Certified Business Exit Consultant® (CBEC®) Credentialing Program
Co-Sponsored by The International Exit Planning Association (IEPA)
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Program Description |
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What You Will Cover | ||
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How You Will Benefit |
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Who Should Attend | ||
The CBEC training is designed to both educate and put advisors in the business of exit planning for privately held business owners. This program utilizes a proprietary, six-step exit planning process that is applicable to any financial analysts advising business owners. This six-step process has stood the test of time, resulting in simplifying a complex process to help advisors more consistently and more effectively communicate with owners on this critical topic of discussion and formal engagement.
Exit planning is a simple concept: it is the idea that a business owner, a few years before they want to sell or transfer their business to someone else, will do some planning around this critically important event. Owners should know and make plans around issues such as:
- The value of their business
- Getting the conversation started and measuring the owner’s readiness for an exit
- Who would likely want to own their business
- When they might expect to get paid for the business and whether that is enough money
- Critical issues and strategies to achieve a successful exit
Many of these owners are your existing and valuable customers who are looking to you, as their primary advisor, to assist them with this important need.
As a professional advisor, you are perfectly positioned to deliver these planning-based solutions into your existing and prospective business owner relationships, yielding you a profitable and enjoyable stream of income for your own business or practice.
Adding exit planning to your practice also gives you greater visibility, access to, and standing with a growing network of other professional advisors who are active in the business owner exit planning space. Many of these advisors have owner relationships and want to partner with you to help service the owner’s comprehensive needs in the exit planning process.
The CBEC Difference
Advisors choose to achieve the CBEC designation when they are ready to go beyond education. Due to the experience requirements to hold this standard, those who earn CBEC get to sit at a table among their exit planning practitioner peers (with deep experience, active projects, and growth mindset) and collaborate with like-minded people who are passionate about solving owner problems as they approach a business exit that creates and monetizes their illiquid business wealth.
It takes more than knowledge to earn the Certified Business Exit Consultant (CBEC) designation. It is reserved for (and exclusively offered to) those who do exit planning work for business owners versus those who only seek to understand exit planning conceptually. Every CBEC has 10+ years of proven experience helping business owners, passed the proctored exam, and submitted a written exit plan within one year of completing the coursework, and was peer reviewed by the IEPA Leadership Council (a formal group of industry leaders, experienced exit planners, and exited business owners).
How to Achieve CBEC
The CBEC proctored exam is offered four times a year during the two-day CBEC Executive Bootcamp: day one is the final CBEC review session and practical approach workshop; day two is the CBEC proctored exam administration.
Once the exam requirement is met, the final step to achieving the CBEC designation is submitting a written exit plan that meets the standard of quality expected from all designee holders. To support candidates who are writing an exit plan for the first time (or those who are interested in how others are doing it), you can access the online course, “How to Write an Effective Exit Plan,” and use the plan creation tools included in your IEPA licensed membership.
The Virtual CBEC Executive Study Group For Candidates
To support CBEC candidates in earning the designation (and integrating what they have learned into their practice with confidence), IEPA hosts six CBEC Executive Study Group sessions (90 minutes each Wednesday for six weeks via Zoom).
These game changing sessions are led by John Leonetti, CEO of IEPA, head faculty at IEPA, author of Exiting Your Business, Protecting Your Wealth, and creator of the Six-Step Exit Planning Process; along with many other active exit planners and industry leaders who will review the coursework, run drills on sample test questions, give guidance on completing the written exit plan, plus offer “how to” perspective on how to integrate (and commercialize) your exit planning expertise.
How You Will Benefit
After completing this course, attendees will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the “middle marketplace” of business owners at a higher level than 99% of other advisors and consultants
- Describe their value proposition to an owner to assist with their exit planning, as well as position themselves for the execution of that planning
- Integrate and advance the “core” training as they learn the key components of exit planning at a deeper level
- Apply the materials to help assure their success after the course
- Illustrate to business owners exit planning and execution work
Six-Week CBEC Study Group Agenda:
- Week 1: “Developing a Capital Markets Perspective”—How to understand and communicate current private capital market conditions
- Week 2: “Develop an Exit Planning Perspective when Engaging a Business Owner”—Assessing owner needs and goals, measuring readiness, and identifying any value gap
- Week 3: “Develop a Perspective on Valuation and Value Growth”—Understanding and applying valuation concepts including concepts around a business owner increasing the transferable value of the company
- Week 4: “Develop a Perspective on External Transfers”—Gaining a comfort level with the business sale process. Applying the external exit option strategies that align with owner goals.
- Week 5: “Develop a Perspective on Internal Transfers”—Understanding how and where internal transfers are the optimal exit option. How to apply internal exit option strategies that align with owner goals.
- Week 6: “Going to Market, Building Your Advisory Practice”—Exit plan delivery and execution. Pro tips and best practices, including a practitioner panel discussion and question and answer session.
The Twelve Domains of the CBEC Course
- Domain #1: Exit Planning Marketplace, Owner Needs, Advisor Goals, and Resources
- Domain #2: The Lower Middle Market/Private Capital Markets
- Domain #3: Understanding, Assessing, and Engaging the Owner
- Domain #4: Readiness of the Owner, Company and Market—Value Gaps
- Domain #5: Understanding the Corporate Entity
- Domain #6: Valuation and the Range of Values
- Domain #7: Business Value Growth Planning and Execution
- Domain #8: Exit Options—External Transfers
- Domain #9: Exit Options—Internal Transfers
- Domain #10: Deal Structuring, Taxes, Legal Agreements, Estate Planning
- Domain #11: The Advisory Team, Finding Exit Collaboration Partners
- Domain #12: Writing and Delivering the Exit Plan
Below is the checklist of requirements to hold the Certified Business Exit Consultant (CBEC) designation:
- Complete the CBEC Candidate registration form and pay the registration fee
- Gain understanding of the core body of knowledge for exit planning and the Six-Step Exit Planning Process
- Pass the CBEC Proctored Exam
- Produce and submit a written exit plan that achieves the CBEC standard of quality
- Maintain membership in good standing and abide by ethical standards of conduct
- Attend and attest to a minimum of 10 hours of continuing education every year
- Maintain an IEPA membership or pay a designation renewal fee of $395 annually
About the Company:
The International Exit Planning Association (IEPA) is a practitioner development organization that offers proven resources, topical education, and peer mentorship to exit planning practitioners all over the world. Our founder, John Leonetti, CBEC, CEO of IEPA, exit planner at Beacon Hill Equity Solutions, head faculty at IEPA, author of Exiting Your Business, Protecting Your Wealth, and creator of the Six-Step Exit Planning Process, has one major mission: help business owners solve problems.
Our programs and services are uniquely positioned to share best practices from active exit planning firms and practitioners from across the industry while focusing on helping advisors who want to go beyond education and implement exit planning into their firms in a way that will transform their business owner clients’ lives.
Learning for the sake of learning is good; however, if you are interested in integrating what you have learned to reach new heights as a professional, you have found the right community. We share what we know in abundance (and with the science of how humans learn top of mind) while supporting you in implementation through study groups, mentorship, and ongoing cohort peer groups who are winning exit planning engagements and driving best practices industrywide.
This program is offered to professionals who help business owners solve problems: CPA, CVA, CExP, CEPA, CM&AA, CFO, attorney, valuation analyst, exit planner, financial planner.
