Celebrating Mr. Fezziwig

Posted on December 26, 2025 by John F. Dini

Since 2013 I’ve updated this piece about the underappreciated and forgotten boss of A Christmas Carol, Mr. Fezziwig. I hope that you enjoy it. Merry Christmas!

Last week was the 182nd anniversary of the publication of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (December 17, 1843). The immortal words of Ebenezer Scrooge are ingrained in the memory of the entire English-speaking world. I’d venture to guess that “Bah, Humbug!” can be correctly identified as to the source and speaker by over 99% of those reading this.

The novella, serialized in five parts, was not a commercial success. Unhappy with the sales of his previous novel (Martin Chuzzlewit– no wonder!), he refused his normal fee from the publisher in favor of royalties on the proceeds, which proved disappointing. Critical reception was favorable, although it didn’t catch on in America until much later. The New York Times first published a review in 1863, 20 years after its publication in England.

Like most of Dickens’ work, A Christmas Carol includes an indictment of the social inequalities of the Industrial Age; child labor, workhouses, and debtors’ prisons. It stands out, however, because of the lessons taught by its memorable ghosts, and the redemption of its main character in only 113 pages.

During the Protestant Reformation in England and Scotland, Christmas had become a period of penance and reflection. A Christmas Carol is credited by many for leading the return to a celebratory holiday, focused on appreciation and thanks for family and friends.

Modern Ebenezers

Modern filmmakers have returned to the straight-ahead plot and uplifting storyline (not to mention the recurring royalties available year after year) with a frequency that helps stamp the legend in our psyche. Movies were made in 1901, 1908, 1910 and 1913 but the first big hit was the 1938 Reginald Owen version (originally released as “Scrooge”) and the 1951 Alistair Sim classic. The character of Ebenezer has been tackled by actors ranging from George C. Scott to Michael Caine (with the Muppets). Patrick Stewart, Sterling Hayden, Kelsey Grammar, and Rich Little (in various celebrity impersonations) have all taken a shot, as have Mickey Mouse, Mr. Magoo, the Smurfs, Barbie, Dora the Explorer, and the Flintstones.

Let’s not forget the variants; Bill Murray in “Scrooged”, or Boris Karloff and Jim Carrey in their versions of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” In all, IMDB lists almost 200 filmed variants of the story.

Unfortunately, the characterization of Scrooge has become ingrained in the minds of many as a stereotype of all bosses who dare to focus on margins and profit. How many employees identify their bosses with Fezziwig (Scrooge’s former employer,) who took pride in making his employees a happy group, even though Scrooge dismissed It as “only a little thing?”

The Success of Mr. Fezziwig

FezziwigInstead of focusing on the things that allowed Fezziwig to spend lavishly on his employees (a motivated workforce, honesty, doing what’s right, profitability), we prefer to fantasize about a boss who expresses his sudden enlightenment by unexpectedly bestowing a dinner and an extra day off. Fezziwig is relegated to an afterthought, an overweight doting uncle with no visible reason for his success.

Most of us are far more Fezziwigs than Scrooges. Oddly, if we celebrated the season of giving by presenting our employees with a list of all the “little things” we’ve done for them during the year, we’d be considered self-serving, and more akin to Ebenezer. We bow to the popular myth, give even more at the holidays, and hope it has some carryover of appreciation into the New Year.

Just remind your employees when you are being Mr. Fezziwig for the rest of the year. A Christmas turkey for Tiny Tim isn’t as important as being a good boss on the other 364 days.

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Business Ownership Isn’t What It Used to Be

Posted on December 1, 2025 by John F. Dini

If you’ve been a business owner for a long time, you’ve lived this shift firsthand.

Many Baby Boomer owners started out alone—just an idea, a customer, and a willingness to take a risk. Hiring that first employee was a milestone. Now, years later, some of those same businesses employ dozens or even hundreds of people.

And every one of those people comes with rights, protections, and obligations that ultimately land on you.

As a business grows, so does the owner’s exposure—to legal risk, regulatory risk, financial risk, and reputational risk. Ownership doesn’t just mean opportunity anymore; it means responsibility layered on responsibility.

Why Fewer People Choose Ownership Today

For someone starting a business now, the barriers look very different than they did 30 or 40 years ago.

Outside of purely digital or internet-based ventures, most new businesses face compliance rules, licensing hurdles, and capital requirements that simply didn’t exist when many established owners got their start. It’s no surprise that many capable people look at those risks and conclude that employment feels like the safer choice—for themselves and for their families.

Licensing alone tells the story. Today, well over a thousand professions require state-level licenses. Nearly one in three workers needs government permission or oversight to do their job—and when they don’t comply, the liability often falls on the business owner.

This includes professions ranging from doctors, lawyers, and engineers to barbers, cosmetologists, designers, trainers, and technicians. In 1950, only a small fraction of U.S. jobs required a license. Today, it’s approaching a third of the workforce.

For owners, that means more rules, more monitoring, and more risk—even when you’re doing everything right.

The Freedom Paradox

Here’s the paradox: America is still one of the best places in the world to own a business.

We score highly on things that matter—strong rule of law, access to credit, contract enforcement, and systems that allow businesses to fail, restructure, and start again. Those freedoms are real and valuable.

At the same time, many of the day-to-day realities of ownership are getting harder.

Taxes are complex. Exporting is cumbersome. Registering property, starting a business, connecting utilities, and dealing with regulated systems can feel slow, opaque, and frustrating. Not coincidentally, these are the areas most tightly controlled by government processes.

So while the system protects enterprise in theory, the practical burden of ownership keeps rising.

How Ownership Is Quietly Changing

One of the biggest shifts isn’t regulatory—it’s structural.

Private equity and institutional capital have stepped in to assume many of the risks of ownership. In doing so, they’ve converted large numbers of would-be entrepreneurs into highly compensated employees.

The leader of a private equity–owned company may have authority, incentives, and status—but they are still an employee, while the real risk is borne elsewhere.

This is a fundamental change in how entrepreneurship works in America, and many long-time owners don’t fully appreciate how different the landscape has become.

What This Means for You

If you’re a business owner—especially one thinking about the future—this context matters.

Ownership today carries more risk, more complexity, and more tradeoffs than it did when many businesses were built. That makes thoughtful planning more important, not less.

Understanding how the rules have changed, how capital has shifted, and how control is being redefined can help you make better decisions about growth, succession, and exit—on your terms.

The goal isn’t to romanticize the past or fear the future. It’s to recognize that ownership has evolved—and that navigating it well now requires clarity, education, and intentional choices.

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Quality of Earnings and Technology Costs

Posted on November 10, 2025 by John F. Dini

When a Quality of Earnings audit identifies deferred technology, the price can be magnified many times.  Are you deferring technology costs?

A few months ago, a subscriber to our planning tools called with a tech support question. “Your software doesn’t work,” he said. After some investigation, we identified the problem. He was using a version of the underlying engine, (a part of Microsoft Office) that was four or five generations past end-of-life. When asked about his willingness to upgrade he said, “I don’t want to be forced into getting a subscription.”

(As a side note, no software developers try to develop for compatibility with end-of-life products.)

I understand completely. When Microsoft introduced Office 365 in 2011, I was as irritated as most folks were. We maintained generally up-to-date software but usually skipped a release or two. Upgrading applications happened when we began buying the next round of PCs with newer Windows operating systems. I protested the need to pay for software every year.

Clearly, we lost that battle a long time ago. Nonetheless, I can understand our client’s issue. He runs a solo practice, and his software works just fine for his relatively limited needs.

What are “True” Technology Costs?

I don’t think the same argument is typical in larger businesses, although I still hear it regularly. True hardware and software costs should be measured by employee productivity.

Begin with hardware. Keeping an old computer alive isn’t efficient. (And this is from someone who drives a 17-year-old car!) Here’s how a managed services client of mine described what’s commonly known as the “break/fix” portion of his business for a customer who didn’t want to “subscribe” to managed IT services.

“We get a call that the printer isn’t working and dispatch a technician. We haven’t looked at that particular PC in eighteen months. Employees have loaded new programs. They’ve done some, but not all of the required updates. The technician performs the updates, reinstalls the printer drivers, and gets it working after about 2 hours.”

“When we invoice the tech’s time, the customer has a fit. ‘I could have bought a whole new computer for that much!’ he says.”

No fooling. That’s why break/fix has become pretty much the domain of a walk-in trade for storefront technicians. Most IT companies can’t afford to do it anymore.

Indirect Technology Expense

Quality of Earnings

More importantly, what did the malfunction create in indirect costs to the company? What’s the cost of the employee who was idle, the job that wasn’t printed, and the boss’s time to fight over the invoice?

Let’s say for a simple illustration that an office employee’s fully loaded cost is $52,000 a year, or $1,000 a week. Buying a new PC every three years is about $500. How much time does the employee have to save to pay for the newer computer?

The answer is a bit less than 7 hours… a year. That’s 2 minutes a day. So, the real question becomes “Will a newer computer save this employee 2 minutes a day?” It may not be immediately obvious, but if the tech support company is charging five times the employee’s salary ($150 an hour,) saving even one incident over the next three years more than covers it.

Technology Costs in Quality of Earnings Audits

Technology costs have become an integral expense item for almost every business. That hasn’t escaped the notice of buyers, especially professional buyers.

You can expect a Quality of Earnings (QoE) audit to encompass software licensing and subscriptions, hardware and equipment, IT support and maintenance, cloud storage, telecommunications (bandwidth and redundancy,) cybersecurity, and data protection insurance.

If a company is still working with the old “If it fails, then we’ll replace it,” you can expect a substantial downgrade of its EBITDA. A dozen new PCs, a server, new software licenses, cloud storage, annual costs for a bigger Internet pipe, and a second broadband carrier could easily cost $100,000.

Depending on the multiple being paid, each $100,000 deducted from the EBITDA means 3, 4 or 5 times that amount deducted from the price. That will get the seller’s attention, but by then it will be too late.

Technology costs for current (not cutting-edge) equipment and software are money well spent both now and at the time of a sale. Expect and budget them on a regular cycle. Deferring the expense might just be the definition of “Penny wise and pound foolish.”

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The Inexperienced Advisor – An Exit Planning Horror Story for Business Owners

Posted on October 14, 2025 by John F. Dini

This is a cautionary tale for business owners—one that’s “based on a true story.” The facts are real, although the exact sequence of events might raise questions if the IRS were to take a closer look.

A small business owner received a $1,000,000 offer to sell his company. He had already been thinking about retirement, and the chance to cash out felt like a perfect opportunity. His original plan had been to sell the business to a long-time employee through a promissory note, but that changed when the cash offer came along.

The business’s profits had always been modest, and the employee couldn’t match the offer. But the owner felt deep appreciation for the employee’s loyalty and past contributions. The employee already owned 10% of the stock, and the owner decided to reward him further by gifting an additional 10% just before the sale.

When the deal closed a few weeks later, they divided the proceeds: the owner received $800,000, and the employee got $200,000.

Here’s where things began to unravel.

The company’s tax preparer was a long-time friend of the owner—also his bookkeeper—who had served him faithfully for over 30 years. Their arrangement worked well for general business needs, and the owner saved money on fees. But the employee used a different advisor. And when tax season rolled around, that advisor raised some critical issues.

Let’s break it down.

The Letter of Intent was signed in January. The additional 10% stock was granted in February. The transaction closed in March. The valuation had been set by the sale offer, but little formal documentation existed for the transfer. The employee’s advisor flagged that the gifted stock constituted a $100,000 bonus—meaning it was taxed as ordinary income. At a 25% tax bracket, that single item triggered a $25,000 IRS bill.

Next came the issue of the company’s structure-

For years, the tax preparer had advised switching to an S Corporation, but the owner never followed through—it seemed like too much hassle. So the company remained a C Corporation and was subject to 21% corporate tax before distributions.

That meant the employee’s $200,000 had to be recalculated. His share was now about $158,000 after corporate taxes.

Of that amount, the original 10% was eligible for long-term capital gains treatment (20% rate), but the recently gifted 10% was double taxed: as short-term capital gain (at his 25% rate) and hit with a 20% parachute payment excise tax because of its proximity to the sale.

He paid nearly $55,000 in taxes just on that second 10%. And the hits kept coming.

With total compensation now over $200,000, the employee’s payout was subject to the 3.8% Net Investment Income tax (the “Obamacare” surcharge). And he still owed that initial $25,000 from the stock bonus.

When all the math was finished, his $200,000 “windfall” ended up being worth only $70,746.

That’s an effective tax rate of nearly 65%.

And the owner? He was double taxed, too. His “cut-rate” accounting services and the decision to avoid S Corporation status ended up costing far more than they saved.

Could it have gone differently? Absolutely.

For a relatively small investment in expert guidance, they might have restructured the transaction. For instance, compensating the employee with a cash bonus instead of stock would have made the payment deductible to the company, taxed only once as ordinary income to the employee.

But none of that was considered—because there was no experienced advisor at the table.

If you’re considering selling your business, don’t go it alone.

Exit planning isn’t just about getting a good offer—it’s about protecting your value and avoiding costly mistakes. Engage with a seasoned advisor who understands the tax, legal, and strategic layers of a business transition.

The cost of advice is small compared to what it could save you.

Special thanks to Steven A. Bankler, CPA, for his help with this article.

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What Business Owners Should Know from the 5th Annual Exit Planners Survey

Posted on September 29, 2025 by John F. Dini

What Business Onwers Should Know About the 5th Annual Exit Planners Survey Book CoverBetween February 1 and March 2, 2025, ExitMap conducted its 5th annual survey of professionals who help business owners plan successful exits. This is the only survey that gathers insight across multiple advisory specialties—offering a wide-angle view of the professionals supporting entrepreneurs like you during one of the most critical transitions of your life.

The survey included 30 questions and was distributed to over 7,000 experienced advisors worldwide. These are professionals with recognized credentials in exit planning, active roles in professional organizations, or who publicly position themselves as specialists in business transition. We received 434 responses from advisors in eight disciplines, representing six countries and 47 U.S. states, resulting in a 99% confidence level and a margin of error of 3.6%. Statistically, the results offer a strong picture of the current state of the exit planning landscape.

What Does This Mean for You as a Business Owner?

Exit planning is no longer something only for ageing Baby Boomers. It has evolved into a strategic planning tool for many owners in Generation X and even younger. Whether you’re planning to exit soon or simply want to be ready for future opportunities, exit planning helps maximize business value and align your business with personal and financial goals.

Since the pandemic, the number of advisors in this field has grown by 70%, with a 23% increase just last year. That expansion reflects increasing demand—but surprisingly, most advisors say they’re busier than ever. In 2024, 88% reported as many or more planning engagements compared to the previous year.

What Are Exit Planning Advisors Saying?

    •70% charge separate fees for exit planning services—this work is specialized and structured.

    •96% say exit planning leads to additional support for their clients—like tax strategy, estate planning, and business improvement.

    •57% expect to earn over $50,000 this year from exit-related work.

    •69% focus on companies valued under $3 million, making their services accessible to smaller businesses.

    •80% work with clients remotely, so location isn’t a barrier.

    •Over half are 55+ years old, indicating deep professional experience.

Why an Advisor is Essential in Your Exit Strategy

If you’re like most owners, your business is your largest and least liquid asset. The emotional and financial stakes are high when you’re preparing to exit. The growing network of experienced advisors is ready to guide you through this complex process—helping you make informed decisions, increase business value, and ensure that your exit supports your long-term personal and financial goals.

Planning early gives you more strategic options. Unfortunately, many owners delay until a transition is urgent, reducing flexibility and potential outcomes. Advisors also report challenges in coordinating across specialties and maintaining long-term planning engagement, reinforcing how valuable a committed, collaborative advisor can be throughout the journey.

Bottom Line

The transition of Baby Boomer-owned businesses—estimated at $10 to $17 trillion in assets—is driving rapid growth in exit planning. Many of these are family-run or bootstrapped businesses that have grown into significant mid-market companies. Exiting these businesses often requires a team: financial planners, CPAs, attorneys, brokers, bankers, and more.

As the field grows, so does the availability of structured planning tools like those from ExitMap, which advisors use to help owners like you take the first step. If a future transition is anywhere on your horizon, the time to start planning is now—and the first move is finding an experienced advisor to help you do it right.

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