In our personal lives, it is relatively easy to define the gaps between what we have and what we want. Let’s take a simple example. You want to take your family of four to Disneyland for summer vacation. With hotel, airfare, park admission, food & entertainment, you’ll need about $3,000 – $4,000. You’ve already set aside $2,500 for vacation. You’ll need to save an additional $500 – $1,500. That’s your GAP.
In our professional lives, identifying gaps is not quite as easy. Why? Because goals can be more difficult to define and complex to achieve. For example, let’s say you are 45 years old and own a small firm with annual revenue of $1,000,000. You want retire by age 60 and sell your business, so that you can live a comfortable lifestyle on the proceeds. So how much money will you need? How long will it take to make that much? Is it even possible?
That’s essentially what a GAP analysis does for a business. A GAP analysis identifies what you have and what you want, so you can quantify how great the gap is. The next step, of course, is figuring out how to close the gap. That can be done any number of ways including decreasing your risk, increasing cash flow, extending your ideal retirement date and reducing your retirement spending.
To determine how great your firm’s gap is and identify ways to close it, contact us today. We can take this complex process and break it down into realistic, manageable steps that will ensure you reach your goals on time and on target!
To your wealth,
Joe Maas, CFA, AVA, CFP®, ChFC, CLU®, MSFS, CCIM
President of Synergetic Finance
