Fifty years after The Beatles first sang, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” baby boomers are asking the same question of the businesses they own.

Pre-recession business owners busied themselves growing their companies, often assuming their values would increase with a go-go economy and that they eventually could cash out with ample sums to live in comfortable retirements.

Unfortunately, those assumptions did not always hold true. Boomer business owners must now decide whether to sell their companies for less than they had once hoped or to work longer than they had planned.

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a Federal tax credit available to employers who hire individuals from eligible target groups  with significant barriers to employment. Each year, employers claim over $1 billion in tax credits under the WOTC program. The success and growth of this income tax credit for business is beneficial for all who participate, while increasing America’s economic growth and productivity.

Planning your exit from your business can feel at times like planning your will. Why do it today when you can do it tomorrow? After all, you are not planning on leaving this earth today, right?

Your exit from your company, however, is assured. Whether you leave it feet first or walk through the door, you will leave your company someday. Why not do it on your terms?

Owners depend on their businesses to support them today, and more importantly, they depend on them to support their families, their retirement, and their way of life in the future. What assurances do you have that things will go as planned? Reports have shown that 8 out of 10 business owners do not know what they need to do today to have a successful business transition in the future.

“Now what?”

It’s a simple question but it is not always easy for an entrepreneur to answer when selling their business.

You invest so much of yourself into your business that it can be hard to distinguish where “work” ends and “life” begins. But selling your company may require you to cleave one from the other. Will you survive when you do?

As a business owner, you are accustomed to, and perhaps even thrive upon, solving today’s pressing problems and pushing on to tomorrow. But have you looked beyond this week, this month, or even this year?

The average owner spends 80,000 hours building their company but only six hours planning its transfer. As a result, 80 percent of business owners fail to get top dollar when they sell.

Just as winning the lottery is not a vible strategy for achieving your dreams, nor is hoping to sell your business for enough money to support your future lifestyle. That is like winning a free lottery ticket on a drawing for a $1 million jackpot. They won, but they missed a much larger prize.