Key Employee Incentive & Retention Plans
Attracting, Motivating and Retaining Key Talent – The Ultimate Value Driver
Your key employees are not just an operational asset — they are a value driver. A business that can run without the owner, led by a loyal, motivated team, commands a premium and transitions successfully.
Our Process
Custom Plan Design — From Formula to Implementation
No two businesses are alike, and no two KEIP plans should be either. We work with you to design a formula that reflects your business model, your financial goals, and the specific roles you are looking to reward and retain.
01
Discovery & Design
We begin by understanding your business model, your key participants, and your objectives — then work through multiple plan designs, modeling the financial outcomes of each so you can make an informed choice.
02
Formula Development & Projections
We build a customized profit-sharing or incentive formula with clear, understandable mechanics — and produce multi-year projections so you can see exactly what participants will earn under a range of performance scenarios.
03
Participant Communication
We develop a customized description for each participant — explaining the plan’s purpose, mechanics, and their individual potential benefit in plain, motivating language. Participant understanding and enthusiasm are essential to plan success.
04
Legal Documentation & Implementation
We coordinate with your legal advisors to ensure the plan is properly documented, and we stay engaged through the full implementation process — answering questions, facilitating conversations, and ensuring a smooth rollout.
05
Ongoing Support & Annual Reporting
We will work with your internal or external tax professionals to understand annual reporting requirements. Or recommend a third-party administrator to handle annual reporting, compliance, and online benefit summaries, as interested.
"Dyanne’s professionalism, expertise, responsiveness, and commitment to customizing our unique incentive/retention plan were essential to getting this program up and running."
— President, Mechanical Contracting Company
The Challenge Every Owner Faces
How Do You Keep Your Best People — Without Giving Away the Company?
Owners recognize the importance of shifting operational responsibility away from themselves to increase enterprise value — and thereby increase the likelihood of a successful ownership transition. With the marketplace at a pinnacle for attracting, motivating, and retaining top talent, designing the 'right' compensation package requires innovative, proven, long-term elements. When properly designed, key talent shares in value creation, is motivated toward a unified financial vision, and becomes a 'growth partner' alongside owners — a mindset shift that negates the familiar entitlement mentality that often accompanies poorly designed incentive plans.
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Traditional approaches — raises, bonuses, equity — each come with significant drawbacks. Exit Planning Strategies designs custom incentive and retention plans meant to elicit an owner mentality to achieve desired financial results. Without giving up equity in the company. And typically funded exclusively with increased profitability.
"Once key performers understand how value creation is defined for the business and what their role is in creating and sustaining it, they understand how reward is earned. And the more they help create, the more they share in what they produce."
— The EPS Framework for Key Employee Compensation Plans
What a KEIP Accomplishes
Aligns Interests
Key employees are financially rewarded when the company performs well — creating genuine buy-in and shared ownership of results.
Enhances Business Value
A stable, motivated management team makes your business more attractive to buyers, successors, and lenders.
Retains Top Talent
A well-designed plan gives your best people a compelling financial reason to stay through the transition period and beyond.
No Equity Required
Plans are designed to provide meaningful upside to participants without diluting ownership or complicating your exit.
Management Buy-Out Funding:
Where an owner is interested in an internal transition, incentive-based plans can offer a mechanism for pre-funding a stock purchase.