It is important to maintain a grasp on why you are selling a company, exit strategies can contain a lot of technical jargon and considerations. With all of the hurdles and distractions of running a business, short-term and long-term goals, or even an urgent reason to sell, you may not take the time to think sincerely about personal goals. It is possible that doing so makes you uncomfortable, or you don’t know how to begin.
You can miss the mark by only characterizing your goals as numbers and dollars. Your objectives should be more than getting the most money now and having time for leisure later. Drawing a new map to define your target buyers, structure of the deal, and how to time the sale becomes essential.
As Studs Terkel says in Working, it’s central to know, that work doesn’t just give “daily bread” but also “daily meaning.” Don’t underestimate the importance of this when it comes to your future contentment. Your goals as business owner getting ready to sell a business should support finding your own new daily meaning.
Your goals should cover many facets of your life, they should be holistic and second to the numbers. They should be many and multilayered and should encompass financial, business, health and welfare, and life after the sale. The reason for this article is to zero in on the latter: after you sell a company, what will your life be like?
Life Post-Sale
Many business owners and advisors focus entirely on readying the preparing for sale, but not preparing you, the business owner. You need to have an idea about where you are headed, and get ready to fire yourself from the business to make a successful exit plan happen.
Oftentimes, sellers are already consumed by running their business, and then they add selling it to the chaos of their day job. Having the time, tools, or ability to write the next chapter of a satisfying and fruitful life may not be at the top of your list amid the turmoil of the circumstances.
Having a compelling image of your future, however, will assist you in shaping the nature of the sale, uphold you while enduring it, and ultimately help you achieve success as you define it. Estee Lauder defined business as “a magnificent obsession.” What will you replace it with, if it is the same for you, as it is for many business owners (the author included)?
Entrepreneurs, usually an action-oriented crowd, must think through what they want and how to get it, even if they don’t realize it. If not, the typical Type A personality business owner, whose individuality and purpose for being may vanish with the sale of their business, will experience a huge shock to his or her system. Work is not just to pay the bills, but to bond with others, build an identity and sense of purpose, and to make a difference. The necessity of all those things doesn’t just vanish when you sell your business.
I invite and encourage you to use these ideas during your journey to sell a business.
