00) You know, you see the AI note taker whenever you’re on Zoom. (26:03) And of course, with AI, you have to trust but verify, which means you have to read it over and edit it anyway. (26:07) I think if we use AI for note taking exclusively, we are eliminating the ability for our G2 and three advisors to learn.

(26:16) That is a training ground. (26:18) It is a perfect place for them to be in a meeting, watch the interaction, maybe participate a little bit, take the notes, do the followup and learn the process. (26:26) If we let a computer do that, we’re gonna have a whole generation of people who don’t know what they’re doing.

(26:31) So I don’t think it’s to replace humans. (26:33) I think it’s to enhance them. (26:34) And if used properly, that’s a win.

(26:37) There was another part of the question that I’ve already forgotten, but those two parts I got. (26:41) What was the first part of the question, Melissa?

Melissa

(26:43) Well, I think, you know, you answered most of it, but to your point about, I love that you mentioned that because I think, you know, in my industry in tech and cybersecurity, there’s a lot of acronyms. (26:57) And to your point, the note taker doesn’t get the acronym or, you know, hallucinates whatever we were talking about or, you know, confuses a learning management system with a lodging management system. (27:08) And so to your point, having people take notes and go research the answers themselves to understand the context and then bringing those questions forward to somebody that’s been in the trenches is really, really key.

(27:23) And I agree with you. (27:24) I think, you know, you can’t move fresh out of college to the end. (27:29) You’ve got to kind of learn some things, have some experiences, make some mistakes because that’s where we learn the best in our lives is when we make mistakes, we realize, oh, wait, I don’t want to do that again or, oh, I shouldn’t have done that.

(27:42) And we augment ourselves to kind of move into what is right and what does fit for us. (27:48) And to your point about our parents, I agree with you because if we are using our parents’ doctors and their financial advisors, you know, they might be retired. (27:57) They might not vibe with us.

(27:59) We might not see the world like they do. (28:02) And we might not want to buy, you know, the investments that they were brought up and they know the most about. (28:07) We might want to look at, you know, newer investments, newer technologies, you know, and not that I’m a proponent for anything, you know, cryptocurrency or anything, but that wasn’t around when my parents were, you know, investing their money.

(28:21) They were investing in very different than we were. (28:24) There’s very different technology investments that I invest in that they would never invest in. (28:28) And so I absolutely agree with all of that.

(28:31) And so I believe really to what you’re saying, technology absolutely is either going to help organizations realize quickly their succession readiness, or they’re going to get a lot of, you know, bad information back to the AI notes and people not reading them. (28:51) I would be curious to find, if there’s a stat about this, how many people actually reread their AI notes?

Eric

(28:58) Oh, they better.

Melissa

(28:59) Once the notes are taken.

Eric

(29:00) They better, because they’re not right. (29:03) And context is important. (29:05) You know, AI doesn’t generally, and it will, it will, but it doesn’t always take into account the way someone says something, which matters just as much as the words that were used, which you don’t pick up in a text or an email or written notes.

(29:21) You know, one of the things you asked is, is when does it, when does an organization know that they’re ready for the succession plan to start? (29:29) And the short answer is you really don’t. (29:32) You really, you really don’t.

(29:34) I needed to be ready personally for the next chapter in my adult life. (29:39) You know, I saw when I turned 50, I looked at it kind of like the 50 yard line. (29:44) I said, all right, this is the turn.

(29:45) I’m in the back nine now in any way you want to slice it, not to be morbid, but if you’re productive working years and forgive me if you’re on the periphery and you’re productive and working, but if they’re from 20 to 80, 50 is your midpoint. (30:01) If you live to be 100, 50 is your midpoint. (30:04) This is the second half.

(30:06) I want it to be at least as good, if not better than the first half. (30:09) What do I need to do personally, professionally, financially, relationally, emotionally, spiritually, whatever it is, and start to really think about taking stock in my own existence, not just my business, but in a very thoughtful way. (30:27) And what I realized was that the things that I was doing, I was doing a lot of things that I was very good at, but didn’t enjoy as much.

(30:34) The joy factor was lost. (30:36) If you do the same thing over and over and over and over again, there tends to be some malaise that can fall in, or you’re missing things because you’re rushing through it, or you’re just trying to check it off and be done with it. (30:47) I wanted to create a way to determine what I should be doing, and so I created something I’m referring to as the joy revenue blueprint.

(30:54) And really, it’s a way to identify the things that we love to do and the things we don’t, and to determine the things that make us financially or otherwise more successful and the things that don’t, and then what to do with that once we figure out what it is. (31:06) How do we spend most of our time doing the things that make us more successful and happy at the same time? (31:12) Because I’m now at a stage in my life, I’m sure you’re there too, where if it doesn’t bring me joy, if it doesn’t make me happy, if it’s not fun, I’m not doing it.

Melissa

(31:21) Amen to that. (31:22) I am so, I’ve walked away from jobs, relationships, things, lots of things, board seats, because there just was no joy. (31:32) It was every time I sat in the room, I was like, oh, do I have to be here?

(31:37) And so joy is a measure of how happy we are in our life. (31:42) If everything is a bear and we’re exhausted and burnt out and strung out, we probably don’t have enough joy in our life. (31:51) And there are gonna be stressful days.

(31:53) There are gonna be days where we’re tired, but if all of them are like that, we’re probably not aligned. (31:58) And I love what you mentioned about succession planning. (32:02) I don’t think there was any job or any role or anything I’ve ever done in my life that I was ready for.

(32:09) None of it was I ever fully ready for. (32:12) You just take the leap and you figure it out as you go. (32:16) And if that means switching fields or switching careers, maybe you have to put in 12-hour days until you learn about the space that you’re in.

(32:25) Maybe you have to do, you know, and find an apprenticeship or find a mentor or, you know, do more reps. (32:32) But I don’t think, you know, back to the kids, when I had my first child, I don’t think I was ready for it, but I figured it out.

Eric

(32:43) You’re never ready for it. (32:44) You’re never ready for it, yeah.

Melissa

(32:47) There’s no manual for all of this. (32:49) And then, you know, my kids are at a place on both ends of their ages where now they’re giving me advice about my life. (32:57) And I, kind of what you were saying at the beginning, having different ages, I get some advice from my children that were so spot on and just listening to what they were saying about, you know, my kids are about the work-life balance.

(33:16) You know, I don’t think I came up in a world where there was such thing as the work-life balance. (33:20) It was a lot of hustle. (33:22) But I do see my kids being able to call the shots when they’re too tired quickly versus how I was at their age.

(33:30) I was just, you know, full force, full octane go. (33:34) And so I think there is, to your point, there is so much we have generationally, you know, what is it? (33:42) Five generations in the workforce.

(33:44) There’s so much each generation, you know, has to teach each other. (33:49) And so for those leaders who want to start succession planning and they haven’t, they know they need to, what are the first practical steps? (34:01) And then kind of the second side of that, what is the pitfalls that get firms in trouble as well?

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Eric

(35:06) The first step like any journey is to figure out where you are. (35:10) You know, remember the big kiosk at the mall that had the sticker that said you are here and you had to figure out what floor you needed to go to and whether you were going toward Nordstrom’s or Macy’s back in the day. (35:19) It’s important to be honest with yourself and take a true appraisal of where are you and where is your team?

(35:26) Do you have potentially the right people already in your four walls, in your space, in your ecosystem? (35:33) If the answer is yes, then the first step is to begin having some really candid conversations with them, with he, she, or them, whatever it is, the number of people, and saying, is this something you would want to do if we can figure out a way to make it feasible? (35:49) That doesn’t mean you’re promising them anything and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re giving them something.

(35:53) But if you find out that they say, I don’t want anything to do with that, it’s better to know than not to know. (35:58) And sometimes you know instinctively, you know you’ve got a terrific worker bee who is not going to be the next entrepreneur there. (36:05) And that’s okay.

(36:05) And you need lots of those people. (36:07) That’s not to disparage. (36:08) It’s just to say that some people want that risk and some don’t.

(36:12) So once you’ve been honest with yourself and you have the you are here sticker, then you have to envision where you want to go. (36:18) Like any journey, I know this sounds overly simple, but let’s keep it that way. (36:22) This doesn’t have to be, this isn’t calculus.

(36:25) This is arithmetic. (36:26) This is drawing a straight line. (36:28) You’re going to start where you are in any journey, but in the succession journey, be honest with where you are.

(36:34) Do you have the right people? (36:35) Do you have the right infrastructure? (36:36) Would you buy your firm if you were looking to sell?

(36:41) And then what do you want to be when you grow up? (36:44) And I don’t mean, what do you want to do? (36:46) I mean, what do you want to be?

(36:48) Because to walk away from the leadership position in a business, particularly if you’re the founder, if you created the business, is a little like watching your kid go off to college, or at least I imagine that’s what it’s going to be like. (37:01) You’re sort of leaving that nest. (37:03) It’s the psychology of it.

(37:06) The emotional side of it is real. (37:08) And so beginning with that really matters. (37:12) Understand what is it going to feel like and what are you going to do?

(37:15) It takes two years, and this isn’t just for business owners. (37:18) It takes at least two years to plan to retire. (37:21) And I don’t mean retirement planning, like how much you’re putting in your 401k.

(37:24) I mean, figuring out what you’re going to do with a huge chunk of your life that isn’t daytime TV and shuffleboard. (37:30) It means finding value. (37:32) It means making sure your LinkedIn profile never says Eric Brotman, retired.

(37:36) Because at that point, it might as well have a date of death on it. (37:39) No one’s going to say, I got to know that guy. (37:40) He’s got something going on.

(37:42) He has nothing going on. (37:44) So once you’ve done the, you are here, and you’ve figured out sort of what you want it to look like, then you need to begin constructing that bridge, that path. (37:52) What’s internal, what’s external.

(37:54) Maybe it means hiring a consultant to walk you through some of it. (37:57) Maybe it means hiring a coach to make sure you’re ready for it. (38:00) Maybe it means that the next person you hire or isn’t necessarily somebody green, but is somebody who’s got 15 years of experience who you could see potentially taking over your organization and you start to groom that person for the next stage of his or her career, which is actually what I did.

(38:16) We actually hired somebody with incredible level experience who’s an amazing advisor. (38:21) And she was with us eight years, and now she’s our CEO. (38:24) And she’s gonna do a better job than I ever could have because what it took from a startup and bootstrapping to get to a billion dollar firm is something I was prepared for.

(38:35) Getting us from one to two or four or five is a different skillset, a different level of management, a different level of organization, a different structure. (38:44) And she’s gonna be better at it than I am. (38:46) And so identifying that person, being real honest with myself, and saying, now I get to spend time.

(38:51) I’m not retired. (38:52) I never wanna retire. (38:53) I love this, but I get to spend my time doing the things that fill my tank.

(38:57) It brings me joy. (38:59) And so it’s a process. (39:01) It should not, and it took years.

(39:04) I mean, I started selling stock in the company 16 years ago and still own a good chunk. (39:10) So it’s not even over yet. (39:11) The succession planning has happened from a management standpoint, but I haven’t fully extricated myself from the day-to-day operations or the ownership of the firm.

(39:21) You know, we did take my name off the door years ago to much fanfare, which was quite funny. (39:26) I realized it was an important step. (39:28) And I was out of town when my name came off the building, truly.

(39:31) And there were pictures that I was sent of my employees and coworkers and other owners of the firm pointing and laughing at the sign as it came down. (39:40) I was no longer on the building. (39:42) It’s true.

(39:42) And it was hilarious, and I thought it was great. (39:44) But we realized that for this to be more than me, it was no longer my practice. (39:49) It was no longer my baby, even.

(39:51) This was a shared system. (39:54) And so I had to let go of anything that was uncomfortable ego. (40:00) I had to realize I’m not the only one who can do this.

(40:02) In fact, I’m not even the best at it. (40:05) And that doesn’t mean I consider myself a failure. (40:07) It means I consider myself as someone who’s passed the torch so that the race can keep being run.

(40:13) Any relay, if you’re gonna do it yourself, it’s a solo race. (40:17) If you’re going to build something that outlasts you, it’s a relay. (40:20) So how do you hand the baton to somebody who’s gonna run faster and be healthier and younger and ready to rock in a way that you maybe aren’t at that point because you’ve already done X number of miles?

(40:31) And that’s the way I view it.

Melissa

(40:33) Yeah, I love that. (40:35) I think it’s so, there’s so much nuggets of wisdom we talked about today for our listeners. (40:42) I wanna thank you for being here to share your time and your knowledge.

(40:47) Two kind of closing questions. (40:49) Any final thoughts that you wanna leave with the listeners and then share a little bit about what is the best way to connect with you and learn more about the good work you’re doing?

Eric

(40:59) That sounds great. (41:00) Thank you. (41:01) First of all, the parting shot here is don’t wait.

(41:05) Don’t wait, start immediately. (41:08) This won’t get easier next Thursday or next May or in 2031. (41:13) It will not get easier.

(41:15) It will not get better. (41:16) It is better right now while it’s fresh, while Melissa’s words are ringing in your ears, now’s the time to sit down and start. (41:23) Don’t wait.

(41:25) In terms of how to reach me, there are two primary different ways to do that. (41:29) One is for our financial planning firm and our wealth management firm, it’s bfgfa.com. (41:35) That’s for BFG Financial Advisors.

(41:37) And my consulting practice is brotmanconsultinggroup.com. (41:40) I kept my name on that one, at least for now. (41:44) brotmanconsultinggroup.com.

(41:45) And we work primarily with financial advisors who are trying to figure out their succession plans, their executive plans, their M&A and how to monetize their life’s work. (41:54) So that’s the group that I do consulting with personally. (41:58) But in terms of the financial side, we’ve got an amazing team and would love to help as many of you as possible.

Melissa

(42:04) That’s great. (42:05) Thank you so much for being here today, Eric. (42:07) That’s the Executive Connect Podcast.