Sometimes just listing out the statistics of an issue or issues helps put a difficult decision into better perspective.   Owners often do not understand that they can have a profitable business without the structure that buyers often require.   And if you do not have what buyers want then you do not have a business to sell. 

Exit planning is the process to determine if your business has the right structure.   If it is determined there are flaws in the structure exit planning identifies how to change the structure to make it more salable. The goal is to make it look like what buyers want to see and increase the probabilities of closing the transaction (see below stats for why this is important).

Approximately 76% of owners plan to transition over the next 10 years (representing approx. 4.5 million businesses)

49% have no transition plan

More than 70% of businesses that are put on the market do not sell

In fact, according to a recent survey by Citizens Commercial Bank of more than 450 middle market business owners and decision makers, supplemented by a series of in-depth interviews, “nearly 70 percent of business owners say their expected retirement date will significantly impact when they decide to sell their company.”

71% of small and mid-sized enterprise owners plan to exit their businesses within the next ten years, strongly highlighting the growing importance of enhancing business value. However, the challenge is that few organizations genuinely understand what actions they must take to achieve this goal...."– Deloitte & Touche –

• 90% of all of the people who begin the search to buy a business never complete a transaction
• Only 20% of all of the businesses listed for sale ever sell.
• Roughly 50% of the deals that are agreed to between buyer and seller, never get to closing.
  

Over 70% of 12,000,000 Baby Boomers' businesses are likely to change hands over the next 5-12 years

With Millennials (currently ages 16-34) being the next big working population the gap in experience presents a difficulty in transition from Baby Boomers to Millennials. 

Call John Hamel at 720-519-6073 if you would like to discuss this blog.

Selling a business to a third-party without any emotional attachments to clients, community or employees would make it easier and faster to sell, but who builds a successful business like that?

I find that when many business owners first start their business they imagine selling their business someday for a substantial dollar figure. But many years later after they have gone through many painstaking hardships and relied on relationships with employees, partners, clients and the community that have made it possible to survive it produces emotional attachments that also hold a value. 

Now as you face exiting your business do you now disregard all of those emotional attachments for just a dollar figure regardless of the impact to the longevity of the business, employees and the community? Or do you spend the necessary time planning to support what you've built, sustain your legacy, and still enjoy a comfortable retirement?  
Only you, the business owner, can really answer that question for yourself.  I find many business owners struggle quite a bit with the emotional attachments surrounding their exit from the business.  But you know that eventually it must be answered in one of two different ways.

The first way is to not plan and let your own mortality determine the results.  Often this leads to complete destruction of company value, disruption to employees lifestyles, a negative economic impact to the community and destruction to the lifestyle your family has become accustomed to live.

The second way is to choose to plan ahead by putting things into place that will control the direction of your company into a legacy you will be proud about.  You will also feel good knowing that you've secured the emotional attachments you've created with your employees, clients and community.  

Do you want to leave your company on a path for success by planning ahead or do you hope for the best and let chance circumstances determine it for you?  The choice is always yours.

If you are struggling with how to go about developing a plan or looking for more insight, please contact us at admin@austecbt.com.  We are always ready to answer or research any questions you might have. 

If you are one of the lucky 24 percent of startups to survive you are faced with the task of continuing your success till the day you exit.  But now that your business has been a success the energy required to think about or learn an exit strategy may be a large part of ignoring the subject through procrastination.   And like many owners before you, thinking about exiting the business comes with a series of tough questions such as, "Where, when, why and how do I leave what I've created."  Answering these questions may make you feel very uncomfortable, because the questions may bring to the surface thoughts of your mortality or you partner(s) mortality.  And frankly I do not find that anybody really wants to focus on that for very long time.   Or it maybe that you're still having the time of your life running your company and the thought of quitting is just unthinkable.     . 

Last March, here in Colorado, I went skiing with a friend of mine at Copper Mountain.   Mind you, I'm an average skier and very aware of this fact.  My friend is a much better skier.    Since it had been sometime since I had last skied we started on the greens (for those of you who do not ski, greens are the easy slopes) and quickly progressed to the blues (medium skill slopes).   At first I felt a little uncomfortable but knew this would pass with more practice and it sort of did.  Toward the end of the day I was coming to the realization that I was not in the shape I should be to continue, but I felt I still had enough for a couple more runs.  It was during this next run that I soon realized that I could no longer take the falls as gracefully as I had done when I was in my 20's or 30's.  

Seeing my friend waiting for me on the slop I went to stop and my tired arms let my pole plant in front of my skies creating a perfect pendulum for my upper body weight to slam into the ground and break four ribs.  Then I learned the following lessons.  First, being shuttled down the mountain by the ski patrol meant feeling every bump like knifes being thrust into my chest and wishing to God that runs were shorter.  Second, that spending the next two and a half weeks sleeping upright in bed meant thanking God for two hours of sleep a night.  Thirdly, inconveniencing my wife and kids with lack of mobility and every groan possible was extremely humbling. Fourthly, learning that sneezing with broken ribs means that you experience the feeling of your whole body exploding and then knowing when I was about to sneeze what was to follow.  

Even though I thought I was being cautious with my skiing, something still happened that cost me quite a bit of discomfort immediately and for months after.   It's how we deal with those uncomfortable thoughts while answering tough questions that may give us either a good result (tough because often we don't always see what could have happened) or a negative result (from where we clearly see a better result that could have happened).

Whatever the reason is, not answering the questions and/or writing them down often is a missed opportunity to further shape how your life will play out or, in the case of the unthinkable, the ability provide more certainty for those you care about.  
    
Hopefully the future of this blog will not only provide you with helpful guidance but also with tough questions that stimulate you past the discomfort and allow you to provide your own answers and an exit strategy.