Biography
Peter J. Merrick is an income and capital enhancement consultant, speaker and author. Since the early 1990s, Peter’s career in business succession consulting and post-secondary financial education has been unparalleled in terms of depth and experience. He is considered one of the leading experts in business succession planning, inter-generational wealth transfer, risk management, estate and trusts, cross-border financial planning, and executive benefits and pensions. Peter is a sought after keynote speaker with expertise in project management for business succession. He is also one of the foremost experts in business succession planning solutions for some of the largest public and privately held businesses, property owners, financial institutions, accounting and legal firms and professional and trade associations.
Peter is the author of three successful textbooks: ASK: Advisors Seeking Knowledge – A Comprehensive Guide to Succession and Estate Planning – The TASK: The Trusted Advisor’s Survival Kit – and The Essential Individual Pension Plan Handbook. All are considered seminal resources on tax minimization, business succession, estate planning and executive benefits. They have been referred to as “The Dr. Spock” references for succession planning experts, lawyers, accountants and wealth and risk management communities. Peter is also a professional financial writer, with over eight hundred published articles.
After being in the financial service industry for more than a quarter of a century, Peter has now written his first business novel, The King of Main Street: business – mentor-ship – succession – legacy. His hope is that it will help the business minded reader understand the financial solutions and core values currently known primarily by experts. He wishes to pass on new and innovative ideas, along with successful strategies, to the seasoned business leader and aspiring entrepreneur alike. He believes the best business succession planning is done through the mentoring of our next generation of societal leaders.
Speech Topics
These first two presentations are for both the business owner and/or for their trusted advisers.
Keynote 1: The Kings of Main Street – The Way of the Mentor
In this talk, you’ll hear about transitional and succession planning in a different and meaningful way – the way of the Mentor. It’s succession planning with heart, compassion and wisdom, taking into account how hard it is to not only let go, but what to leave behind. You’ll hear how to mentor those who will succeed you, how to help them become excellent leaders, while stewarding your legacy into the future. For anyone who owns a business, or has ever owned one, or will be taking one over – this talk is an absolute must hear.
Keynote 2: The $50 Trillion Opportunity – From Your Business Life to The Rest of Your Life
In the coming decade over $50 trillion of North American, British, European and privately held businesses around the world will undergo a change with serious implications for their owners and society in general. Whether these businesses are sold, liquidated, wind up, passed on to heirs, or re-characterized in some way, there must be a proper exit plan put in place to insure financial growth, security and business continuance. Owners of these companies and their trusted advisors will require leadership in taking these illiquid business assets and transforming them into secure liquid assets. The mandate of this presentation is to provide pertinent and relevant information to assist business owners and their trusted professional advisors during this turbulent transitional period.
These 3 presentations/keynotes below are directed towards the Trusted Advisor and their firms/companies (the Trusted Advisor definition includes bankers, financial advisors, accountants, lawyers and/or all other consulting professionals that advise a business and/or the business owner) to start the conversation with clients on succession planning and/or manage the succession transitional process.
Keynote 3: The Trusted Advisor: How to Build and Succeed at the Business of Succession Planning
During the coming decade, both developed and emerging economies will experience the transition of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in human history through the exchange of ownership of tens of trillions of dollars worth of businesses around the world from our ageing entrepreneur population. This presentation outlines the basic issues related to succession planning for a business and gives an overview of the key strategies that will result in the trusted advisor assisting entrepreneurs to exit their businesses on their own terms, achieving their wealth preservation and wealth distribution goals, while in the process the trusted advisor builds a very successful, reputatiable and advisory practice for themselves.
Keynote 4: The How-to Assemble the Right Business Succession and Execution Team
The principal theme of this session is that developing a successful business exit and estate plan is like assembling a complicated puzzle. Each part must fit with the others in order for the final image to take shape. Given the detailed knowledge of estate planning, business law, mergers and acquisitions, tax law, insurance products, financial planning, and wealth management required during the exit planning process. The objective of this session is to learn what components are needed to develop and manage a multidisciplinary team to adequately represent the client’s total interests during the process of exiting a successful business.
Keynote 5: Go Deeper for More Highly Satisfied Clients – Building an Enduring Profitable Advisory Practice for the 21st Century
This presentation offers an overview of the tremendous value to both the trusted advisor and the client during the financial discovery process that is holistic rather than limited to the traditional financial, business succession or estate data questionnaires. By the end of this presentation, you will understand the value of “values” questions and relationship building with clients. You will learn how to differentiate your advisory practice from being an ordinary salesperson to that of being a valued consultative advisor — the new paradigm of advice vs. sales. The aim of this keynote is to assist the trusted advisor to understand how-to create “highly satisfied” client relationships, resulting in helping the advisor grow their business, while eliminating merely “satisfied” and “relatively satisfied” clients that may actually be costing you money and future business.
