Successful Exit Strategies | About Us | NAVIX Consultants

We believe that closely held business owners make the world a freer place by creating jobs, serving customers, innovating markets, paying taxes, and expanding the economy.

We witness that the owner’s very success traps them in their businesses; they are unable to reach personal financial freedom or create a sustainable business legacy without achieving a successful exit. However, the standard experience for owners is personal stress, excessive taxes and costs, concern for key employees and customers, and fear they will be unable to exit on their own terms. Poor exit preparation or execution puts all that the owner has achieved at risk.

We strive to break the status quo, helping owners achieve financial freedom, create a sustained business legacy, and exit on their own terms.

In 1991, I graduated from college and immediately joined my father’s financial services firm in New York City. I found myself a junior associate to Peter Collins, who ran the firm’s investment banking department. My arrival doubled the team size—previously the investment banking department had consisted of Peter, his computer, and a laser printer (in 1991!). I spent five years working under Peter, helping him to help business owners sell their businesses. During those years, I watched again and again owners experience deep stress, high costs, while struggling to maintain control over their desired outcomes. During those years, a thought began to grow inside me—if achieving a happy exit is so difficult for nearly every owner, there must be something wrong with the conventional methods. Frustrated for all of these business owners, I thought there must be a better way…

It was for that reason that I became a business owner myself, and ultimately created NAVIX. At NAVIX, we intend to change the world for business owners. After watching countless owners struggle to achieve successful exits, we have developed that better way. Using our proprietary process, we strive to create a world where owners achieve financial freedom, create a sustained business legacy, and exit at a time and manner of their choosing.

Patrick Ungashick is the CEO 0f NAVIX, which helps business owners plan for and achieve happy exits. The NAVIX system was designed out of experience seeing most business owners struggle to exit on their own terms, achieve financial freedom, and create a sustainable business legacy.

In the field of exit planning, for more than twenty-five years Patrick has provided exit advice and solutions to business owners in a wide variety of industries, from as small as several million in revenues to more than half a billion. Patrick is the author of two books helping business owners prepare for exit: Dance in the End Zone: The Business Owner’s Exit Planning Playbook, and A Tale of Two Owners: Achieving Exit Success Between Business Co-Owners. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Week and other print and radio media. He speaks to several dozen business groups per year on how to achieve successful exits.

Outside of work, even though he cannot juggle nor play a musical instrument, Patrick serves as the Head Clown for the Atlanta Distinguished Clown Corps, a group that since inception has raised more than $1 million for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the U.S. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the C5 Youth Foundation of Atlanta, a five-year leadership and college-readiness program for high-potential teens from challenging situations.

Patrick graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is a fan of St. Louis Cardinals baseball and the University of Georgia football teams. Patrick has three boys, and lives with his wife Maggie in the Atlanta area.

Dance in the End Zone: The Business Owner’s Exit Planning Playbook

On November 18, 1973, wide receiver Elmo Wright scored a touchdown and became the first professional football player to dance in the end zone. You don’t have to be a sports fan to feel the emotions and celebration of a really good end zone dance. Interviewed more than thirty years later, Elmo Wright said, “I’ve accomplished a lot in my life, but what happened in the end zone is what defines my career.”

If you own a business, you have something in common with Elmo. Business success already may have brought personal satisfaction and financial rewards. But what happens at your inevitable exit–in your end zone–likely defines your career too. An exit that falls short can cause financial disappointment, family strife or lost self-esteem. Success at exit is the crowning achievement of a career, fulfillment of financial and family dreams or the start of your business legacy.

If you own a business, this book will change your perceptions, and give you insights on why much of the conventional wisdom regarding how to plan for exit is wrong. Exit planning is not about some distant transaction but rather it’s making decisions today that build a better business and position you for success. Dance in the End Zone incorporates the author’s more than twenty years exit planning experience. It reveals the Seven Essential End Zone Questions, provides more than fifty wisdom-based tools and tactics—the plays for your playbook—and shares the real world stories of dozens of business owners like you. Whether your ideal exit is soon or many years from now, this book is a must read so you too can one day dance in the end zone.

A Tale of Two Owners: Achieving Exit Success Between Business Co-Owners

A Tale of Two Owners is the fable of Al Beaman and Robert Gilmore, co-owners of a highly successful IT services company. As is the case with so many business co-owners, they eventually realize their exit goals are incompatible. Al reaches a point where he wishes to sell the company for top dollar, while Robert not only does not want to sell, but desires to pass his ownership to his daughter, Jessica. For the first time in their 17-year partnership, Al and Robert find themselves butting heads on the direction of their business.

It’s a fable that deals with a critical issue—how can one owner happily exit, when achieving his goals means denying a successful exit to the other? In the second part of this book, Al and Robert are provided with “The Guide to Creating Co-Owner Exit Alignment,” which will ultimately lead both the business co-owners and readers to enlightened insights into the ways to plan for and achieve successful exits.