Estate Planning at its highest level

I came across an article, one that I find almost unbelievable, in a furniture magazine! The content is not at all unbelievable; that a business owner  (not even close to a financial services professional)  would have the insight to talk about business and estate planning on this level is surprising.  A non lawyer stressing the need to plan business transition in the family and to do early-on estate planning. This is absolutely making my day!  

The article is in Furniture World and can be found here: http://www.furninfo.com/absolutenm/templates/NewsFeed.asp?articleid=12525.

It’s written by David Lively. According to the short bio in the magazine, he is, in part:

David Lively, partner at The Lively Merchant, has over 20 years hands-on experience in the home furnishings industry, from the warehouse to the sales floor to the boardroom. He has walked the walk and talked the talk from the family-owned, single-site store to the multi-state, multi-million dollar operation; from sales training to computer programming; from warehouse construction and operations to financial management; from new store construction to complete renovation. Twice named to the "Beyond the Top 100" list of independent retailers and 1997 "Ohio Retailer of the Year."

So you ask, “what’s so surprising?” Here is a man with a lifetime’s experience in the home furnishings business writing about business exit planning and estate planning with knowledge and insight that puts most planning attorneys to shame. Literally!


He talks about this kind of planning from a visionary’s perspective, from a relationship point of view. He talks about the need to learn and know your children, heirs, employees well-- long before you include them in a “will.” Plan carefully and way ahead of time, he urges.


I’ve soapboxed for a long time that most people come to us planning specialists having done almost none of this kind of thinking—they often don’t even know they ought to. Mr. Lively points out,

Your will allocates assets, not responsibilities. You must also plan to transition daily responsibilities to your heirs and employees….Experience has shown us time and time again that people do not (all) have the same skills to manage wealth, let alone the ability or desire to run the family business. Transitioning responsibilities is harder than dividing dollars and cents or distributing stocks and bonds….Do your heirs want to run the family business? Even if they possess the skills, do they have the desire? Will this be a satisfying, fulfilling career for each heir?

The article is a bit long, but if you are at all interested in effective and meaningful business and estate planning, well worth the read. It gives serious credibility to what some of us attorneys have been preaching. Mr. Lively talks about wealth reception planning without ever calling it that; he talks about learning who your heirs really are and what their dreams may be. I use stories to do that, but he and I are spot on the same page.

“One of your (kids) may have been dreaming of running the show ever since he played ‘furniture store’ as a child, while another wants to be a dentist or join the circus.”

What happens to these dreams when your will divides the estate equally between your three children, and just to sweeten things, there was no succession plan whatsoever?