"CHANGING PLACES" ON THE RADIO!

PART 1 – Tuesday, October 23rd, Dave Franzetta, co-author of Changing Places, talked with radio host, Stu Taylor, on Money Maters Radio, broadcast out of WBNW in Boston. This is Part 1 of a 4-Part edited version of the radio interview.
STU: I want to open up with a guest. In a sense this is about what to do with a business. You build it up and then you think, where does it go from here? I have seen a lot of circumstances turn out to be very unproductive. What do you, what does the company do? Here to talk about it is distinguished author, David Franzetta, with his new book, Changing Places: Making a Success of Succession Planning for Entrepreneurs and Family Business Owners. Welcome to the show, David.
DAVE: Good morning, Stu.
STU: It is an amazingly important subject. I want to give the book a plug. It’s in paperback. You can get it by going to Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, or AuthorHouse.com, or go to DesignedOutcomes.com, the author’s website.  It is nice to have you with us.
DAVE: Thanks for having me.
STU: I’ve been in business for several decades and have seen transfer of ownership and future plans completely derailed. You can get out of a business but you can get out the wrong way. What to do when you move on? Is this book a rarity? I haven’t seen anything like it.
DAVE: Well it really is a rarity in a sense. So little has been written on the subject, especially for entrepreneurs and family business owners. Dr. Jackson and I working in our consulting practice found that many of my clients were thinking about exiting the business but had no specific plans for making a successful transition from being that person who runs the business to being the retired former owner. And we prepared guides that we used when working with clients. But we discovered there was very little published material to help owners of small businesses work out a plan for both leadership continuity for the company and personal transition for themselves. So we wrote the book Changing Places to fill that gap.
STU: I just want to talk about my own experience having seen people who said boy things are great, I sold my business, and then later on they ended up taking that back because they structure the deal properly. This can turn out to be a catastrophe of monumental proportions, can’t it? If you don’t really figure out how to do it. Do you want to divorce yourself from it or stay on?
DAVE: Absolutely. What we find in all of our work is that so often the leader of the business, be it the founder or the second generation owner, whoever it is, is so personally identified with the business, so much of their psyche is tied up in being “The Man” or “The Woman,” The Head of the business, and it’s hard for them, sometimes extraordinarily difficult to for them to consider what their life might be in any role that’s different from that. So it’s extremely difficult for them not just to step down to some kind of a lesser role but to even consider handing off part of their ownership and leadership responsibilities to anyone else, even if it’s a first born son or daughter.
STU: Stay tuned. More about “Changing Places” after this break…
To be continued…stay tuned for the next blog! 
Check it out: “Changing Places: Making a Success of Succession Planning for Entrepreneurs and Family Business Owners”(published by AuthorHouse). Feedback please: dfranzetta@gmail.com
LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA – (DAVE FRANZETTA >  4pm PDT, 112212)