Dirty Secrets of Small Business
Whether you’re currently contemplating starting or buying a business or if you already own a business, one question you might be asking yourself is if you’re cut out to be a business owner. Depending who you talk to you might hear things like “people are born to be entrepreneurs” or something similar. Don’t always believe the hype!
If you’ve owned your business for several years, chances are someone at some point has talked to you about a business valuation. Either someone has asked you directly what your company is worth or the idea of your company’s value has come up in conversation. The question we address in today’s show is just how valuable is a business valuation?
Most people’s only experience with firing someone is watching Donald Trump say “You’re fired” on the TV shows The Apprentice. If you’re one of those people you may think it’s no big deal. I mean the person is being terminated for a reason, right?
Many folks are confused why business owners have trouble stepping back and selling or transitioning their business to the next generation of ownership. We have found in our decades of working with small business owners transitioning to the next phase in their life that one of the biggest items holding them back from exiting their business is finding ways to stay relevant.
It’s rare that a small business owner wakes up one morning and decides it’s time to transition their business to the next generation. It’s something they usually think about for a while, likely many years before they are finally ready. But once they decide they often want it to happen yesterday. But before the current owner leaves they want to make sure the next generation knows everything they need to know about the business. So how do you figure out where to start?
If you’ve ever been involved with the buying or selling of a business, chances are you’ve heard of a term called seller’s remorse. Even if you haven’t been involved in a deal it’s likely you’ve heard about it or seen it. And it doesn’t matter how large or small a deal is, it can happen to anyone…even a billionaire.
One of the key success factors in running and growing a small business is surrounding yourself with good advisors. Talk with any small business owner and they are likely to have all or most of the following “advisors” helping their business: accountant, attorney, insurance, payroll/HR, banker, financial planner, marketing, and business coach/consultant. But how do you know if you have the right advisors for your business?
If we had to pick a movie to be the theme for a small business owner, it would likely be the 1993 classic Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Even if you’ve never seen the movie you can probably relate to what it feels like to have the same day over and over again. Unfortunately for too many small business owners this can be the case. So what’s a small business owner to do?
Today we were joined on the show by Sherry and Dan Jones. They were clients of ours when they owned their franchise business Seniors Helping Seniors. We not only helped them grow their business but we also helped them with a successful exit of their business.
One of the reasons we started this podcast was to help dispel many of the myths we’ve seen in the small business world. One of those chief myths is the idea that if “you’re not growing you’re dying.” This has become so popular in the small business world that folks seem to think it must be true. Not so fast my friend.