Seller transition plans — engineering post-close continuity.

What transfers in an acquisition isn't the policies — it's the trust behind them, and trust doesn't transfer by wire. Books skew toward personal loyalty, especially on the commercial side and especially in the top 20 clients, where the relationship is to a specific person's judgment rather than to the agency's name. A transition plan is how you move that loyalty deliberately instead of hoping it survives the owner's exit.

§ 01 · The anatomyFive components.

A plan worth the name has five parts. A duration and intensity curve that declines from full-time to "on call" by month 9–12. A client-introduction protocol — a warm co-signed letter plus in-person or phone introductions for the top 20 in the first 60–90 days. Renewal co-piloting, with the seller actively involved in top-client renewals through the first full cycle. Knowledge transfer on the quirks and history of the top 50 accounts, documented or walked through in a structured sit-down. And an explicit claims-and-service handoff, so in-flight and new claims have a named owner. Vague language is where these die: "up to 20 hours per week as needed" means the seller decides what's needed.

§ 02 · DurationMatch the runway to the book.

§ 03 · Giving it teethFour mechanisms.

A transition obligation without enforcement is a hope. Four mechanisms make it real: consulting fees tied to deliverables rather than a flat monthly retainer; an earn-out conditioned on material performance of the transition obligations (a stick to use carefully, with a clear "material breach" definition); holdback releases tied to transition milestones — say, 90% of top-20 introductions completed by month four; and non-compete and non-solicit covenants that survive the transition, typically running 3–5 years from closing rather than from the end of the consulting period. The covenants matter precisely because the transition is the window in which the seller could otherwise reintroduce themselves to the clients they're handing over.

§ 04 · The failure modesAnd the seller's pre-listing window.

Five failures recur. The seller fades in month two (the "as needed" trap). The buyer never shows up — doesn't shadow, doesn't attend introductions, doesn't co-pilot renewals. The plan is generic, not client-specific, defaulting to alphabetical so the top 20 get introduced in month nine. The plan ignores the producer layer — no comp restructuring or retention agreements for the non-seller producers. And it leaves out the service team, the CSRs and account managers who are the day-to-day relationship for smaller accounts. Each is avoidable with specificity. For a seller, the highest-value pre-listing move is distributing relationships internally over a 12–24 month window — getting other producers and CSRs into the top accounts so institutional loyalty exists before the transfer — because a buyer pays measurably more, in both multiple and accepted earn-out structure, for loyalty that's already institutional rather than personal.

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