Thinking about the next 10 years or ‘when’ you’ll be ready to think about handing over your business to prepare for that event is like waiting until the day before you hand over your house keys to its new owner to paint the walls, fix the leaky faucet and renovate run down bathroom. It’s too much too late.

And, consider what you could be leaving on the table by doing so?

You could be passing up, with some adjustments, a beautifully run company that actually reduces your headaches.

You could be passing up additional value in the business by not having some of its functions running more smoothly with a little TLC. AKA leaving money on the table.

You could be passing over obvious headaches to the new owner but that existing employees and customers still have to deal with, jeopardizing retention.

The belief that ‘getting ready to pass’ down is reserved for the actual event is actually robbing you of more money, more joy and likely more stability now.

One of the secrets to being an attractive company to run and purchase? Read more here.

Our vision is to see more purpose-driven companies excel and sustain through generations, making a positive lasting impact on the world.

How does my company contribute to this?

We coach founders & owners to grow by adding transferrable value, create a succession platform and take a vacation.

Part of lasting through generations is capturing the brilliance, savvy and know-how of you, the founder and owner, to ensure you don’t leave a knowledge gap when you decide not to be directly involved in your business anymore.

Your knowledge is gold and is the foundation of how your company started and what contributes to its ongoing success.

Even if you are aren’t thinking about passing your business to another in the future, or at the point where this has even entered your mind; capturing and transferring knowledge is a skill that takes practice and planning. It’s possible and it doesn’t have to be perfect or complex. And, it can be a process that evolves.

Several years ago my husband and I were asking questions like: Will we have enough to retire? How much is ‘enough’? What do we need? What do we want our future to look like?

We’ve both worked in the financial industry and we have a good understanding and knowledge of personal finance. However, we wanted more than our general understanding and wanted to speak with an expert in retirement planning.

We explored possibilities and chose someone who we love working with and has the expertise we needed.

Once we made that move I felt incredibly relieved. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders because we now have a plan built for us.

And, I feel more confident in our ongoing day-to-day financial decisions because I know where we are in relation to where we are going with our ‘plan’. It was a very smart decision for us and I’m so thrilled we made it.

Getting help in the areas you need it is important. We can’t be all the things.

And we don’t know what we don’t know.

You can apply this to a number of areas in life.

There’s a relationship between the value of your business and the time you spend IN your business.

First - what is value to you?

What I hear from my clients is that value means you get to meet your financial expectations through your business.

Value also means that it supports their lifestyle expectations.

And, it fulfills them at a deeper level

When it comes to your business, value also means how it can be viewed from an outside perspective. Is it valuable to someone else who might purchase your business one day?

Consider this…

People start a business for all types of reasons. Some start looking for more freedom and flexibility or financial freedom. Some start because they have a great idea that they haven’t seen in the marketplace. Some want to create a legacy or make a positive change in their industry. Your reasons could be all, some, or other reasons for starting your business.

But whatever your reason is, this question is relevant to consider:

Do you want to create a valuable business?

What does valuable mean?