May, 2000

Wheel of Fortune

The Family Fortune Wheel is a groovy little tool that banks can us to help their client with family businesses to prepare for the passing of the torch. Here's how it works: Let's say a CEO looking to pass the family business to a younger family member wants to know how things stand - beyond earnings figures. He has family members fill out a questionnaire, handily designed by the Family Fortune Wheel's creators, the California Family Business Institute LLC.

The questionnaire was designed to measure risk factors in several key areas:

CEO/founder succession readiness; family relations; ownership structures; and management structures. Responses are sent back to the institute which compiles the results and compares them to an "average" company profile. It then lists the results on a color wheel in 12 categories and scores the results to show where the CEO needs to improve for a successful changeover.

The estate planning tool is a marketing vehicle that can differentiate your bank from the one down the street, says Stephen Woodwork, owner of Channel Islands Equities, a private investment banking firm and a principal of California Family Business Institute LLC. You can offer this as a give-away product or as an introduction product to your family business clients.

"It's a diagnostic tool that allows both the service provider- in this case a bank-and the family business to better understand a company's strengths and weaknesses, " says Woodworth. Banks equipped with such information are in a great position to offer their family business customers the appropriate services and products that will help their businesses grow financially, he continues. Plus, armed with the tool, the bank will be looked to as the favored service provider, he says.