You have worked so very hard to create your business. It’s success- ful because you have poured your heart and soul into it. You work an amazing number of hours in any given week or a given year. The harder you worked, the luckier you got. It caused you sleepless nights and amazing days. I hope you have made your business prosper for you, your family, your employees, and your community.
Of course you’re going to be emotional about selling it. How can you not be emotional about something you created from scratch? It’s so much like giving birth! You have been in the driver’s seat, controlling the day-to-day operations. It’s hard to think about not being the owner anymore, but it is well worth your time to consider your options.
You may want to move on with the rest of your life. The reality is, how many days and nights did you think, “If I just hold on, I can sell my business and retire.” Or maybe you think, “Someday, I’m going to pass this on to my kids.” But that “someday” may not materialize, and you may be left with a not-so-good choice: work in the business until you die or turn out the lights and simply walk away.
You may laugh, but I knew an optometrist who always said they would carry her body out of her office on a stretcher. She wasn’t far off in her prediction. She finally gave up the business when she was turned eighty-six and passed away shortly thereafter.
There are plenty of “how to” books out there on selling your business. Only twenty percent of businesses sell successfully. Why is it that eighty percent of businesses aren’t prepared? Why are half of the businesses in the U.S. closing involuntarily? Selling your business doesn’t have to be like climbing a mountain on roller skates.
I have said this many times, and it is what I want to leave you with: Baby boomers own 51 percent of businesses in the United States. How many employees work for these businesses? Millions. How many communities are impacted by the success or failure of these businesses? Hundreds of thousands. How many families rely on these businesses to sustain their way of life? Countless.
We all know what’s happening to the boomer generation as we “age out.” Aging out is just a nice way of saying retiring or passing away. We need to seriously think about why we need to sell our businesses. We need to understand all of the options and evaluate them in relation to our business. This takes individual and special- ized planning.
My entire purpose in writing this book is to connect with you as a business owner. I want you to understand the enormity of the problem. I hope you can understand how success or failure is entirely in your hands.
Read more here..
