Business owners are used to making decisions and moving quickly.

The months leading up to a sale can be particularly intense, with advisers, negotiations, due diligence and the day-to-day demands of continuing to run the company. It can be difficult to suddenly stop once the deal completes.

“Patience is definitely one of the best financial decisions in this case,” Amanda says.

That might mean holding off on a major investment, a large gift to family or putting money into another business until there’s been time to take stock.

A sale can also attract attention. If the transaction becomes public knowledge, an owner may suddenly start hearing about investment opportunities or businesses looking for backing.

That doesn’t mean those opportunities are necessarily wrong. But Amanda believes they’re easier to judge once the business owner knows what they need to keep for themselves and their family.

“Create space for the emotions to settle,” she says. “There’s definitely a case for doing little at first and planning well.”

And there’s no need to have the whole sum invested immediately. Sale proceeds can be held while the longer-term planning takes shape.

Before a sale, a business owner’s wealth is often concentrated in one place: the business.

For years, the focus may have been on growing it, making it profitable and eventually turning it into something somebody else wants to buy. After the sale, the conversation is very different.

“The objective shifts from creating the wealth through their business,” Amanda explains. “Now the questions are about income, security and choice.”

How much do you want to draw each year? How much should stay readily available? Do you want to start another business? Help your children? Travel more? Retire? Give some of the money away?

Amanda prefers to start there rather than immediately working through investments and tax allowances.

“You start with what’s really important to them,” she says. “Can they achieve financial independence? What does financial security look like to them? Do they want a future venture? How much liquidity do they need?”

Once those priorities are clear, cashflow modelling can help show what’s realistic.

Sometimes people discover they need to rein things in a little. Sometimes, Amanda says, the opposite happens and they realise they can afford to do more than they thought.

There’s also the personal side of selling. For many entrepreneurs, the business has given them far more than an income. It has provided a routine, a purpose, a network of people and often a large part of their identity.

“Once the sale is complete, some people feel liberated,” she says. “But others can feel a sense of uncertainty or a loss of direction.”

When little thought has gone into what happens afterwards, she says people can sometimes feel as though they’re “free falling”.

That’s one reason she cautions against making any big financial decisions in the first flush of a sale. The transaction itself may be over very quickly. Adjusting to life without the business can take much longer.

Sometimes the next chapter is obvious. They’ve got another project in mind, want to travel or are looking forward to spending more time with family. Others need longer to work out what they want their days to look like when the business is no longer filling them.

“The financial transaction happens in a day, but that personal transition can take a really long period of time,” Amanda says.

For business owners who sell for a significant amount, helping children or other family members may be high on the list. But their own financial security comes first.

“We would do all of this after we’ve established clearly what the client needs for their own lifetime,” Amanda says.

That means understanding what they need for income, future spending, security and any other plans they want the money to support. Only then does the conversation move on to what can comfortably be passed on.

At that point, the needs of the people receiving the money matter too. A child in their 40s with an established career, home and family may be in a very different position from a teenager or young adult who is still finding their feet.

For some families, that means bringing children into financial conversations earlier and helping them become more comfortable with managing money.

“Our aim is to support succession with education,” Amanda says. “Where it’s appropriate, we encourage families to involve their children in financial discussions and help them understand the value and responsibility that comes with wealth.”

Amanda describes it as passing on wealth “with a plan”. “Sometimes that will mean giving money directly. Sometimes it may need more structure around it. And sometimes the best decision may be to wait,” she says.

The right answer will depend on the individual, and it won’t necessarily be the same for every child.

Amanda recalls working with a couple who had sold a holiday business and found themselves with considerable personal wealth.

“They had three grown-up children and four grandchildren,” she says. “What we needed to understand was what they wanted for those children and grandchildren as well. It wasn’t just about them.”

The parents wanted to help all three children, but their circumstances couldn’t have been more different.

Their eldest son already had a successful business of his own. He was financially experienced and knew what he wanted to do next, so his parents were comfortable passing wealth to him directly. It gave him the chance to take his own business to another level.

Their second child was a doctor with children, and a home with only a small mortgage. Here, the parents wanted to help create longer-term security.

Amanda and her team created a financial plan around the money so it could support both the child and their family over time.

Their youngest child hadn’t yet settled on a clear direction. His parents were worried about what suddenly receiving millions could mean for him.

What they did know was that he loved cooking and baking, enjoyed music and wanted to work with children. So rather than simply handing over the money, they helped him turn some of those interests into something purposeful.

They created a charitable foundation to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds learn basic cooking skills. Part of his inheritance was also held back, giving him time to become more established before taking responsibility for the rest.

Amanda loved working with the family because there wasn’t a single template applied to all three children. “It was fantastic working with them because it was so layered,” she says. “Three wonderful children, but three very different individuals.”

The parents wanted to help each of them, but they also wanted to do it in a way that didn’t create new problems.

Interestingly, the couple themselves didn’t want very much. They already had the home and lifestyle they were happy with.

“They wanted to make sure they left legacies to people who had touched their lives, and they wanted to make an impact on their local environment,” Amanda says.

That included helping with repairs to their local church and supporting a children’s football team.

Amanda says conversations about philanthropy don’t always begin with somebody saying they want to give a large sum to charity. Often, it’s much more personal.

Another client she worked with was passionate about the environment. He wasn’t particularly interested in conventional charitable giving, but he did want some of his wealth to support renewable energy research and science.

“It’s not the tax leading the objective,” Amanda says. “It’s understanding the passion, the goal, the aspirations, and then helping partner them with the right expertise to make it as efficient as possible.”

One of the strangest parts of selling a business can be seeing a very large amount of money suddenly available as cash. After years of that wealth being tied up in the company, it can feel surprisingly unsettling and create a strong urge to do something with it straight away.

There are ways to hold sale proceeds while a longer-term plan is being developed, so an owner doesn’t have to make permanent decisions in the first few weeks after completing the deal.

Amanda believes that taking that time is part of the planning process. “It might take three or six months,” she says. “You need time to get your head clear, let the emotions settle and get some clarity on what’s important.”

That gives the owner time to work out what they need personally, what they want to do for their family, whether they want to keep money available for another venture and how much they’re comfortable setting aside for longer-term investment.

In What business owners need to know before selling their company, Amanda explains why it helps to know your number before the deal. In other words, what the sale needs to achieve for you personally.

Once the sale is complete, the focus moves to what do you want the money to make possible.

That may be financial security and replacing the income they once took from the business. For others, family, another venture, philanthropy or simply having more freedom may matter just as much.

Amanda says: “A successful exit isn’t defined only by the price achieved. It’s about whether the wealth supports the life, family and future you want to build.”