Running a business adds a layer standard retirement planning doesn't cover.
We work with business owners who have $500,000 or more in investable assets, including many who are planning an eventual sale or transition.
The complexities of wealth management for business owners take an entire team, coordinating everything from day-to-day tax and investment decisions to planning your eventual transition, not managing each piece separately.
Your business and your personal finances aren't two separate conversations.
Two conversations that usually happen separately, growing your personal wealth and running your business, are one conversation for a business owner. What you decide about the business shapes your personal plan, and what you need personally shapes decisions about the business.
Does your tax strategy account for the business, not just your personal return?
Business ownership brings its own tax questions, separate from personal planning. We offer solutions built around your goals as an owner.
What happens to the business when you're ready to step back?
Two of the areas we work on with business owners are transferring your business to the next generation and maximizing its value ahead of a future sale.
A transition doesn't happen in one meeting. It happens in phases.
Selling or handing off a business is one of the biggest financial events in your life, and rushing it costs value. We work through it with you in stages, starting years before the transition itself whenever we can.
1
Define your goals and timeline
We start by understanding what you want: a full exit, a gradual step-back, or handing the business to family or key employees, and when.
2
Get a professional valuation
We help you understand what the business is worth today, and what could increase that value before you transition.
3
Build the right team
Your wealth advisor, CPA, and attorney need to work together, since buy-sell agreements, tax structuring, and your personal plan all have to move in sync.
4
Choose your path
Family succession, an internal sale to key employees, or an external sale each take different preparation. We help you think through which one fits.
5
Transition and integrate the proceeds
Once it happens, we fold what the business was worth into your broader retirement and estate plan.
Eight areas, one coordinated plan.
Tax Minimization Strategies
Investment Management
Retirement Planning
Estate Planning
Strategic Financial Planning
Transferring Your Business to the Next Generation
Maximizing the Value of Your Business for a Future Sale
Cash Management Maximization
$1 million or more? You get a dedicated team.
A coordinated plan across investing, retirement, tax, and estate planning, backed by a dedicated team of advisors, paraplanners, and specialists.
Hear from people who've been through the process.
The Google reviews above may be from current or former clients, or individuals who are not clients of Bernicke Wealth Management (“BWM”). Reviewers have not been compensated or received any material incentives for providing a review. No material conflicts of interest have been identified within these reviews. BWM’s Eau Claire office has maintained an “Excellent” 5-star rating on Google since October 16, 2021.
Reviews Disclosure
Questions people ask before their first call.
We work with them, as long as they're open to coordinating with us. Your CPA and attorney bring expertise we don't duplicate, tax filing and legal drafting. What we add is coordination, making sure your investment strategy, tax planning, and legal documents are all pointing the same direction instead of operating independently.
Yes. Two of the areas we work on with business owners are transferring your business to the next generation and maximizing its value ahead of a future sale.
Ideally three to five years before a potential transaction, sale, or transition. That gives enough time to improve the value of the business, understand the tax impact, and build your personal plan around different scenarios rather than reacting to whichever one happens first.
That's fine, as long as you're already a client or expect to meet our investment minimum in the near future. Most of what we do, tax minimization, investment management, cash management, isn't dependent on an exit timeline. Planning for a future transition is one part of the relationship, not a requirement to start one.
That's one of the biggest differences between planning for a business owner and planning for someone with a diversified portfolio. We build the rest of your plan around how much of your net worth the business represents, instead of treating it like a normal, liquid asset.
That depends on what you want. For existing clients, some business owners bring us in individually, others bring their partners into the same conversation, especially when it comes to succession planning or a future sale that affects everyone's ownership stake.
Ty Bernicke, CFP®, named a 2026 Forbes Best-In-State Wealth Advisor (awarded April 7, 2026; data as of June 30, 2025). BWM did not pay for this award but paid a fee to license the logo. Award Disclosure
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