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Business, by its very nature has many ups and downs, and these are natural occurrences that any owner will expect and account for. The one crucial time you need things to be on the up however, is during the period of time in the run-up to your retirement. As you start to run out of time to take your business to the next level, you should start thinking about how you’re going to prepare it and yourself for your later years. Some of the latest advice suggests that this should be a full ten years before you actually retire as everyone wants to go out on a high.
Time is on Your Side
The first point to think about is that is ten years enough time to get you to where you need to be. There’s no need to panic at this stage, but you don’t want to leave things too late. It’s a good time to start increasing your savings – take a look at what you’re putting away right now, and then try to ramp that up a little.
Streamline Your Investments
Next thing to look at is your current portfolio. Your needs in retirement and your ability to withstand risk are likely to be quite different to what they are now, so you need to start thinking about shifting your investments into areas that you’re confident fit those needs. Nobody wants to be worrying about what their investments are doing while they’re enjoying their well-deserved retirement.
Gather Your Information
This leads us nicely onto the third point, which is to get some advice. As good an investor as you might be, there’s always room for some more knowledge, and it doesn’t hurt to seek additional financial advice as you enter this late stage in your career. You can use pension companies such as James Hay for one side of things, and then business advisers to work out what you should be doing with your company when you leave it.
Keep At It
Finally, the point nobody wants to hear is that you might need to put in that extra shift. You might have your eye on a particular year for retirement, but it may make so much more financial sense to put things off a year or two later. If you’re an entrepreneur however, this may well just be in your nature.