When I visit a firm for the first time, I always take a good look around. In general, I would classify my first impressions as generally neutral to positive. But every once in a while, there’s an office space that leaves me with an exceedingly positive (or negative) feeling.

It all started a few years ago. An advisor called to talk about what he was seeing among his newly retired clients: “I work with them for a decade or two and get them financially ready for retirement. Then, I watch them retire and they aren’t always happy.” The advisor asked if I knew of any resources that might help clients answer the question, “Who do you want to be when you retire?”

I’m not generally at a loss for words, but I was at that moment. As soon as I hung up, my gut was churning with irrational emotions: Why did the advisor call me? Did he think I was ready to retire?

You’ve no doubt heard the near-constant talk about succession options for retiring advisors. But whether you’re nearing retirement or not, you should be aware that succession planning involves more than valuations, terms of the deal, and buy-sell agreements. Rather, you will need to anticipate what the future business could and should look like. Do you want your firm to continue without you (internal succession), or do you want to sell your business to another firm (external succession)? After all, when it comes to succession options for financial advisors, each approach has its pros and cons.

Looking around the industry, you’ll see a variety of attitudes toward business growth among your fellow advisors. If you’re in one camp, you likely maintain a relentless focus on top-line revenue growth, expanding your client base, going upstream to higher-net-worth clients, providing additional services, acquiring another practice, or recruiting new advisors to increase capacity and scale. On the other hand, having reached a certain level of success, perhaps you’ve decided to put business growth on the back burner to focus instead on personal growth. But what is the best decision for your business?