If you want to ensure a smooth handover for clients and employees, you’ll need to create a transition plan. This gives the new owner a better understanding of your agency and can help maintain consistency. But where do you begin?
While all businesses vary, there are some elements that should always be included in a post-sale document. Typically, you’ll share details about client accounts and employee responsibilities. But you might also note outstanding projects, build resource lists, and implement support structures.
In this post, we’ll discuss the importance of post-sale transition planning. Then, we’ll share the main elements to address in the transition plan for your WordPress agency. Let’s get started!
The importance of post-sale transition planning
A transition plan functions like a roadmap that outlines employee duties and account details to help maintain continuous operations. By making this information readily available to the new owner, you can ensure a smooth handover.
Transition planning is useful in a variety of circumstances. People create them when relocating a business, switching platforms, and promoting key individuals. However, one of the most common use cases is when you plan to depart your company.
A post-sale transition plan typically blocks out the exact steps and timeline for transferring ownership and control to the new agency owner. Laying out these milestones can help manage expectations and keep everyone on the same page.
Additionally, it’s a great reference tool for the buyer. For example, they can use it to monitor progress and deal with any issues that arise. Plus, it makes them aware of valuable employee expertise.
Post-sale planning is also vital for ensuring continuity. This can help the new owner understand where to reassign tasks and train other employees to prevent delays and disruption to projects.
This enables the business to maintain productivity levels. But the clarity and consistency gained from the plan can also keep employees and clients satisfied during a relatively unstable period.
Seven elements to address in the post-sale transition plan
Now that you know why it’s important to create a post-sale transition plan for clients and employees, let’s take a look at the key elements to address within it.
1. Employee responsibilities
The first step of your post-sale plan is to outline the main duties and responsibilities of staff members.
You can think about this like putting together a job description. If you were looking to replace a manager or a WordPress developer, what would a candidate need to know about the position?
It’s important to cover large parts of the job as well as smaller routine tasks that can easily be overlooked. It can even be a good idea to ask employees to go about their usual day-to-day procedures and note down every task they accomplish.
Along with the duties, you can also add estimated timeframes for how long each process should take to complete. Plus, you might provide information about how often these tasks need to be performed, and any other relevant details that might be useful.
On top of this, you might like to keep a record of how work is divided among members of each department. Let’s say you gain a new client who requires web design services. If you have five WordPress designers in your team, how do you decide who the project (or parts of the project) gets assigned to?
2. Outstanding projects
One of the most important elements to include in your post-sale transition plan is a list of outstanding projects.
Naturally, these projects won’t be finished until your agency is in the hands of the new owner, so they need all the details to see it through to completion. Typically, you’ll provide a summary of the work to be carried out.
However, you could also expand on this and pinpoint the exact services, procedures, or team members that will be involved in the project. Plus, you can add details about the proposed delivery timeline.
It’s also a good idea to include extra details about the client (e.g. any notes you have from previous meetings, the specific goals they’d like to address). You could even highlight the next steps you would take if you were continuing to oversee the project.
3. Upcoming deadlines
While the new owner needs to know about outstanding projects, you’ll also want to address all upcoming deadlines within your WordPress agency.
This includes specific project due dates. But you should also include any internal deadlines that you have. Perhaps you need to respond to an important employee email or follow up with a potential client.
Alternatively, it might be time to negotiate contracts that are up for renewal, or you might need to finalize licensing agreements. Try to make a list of these duties and note their urgency, so that the new owner knows what to prioritize.
4. Key contacts
You should never expose employee or client details until you know that the buyer is serious. We also recommend drawing up confidentiality agreements to protect sensitive information.
Eventually, you will need to provide the new owner with the names and contact details of your employees and clients. As a general rule of thumb, you should request explicit permission from clients and employees to share their personal information.
Once that’s sorted, you’ll need to build a list of relevant contacts that the new owner needs. It can also be helpful to include a short note that details each member’s expertise and experience. This way, your buyer knows exactly who to reach out to with questions.
5. Resource lists
The next element to include in your post-sale transition plan is a comprehensive list of all platforms, software, and documents that the owner needs to access.
Most WordPress agencies rely on a variety of platforms such as:
- Project management programs
- Email accounts
- Email marketing services
- Social media accounts
- Video chat software
- Content management systems (CMS)
Naturally, you’ll need to provide the login details for each of these programs, but it’s best to encourage the new owner to change them after the sale.
You might also have Google Doc files, spreadsheets, or technical manuals that you’ll need to share with the buyer. Plus, you can cover any resources that your employees might need including new computers. This way, the owner knows exactly what to prepare before stepping into the role of agency owner.
6. Client account details
We’ve already discussed the relevant employee details you should share with the new owner, but you’ll also need to present your client accounts.
Of course, the information you’ll provide may differ on a case-by-case basis, but there are some key elements that you’ll want to include in the post-sale transition plan. For starters, you might share deliverables that can be used to inform future strategies such as:
- Brand guidelines
- Audience personas
- Competitive analysis
- Content inventory
- Business reviews
- Performance projections
On top of this, you might outline paid media campaign details including account name(s), budgeting documents, keyword builds, and past campaigns. Or, it might be useful to divulge historical data such as analytics.
If you use any client-owned properties, discuss with your client who will share account access. This might refer to web analytics platforms, CMS platforms, premium plugins/themes, or Google Search Console.
You also want to ensure that the new owner has a strong understanding of the client’s value and relationship with your agency. Therefore, you could answer the following questions:
- How long have you worked with the client?
- Who is typically responsible for the client account?
- What projects have you previously completed for the client?
- When is the contract due to expire/renew?
- How often do you usually touch base with the client?
Note that if ongoing work is in the pipeline, you’ll also need to share details about payment terms and methods. But these details should be available in the client’s contract.
7. Support structures
To develop a smooth transition, you’ll need to implement the right support structures.
If you have ample time to prepare for the sale of your WordPress agency, it makes sense to establish a second-in-command. Or, you could train up an interim management team (if you don’t have one already).
If you do have a management team, ensure that they’re confident in overseeing the day-to-day operations. Alternatively, you could offer support to make sure they’re capable of making big decisions in the short term.
When it’s time for the new owner to take control, there are other ways to ensure the ongoing success of the business. You could provide training and mentoring sessions if the buyer is new to the market.
You might also offer shadowing opportunities if you’re dealing with a first-time business owner. Or, if you don’t have that much availability, you could simply set goals and milestones to determine regular check-ins.
How to ensure a smooth transition for your WordPress agency
A post-sale transition plan is a great way to maintain consistency and keep clients and employees happy. This contributes to the smooth handover of your agency.
However, you can get this right from the very start by choosing a qualified buyer. If buyers lack business experience, or they’re unfamiliar with the market, there’s no way to guarantee ongoing success for your company.
That’s why the best solution can be selling your WordPress agency to an experienced buyer like Freshy:
With over 15 years of WordPress experience, the Freshy team has the skills and expertise to fulfill a broad range of client needs. For example, we have professionals who excel in ecommerce development, Divi design, WordPress security, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.
Freshy is no stranger to mergers and acquisitions, so it has all the necessary procedures in place. With a dedicated in-house team, all clients get onboarded efficiently, and they’ll receive tailored care and support throughout the entire process.
If that sounds good, all you need to do is complete this simple inquiry form. A member of the leadership team will then get in touch with you to begin discussions.
Conclusion
Post-sale transition planning ensures that the new agency owner has all the details they need concerning client accounts and employees. The main benefit is that it ensures continuity. But it’s also important for keeping employees and clients satisfied during a period of great change.
To recap, here are seven elements to include in your post-sale transition plan:
- Employee responsibilities
- Outstanding projects
- Upcoming deadlines
- Key contacts
- Resource lists
- Client account details
- Support structures
At Freshy, we have a strong track record of mergers and acquisitions, which makes us highly qualified to take over your WordPress agency. If you’re interested, simply fill out this short inquiry form and a member of the team will get back to you.
Featured image credit: Pexels.
