Don’t Sell a Business in Pain…

Summary

• Two years before selling our business, we reached our biggest month, earning almost $4.5 million. However, I felt overwhelmed and unhappy because I had to handle every department myself.

• Being the main leader without strategic leadership in place made growing the business extremely painful. I realized that to make the business attractive for sale, I needed to have other leaders take on responsibilities.

• Instead of rushing to sell the business when I felt overwhelmed, I focused on building a leadership team. This change helped me reduce my workload to just a few hours a week and got me out of the stressful situation I was in.

• By the time the business was ready for sale, I no longer felt the urgent need to sell it because it was running smoothly without needing my constant input. Having a strong leadership team made the business an attractive and good investment for potential buyers.

Video

How To Take Action

I'd suggest starting by examining your workload. If you're feeling overwhelmed, it's a sign to seek help rather than trying to manage everything on your own. Divide your tasks to see which ones can be handed over to another person. This could be an employee or a hired consultant if you don’t have staff.

Find one or two key people who can step up into leadership roles. Start small and work on grooming these individuals to take on responsibilities. Teach them your processes and give them the chance to make decisions. This helps to share the workload and grow the business without it depending entirely on you.

A good way of doing this is by creating a simple plan highlighting your goals and the leaders’ tasks. Check in regularly on progress and provide support, rather than trying to do everything yourself.

If you can't afford new hires, think about interns or partnerships that might offer temporary support. Time spent training others now will save you more time in the future.

As your leadership team grows and takes responsibility, gradually step back. Ensure that processes work without you needing to jump in all the time. This might mean fewer hours for you but ensures that the business thrives.

When your business runs smoothly without you, it becomes more valuable to potential buyers. More importantly, it means less stress for you and more time to focus on growth or exploration of new ventures.

Full Transcript

business because they want to get out of paint but here's the thing nobody wants to buy a flaming piece of sh 2 years before we sold our business we had had like our biggest month ever I think we did almost $4.5 million that month and I was like wow that's amazing and I hate my life it felt so painful because I didn't have any strategic leadership I didn't have anybody that was able to take authority or ownership over an area and so I was the leader for basically every department and so it felt very painful to grow my business because I didn't have help so what I did is rather than sell my business bus right then is I said I've got to get leaders in place because I can't even sell my business for a good number if I'm the main person that's needed here and so what happened is that by the time my business was ready to sell I was out of pain in fact so much so that when I went into the sale process I was like I don't even know if I want to sell the business you know I don't really care like I'm barely even having to work in it at that point I was only working a few hours a week in the business I wasn't needed anymore I had operators in place I had a whole leadership team in place but that was amazing because then what it meant for people looking to buy my buiness business is this is a good investment