What's Your Exit Strategy?

Build your business like you're going to sell it. After being in business for more than 30 years. I've had the great fortune of selling four of the businesses. When you open your business, you want to begin with the idea that one day you will sell it. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine.

This happened to just a couple of months ago.  He had the opportunity to buy a dry cleaner's and it excited him. He was feeling entrepreneurial and he wanted to own this dry cleaner and that was going to be his retirement. Well, a few months ago, I was bringing my clothes and I get out and I see his wife and I tell tell her hey. And she says, Hey, Jeff, we're closed.  And I said, okay, I'll come back Monday. She goes, No, Jeff, we're closed. I was like, How did this happen? Over 20 years they've been in business. And look, I've talked to them a few times about, you know, if they need help there. There are a few things brought up about marketing and they never took me up on any offer.

Well, that's one of the saddest things that you can imagine is just walking away from a business. So what I share with most of my clients is there are several ways you can exit a business. The first really is to just sell your company that will provide you an income you need in retirement. Another way is to hire someone to come into the business, to run the business, and then you step away.  That allows you an income so you can then retire or go on to do other things. Handing your business down to a loved one is another option. You know, there's nothing better to to build your legacy, to build up a business and then share that with your children or your loved ones. The worst of all is to just walk away again.  It's sad to see it happen when you build a business and then you either have no one wants to buy it or you just get so tired that you just don't want to do it anymore.

You want to start with the end in mind. You want to start with the exit strategy. So you need to determine early whether you want to sell your business.  You want to get somebody in there to run it for you. Or if you want to hand your business down. The next thing is, is to identify your value drivers. These are the things that you add value to the business so you can focus on those value drivers and drive the value of the business so you have more money in the end.  And finally, align your long term goals with your short term goals. If those are aligned with your exit strategy, you're going to be in a great position to one day sell your business.

So if you need help identifying your exit strategy and value drivers and then aligning your long term and short term goals, I'd love to talk with you.  So schedule a call now. And in the meantime, remember, as you grow, your company grows, keep growing!