Every business owner has a big dream for their company and wants to make it happen. They’re constantly working on improving their business, tweaking their strategy and efficiency, and are never satisfied. When it comes time to exit, this can lead to being frustrated or anxious because they didn’t spend enough time working on the business and crafting a transition plan. It shouldn’t be so hard to exit your business, achieve financial freedom, and ride off into the sunset content with what we’ve accomplished.
I have client who may never be completely satisfied with her business. In her mind, there’s always room for improvement, no matter how well she and her management team have run the business. She runs the risk of constantly adjusting and working in her business before she exits and may never do the planning needed to exit.
Another issue owners run into is that improving your business can take time and money. If we’re not prepared to invest the time and money necessary to make significant improvements to our businesses, the market may not be right for a sale right now. If we’re not getting the offers we want, it may be better to wait until market conditions improve.
Finally, we may have other personal or professional goals that we want to pursue. If we’re ready to move on to other things in our lives, we shouldn’t let the desire to improve our business hold us back.
There are also cases where it makes sense to improve our management, strategy, or efficiency before we exit our business. For example, if we’re planning to sell our business to a strategic buyer, they may be more interested in a business that is already well run. However, in my experience, the benefits of exiting our business outweigh the benefits of making further improvements.
If we’re considering exiting our businesses, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of making further improvements. If we decide that the time and money required to make the improvement is not worth it, we should start the process of selling the business as-is.
