What is NEXTPHASE?
Our NEXTPHASE program follows a proven step-by-step process to design and implement exit strategies that seek to maximize the value of your business while minimizing risk. We coordinate with a team of trusted advisors and create a personal exit strategy based on your timetable. No matter what stage your business is in, we will prepare you for the NEXTPHASE.
Our Story
When Jesse Colgan began his career in the wealth management industry, he discovered a fundamental flaw: the field's narrow focus on asset management meant advisors naturally gravitated toward clients with large investment portfolios. This left many successful business owners – whose wealth was tied up in their companies rather than traditional investment accounts – underserved and overlooked. He also realized that owners who are already working with a financial professional tend to receive generic advice that lacks coordination with their other professional advisors (CPA, attorney, investment banker, etc.)
Coming from a small family business background, Jesse intimately understood these challenges. This personal connection drove him to become one of the youngest in North American to obtain the Certified Exit Planner™ designation, ensuring he could provide the specialized guidance business owners truly need. For entrepreneurs, their company is often their most valuable asset, but it's also the most illiquid and challenging to leverage. While owners excel at building thriving businesses, converting that success into personal financial security requires a different set of skills and strategies. Jesse specializes in helping business owners unlock their company's full potential and secure their financial future. By combining proven methodologies with access to an elite network of advisors, he ensures both the continued success of your business and your personal financial freedom – creating a true win-win transition strategy.
Succession Planning vs. Exit Planning
Many people believe that Succession Planning and Exit Planning are one in the same, but they are not.
Succession Planning is the process of identifying successors within a business and providing them with an opportunity to develop their skills and experience in order to replace the existing leaders of the business at a future date. Succession planning primarily focuses on the transfer of leadership and/or management from one generation to the next within the business. Succession planning is essentially a business continuity approach, which is one of the critical Components of Exit Planning.
Exit Planning is the comprehensive analysis of all of the factors that impact a business owner. Exit Planning addresses a wide variety of issues that are important to business owners, including their current and future planning with respect to their business (its value, its employees, its position in the market), their family and their community. Exit Planning starts from the perspective of the business owner's goals and objectives in each of these critical areas, along with his or her current and projected resources (business value, personal and business financial resources), to identify the specific strategies and steps that are most likely to allow the business owner to reach his or her goals.