If you are a business owner, no doubt you have dreamt about your exit strategy and how selling a business can have it happen.  Admit it.  No one is looking over your shoulder right now.  If you may walk away today, what do you dream in regards to doing?  How do you see your fantasy life post-sale?  Paint a picture in your mind. Are there palm trees and golf in your fantasy?  Travel with your family?  Jumping into a different business?  Concetrating on vital charities, or community and spiritual areas?  Or perhaps staying involved with the company somehow, but during a less demanding role.  What is the purpose of all of your arduous work, stress and sacrifice?  What did you see  as your reward?  What was it you were striving for at the end of the day?

Please think more broadly than simply the money.  Creating a value amount is simpler than coming up with a complete new life for several business owners.  As you establish the perfect outcomes for you, include those outcomes you would like for your family, the employees, the business and alternative stakeholders.  How you answer these questions can influence a way to sell the business more than perhaps you think.

Take into account:

• Do you want to sell a piece of your business or all of it? 
• Is it important to money out at closing, or would you consider keeping a little investment within the newly sold company?
• Do you want to depart, and if therefore, inside what timeframe? 
• Are you wanting to remain, and if so, in what role? 
• Would you wish to retain management and finance growth through recapitalization? 

All of these items, and several more, will have an effect on the timing, amount of cash you’ll get for the transaction and what consumers will be interested in.

To sell a corporation is to sell a life’s work.  For a business owner, exit designing means facing a significant change and a lot of uncertainty.  Your days currently because the owner of the business are marked with structure and relationships that offer meaning to your days, and a way of pride, identity and purpose.  What can fill that want once you sell a business? 

Several business owner’s, whereas nursing the fantasy life in the dark hours, still dread making the amendment due to they don’t grasp where their ultimate destination is.  They grasp where they are now, but don’t understand where they will go to.  It can be frightening to face the void.  Don’t kid yourself:  golf is not enough.  A Type A personality does not simply go to a Type Z.

Can you picture your fantasy?  You know there is one.  What next life section do you wish to carve out for yourself and your family?  This can influence the way to sell a business and additionally the buyers to target.  For several business owners, this is a once in a lifetime chance to launch a new part of your life and lifestyle.  Proactively and strategically determine how you outline success, and how selling your business can get you there.

I invite you to use these concepts to create your best-life business exit strategy and fulfill your fantasy.

Marian Cook is a highly sought after business transition expert and speaker with over 25 years experience helping business owners design their best-life exit strategy, and improve their business performance and valuation.  She is the co-author of “Selling Your Business For More:  Maximizing Returns For You, Your Family and Your Business” (published by Macmillan).  If you are ready to sell a business and jump-start your business sale process, connect with Marian via her free tips, articles, checklists and blog at Business Transition Experts.

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