As we enter the first quarter of 2025, institutional markets are facing an evolving landscape shaped by economic shifts and interest rate uncertainties with significant impact on business dynamics that require close attention. To best manage, businesses will need to focus on strategic solutions, quality assets, and strong partners to navigate these changes effectively.

For many entrepreneurs, their business provides a means of employment and income as well as an outlet of their passion and desire for an independent lifestyle. However, many business owners don’t realize that their business is, in actuality, an asset that should one day be monetized for their financial benefit and that of their family.

Because business owners don’t often think of their business as an asset, they don’t manage it as an asset. While they may focus on running the business successfully, they don’t focus on growing its value. Instead, they treat the business like a job, and as long as it’s generating sufficient income to support their lifestyle, then it’s considered a success.

By not treating your business like an asset, you could be missing out on growth opportunities today and the potential for a more financially flexible life tomorrow.

How do you know if you treat your business like a job?

If you are a business owner looking to retire, you may face some challenges.

Instead of selling or transferring the enterprise, you may be forced to liquidate your business. Indeed, only 25 percent of new businesses make it to 15 years or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And liquidation can often mean getting less than 100 percent of a business’s value. And, since many business owners have a substantial amount of their net worth intertwined with their business, that can have negative implications for their retirement.

Right now, if your estate is worth less than roughly $13 million (about $26 million for a married couple), you don’t have to worry about your heirs paying a federal estate tax. But that’s likely to change. The sunset of the current estate and income tax regime is far from certain. Still, given the breadth of the potential changes, it may make sense to plan for the possibilities.

As a business owner — whether a 100 percent owner or part owner — it’s important to recognize that your business needs to be accounted for as part of a good estate plan.

Of course, everyone should have an estate plan in place to cover the distribution of assets and take care of family or loved ones. But, for a business owner, additional thought needs to be given to the operation and future success of the enterprise.

Here are four areas in which a business owner’s planning is unique:

If you’re a business owner and you are thinking about retirement, then you need to start thinking about succession planning. It’s critical to the best interests of your family and your finances. It’s also critical to the success of your successor.

A 2022 MassMutual study indicates that only 8 percent of business owners have a completed the process of developing written succession plan. Equally troubling is the fact that about one in four successors, those that the owner has targeted to take over his or her company, do not know that they are in the succession plan.

Think about where you sit on your company’s organizational chart.

• Are you at the top and all your key managers and employees cascade like a waterfall underneath?

• Or are you stuck in the middle and everyone and everything simply orbits around you?

If the answer is the latter, then you most likely have an owner-dependent business.

Owner dependency is one of the bigger risks that exist in small businesses today. And most likely the reason you won’t receive full value for your business when the time comes to sell, assuming you can even sell it at all.

Retirement savings plans consistently rank among the top employee benefits, but despite their popularity with workers, they have gained a reputation among employers for being costly and complex.

As a result, many small- and midsize-business owners avoid offering a retirement benefit altogether, believing they lack the budget, resources, and expertise to effectively manage a high-quality plan.

This can be a missed opportunity, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. Fortunately, there is a solution that is making retirement plans easier and more affordable for businesses of all sizes: Pooled Employer Plans (PEPs).

Navigating the waters of health insurance plans, flexible spending accounts (FSA), and deductibles can be confusing and present tough choices. Sure, your employer gives you a helpful booklet, the benefit options seem pretty straightforward, and you usually have a few weeks to submit your elections.

Nevertheless, here are some tips to keep in mind…

• Tip 1: Open the benefits packet, read the packet

• Tip 2: Measure your needs

• Tip 3: Explore a flexible spending account

• Tip 4: Think strategically with a health savings account

• Tip 5: Use wellness benefits

Being a parent, especially a new parent, can certainly be stressful. Many moms and dads struggle to get enough sleep, manage mealtimes, help with homework, and make sure their kids get to school and all their extracurricular activities on time, all while juggling their own careers or supporting a spouse’s career. And employees who bring stress from home into the office can’t do their best work. So, what can employers and businesses do to make balancing kids and career easier by providing a great workplace for parents?

They can adopt policies that act to the mutual advantage of both their workers and themselves. These can cover areas like:

• Location and schedule flexibility

• Robust leave policies

• Useful insurance options

As we conclude the third quarter of 2024, the economy continues to grow steadily, yet the balance of risks is shifting. Small cracks have begun to emerge in consumer sentiment, manufacturing, and within the labor market. Employment has now overtaken inflation as the Federal Reserve’s primary concern within its dual mandate as progress on disinflation has been satisfactory, thus paving the way for the Federal Reserve to join the global monetary easing cycle.

Despite some bumps along the way, the 2024 equity market rally remains intact. The healthy broadening out of the market beyond the mega-cap “Magnificent Seven” and “Fabulous Four” companies, has thankfully materialized. Risk assets were broadly supported by ten-year U.S. Treasury yields falling firmly below 4 percent, although interest rate volatility reached some of the highest levels of the year.

It was a quarter of tail-risk events: There were two assassination attempts on former president Donald Trump, Japanese stocks had the worst crash since 1987, before promptly rebounding, military conflict continued to escalate in the Middle East, and Hurricane Helene ravaged the Southeast, as one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall on the U.S. mainland in recent history. With the election around the corner in November, we anticipate elevated volatility persisting into the foreseeable future.

You might associate trusts with the ultrawealthy, or with young adults who don’t have to work. But trusts have benefits for a far wider swath of the socioeconomic spectrum — a swath that likely includes you.

“Not knowing how trusts work or what they’re used for, other than passing down assets to children, can keep people from setting one up,” said Michele Collins, director of advanced sales at MassMutual’s Boston office. “So can being afraid of the cost as well as being uncomfortable planning for death, which is when trust discussions often come up.”

Here’s a rundown of the most common types of trusts and their purpose.