'''What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You!"

Have you ever heard the old saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”?  Not sure why, or who it was in my life at the time would say it, but I remember hearing it a lot when I was a kid.  Through the years I’ve found this saying, through personal experience and observation, severely misleading at best.  I wonder if the person who originated the phrase had only “current hurt” in mind.  For example, I might be unaware that my car has no engine oil and that the engine is going to die exactly a week from today – but today, because I don’t know it, it doesn’t hurt.  However, in a week when the car blows up and catches on fire, there is a lot that’s going to hurt.  So, what you don’t know, can absolutely hurt you, and often does…it simply may not be immediate.

If you’re a successful business owner, your business may be your biggest asset, and play a key role in whatever represents success for you in the future (i.e., financial, values-based, or legacy goals).  You may understand there are things you need to know about how ready you are, and how ready your business is for you to leave on your own terms and conditions. But you’ve chosen not to know, as it will surely result in additional work, time, and/or financial investment…and because “what you don’t know, currently isn’t hurting you.”  It may not hurt now, but the hurt that comes later could be devastating when you eventually leave your business if you then learn that your financial, values-based, and legacy goals are not going to be realized. 

Take steps now to expose reality and get the knowledge you need then act on it.  And get help…because you don't know what you don't know.  

Invest 12-15 minutes in the FREE ExitMap® Assessment and get a 12-page report scoring you in four key exit planning areas: Finance, Planning, Revenue/Profit, and Operations.

Goalposts, Goals and Your Business Exit

In this week’s episode of our ExitReadiness® PODCAST, we interviewed negotiation expert Randy Kutz of Scotwork USA on “key ingredients of a successful negotiation”, with an owner’s sale of their business in view. One of Randy’s main points had to do with “goals and goalposts”, and how an owner’s goalposts can continually move during a sale transaction if they don’t have strong convictions about their goals and objectives heading into the negotiation process. This uncertainty can easily result, and often does, in either seller’s remorse or a deal not getting done.

We have found in working with owners, that when giving any thought to their inevitable exit, they will often have a time frame for leaving the business (i.e., 5 years) and “their number”, or sale price in mind, but even these objectives haven’t been thoroughly tested and evaluated. Goals such as tax minimization, a plan for life after the business, care for key or important employees, sustaining the culture they’ve worked hard to create, family harmony, leaving on their own terms and conditions, may have received a head nod along the way, but frequently get little to no planning attention ahead of a potential transaction.

As a business owner, there is never a more critical event or time to be clear about what you want than when you exit your business. A reason being, there is a tremendous amount at stake…all that you’ve built…all that stakeholders have come to depend on…and all of your financial and values-based goals are at stake when you transition out of the business. And, you could at any time find yourself suddenly facing an offer from a potential buyer so it’s advisable to begin gaining clarity well in advance so that you can indeed move forward with conviction. If you’re not clear on what you want and need financially, what you value in regard to the future of your business in the hands of a new owner, or what you will do post-business to replace the significance and impact you’ve experienced as a successful owner, the likelihood of you experiencing regrets is quite high.

It is essential to “crunch all of the right numbers'“ in any transaction, and it is also critical to do the hard and often neglected “soft skills” work of establishing firmly your goalposts for a successful and satisfying business transition. Contact us at email@ennislp.com or 301-859-0860 for assistance.

Access the ExitReadiness® PODCAST with Randy Kutz HERE.

Invest 15 minutes and get a FREE Exit Readiness Assessment HERE.