Peter Merrick

“Experience and excellence are not expensive – they’re priceless!” – Peter J. Merrick

Peter J. Merrick is a sought-after speaker, consultant and author on business succession and business brokering, estate planning, and income and capital enhancement solutions. He brings pioneering insights and work experience in the areas of mentorship, financial succession and philanthropic planning. His public speaking appearances, consulting services and seminars are fully customized, and his unique research process is rich in practical content that can be put into practice immediately.

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, intergenerational wealth transfer, risk management, estate and trusts, philanthropy and demographic aging, 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 LexisNexis 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, philanthropy 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 business advisory and financial service industries for more than a quarter of a century, Peter wrote his fourth book, this was his first business novel, The King of Main Street: business – mentorship – 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. Currently Peter is busy writing his fifth book, it will be released in 2020.

• Succession Planning
• Philanthropy
• Financial Services
• Business
• Financial & Tax Planning
• Mentoring

• “Experience and excellence are not expensive – they’re priceless!”– Peter J. Merrick
• Peter J. Merrick is a sought-after speaker, consultant and author on business succession and business brokering, estate planning, and income and capital enhancement solutions. He brings pioneering insights and work experience in the areas of mentorship, financial succession and philanthropic planning. His public speaking appearances, consulting services and seminars are fully customized, and his unique research process is rich in practical content that can be put into practice immediately.
• 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, intergenerational wealth transfer, risk management, estate and trusts, philanthropy and demographic aging, 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 LexisNexis 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, philanthropy 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 business advisory and financial service industries for more than a quarter of a century, Peter wrote his fourth book, this was his first business novel, The King of Main Street: business – mentorship – 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. Currently Peter is busy writing his fifth book, it will be released in 2020.

PROGRAM INFORMATION

HOW-TO AVOID BECOMING ANOTHER FAMILY BUSINESS HORROR STORY

• In the coming decade tens of trillions of dollars of American privately-owned businesses will transition both their ownership and management control. Are they prepared? This talk takes you on a scary rollercoaster ride behind the scenes of the biggest family-run corporations, showing how family in-fighting brought about their nightmarish untimely ends. Step into the world of a leading expert in business succession and exit planning. It’s a world very few witness firsthand. In this action-packed and illuminating presentation Peter Merrick will entertain you with countless stories that will shock you, touch your heart, and even make you laugh. These business stories and insights have been gained from a career in the trenches working with private businesses for almost three decades. You will leave the presentation with powerful tools on how to avoid, contain, and resolve the dreaded FAMILY WAR that can erupt when a business is ill prepared for succession, killed by lack of vision and skill, sibling rivalries and petty jealousies.
  (Suitable for business owners and/or for their trusted advisors)

THE $50 TRILLION OPPORTUNITY – FROM YOUR BUSINESS LIFE TO THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

• In the coming decade over $50 trillion of 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-characterised 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.
  (Suitable for business owners and/or for their trusted advisors)

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 intergenerational 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, reputable and advisory practice for themselves.
  (Suitable for the Trusted Advisor and their firms/companies)

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.
  (Suitable for the Trusted Advisor and their firms/companies)

GO DEEPER FOR MORE HIGHLY SATISFIED CLIENTS – BUILDING AN ENDURING PROFITABLE ADVISORY PRACTICE

• 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.
  (Suitable for the Trusted Advisor and their firms/companies)

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.
  (Suitable for business owners and/or for their trusted advisors)

HUMANITY’S HOPE: REVIVING THE FORGOTTEN TRADITION OF INITIATION AND MENTORING

Not far in humanity’s past, mentorship relationships were an essential part of every ancient culture. Considering the relative difficulty of our ancestors’ daily struggle for existence, it would have been illogical that they would have supported initiation and mentorship for young people — if there had been no significant return on investment for their societies. A mentorship relationship is one of the most complex, developmentally important, and life-enhancing events that in a person’s life. Unfortunately, the tradition of mentoring relationships and harnessing its benefits are missing in our modern world today. We are no longer taught to value our responsibilities and obligations to others in our societies — or ourselves. This is much more than an ordinary talk. It is about reconstituting an essential part of the human spirit — to teach, to learn and to help our communities, societies, and humanity grow by tapping into the youth and vitality that is all around us. Come join Peter as he takes this complex topic of Initiation and mentoring and makes it tangible, something you can hold, share, and have with you for the rest of your life.