Every business transfers eventually. The only question is whether it happens on a date you chose or on a day nobody planned for, and the difference between those two is most of what the business is worth.

A plan is also the thing that protects the people around you. Without one, a sudden illness or death leaves a family trying to run or sell something they do not understand, often while grieving, usually at the worst possible price. Writing it down is a few hours that spares them months.

Separate two questions that get muddled. Succession is who runs it next. Exit is how you get your money out. They can have different answers, different people and different timelines, and a plan that confuses them helps nobody.

Decide roughly when. Not a date, a horizon. Two years, five years, ten. Almost every decision below depends on which of those you are in, and the honest answer is usually sooner than owners first say.