Janice founded her business 15 years ago at age 45 and her business has realized a modest but consistent growth rate (revenue) of 5%. Like most small business owners, she has invested her time, money, blood, sweat, and tears in building her business. Her perspective has always been “if we don’t focus on today, there may not be a tomorrow!”.

Well now, tomorrow has come, as Janice is being pushed out of her business due to health issues that were sudden and unexpected. She also finds herself being pulled away by a growing desire for time with her grandchildren that are steadily increasing in number and age. She doesn’t want to have regrets around not having enough time for her “babies!”

Janice has decided that she wants to leave or exit her business ideally within the year, but certainly no more than two years. Whereas she had never set a target date for exit in the past and planned accordingly (“If we don’t focus on today, there may not be a tomorrow!”), she has now been forced to do so as her health challenges are expected to increase. Her friend Jim introduces Janice to his Exit Planning Advisor who helped with Jim’s recent business exit. Janice scheduled a meeting right away as she now had a real sense of urgency regarding the future.

Once the Exit Planner helped Janice clarify and establish her financial, values-based, and legacy goals, he then began a process of quantifying personal and business resources, including the current value of the business. Janice was stunned to learn that her business was valued at 50% of what she had assumed. A financial gap analysis was performed by her Financial Advisor to expose a financial gap of over $1 million considering Janice’s goal of departing within the next two years. The Exit Planner also coordinated a review of Janice’s life and disability insurance coverage with her insurance professional, to learn that she was now under-insured, but obtaining additional coverage would be cost-prohibitive due to her current health condition. Janice felt trapped as all she really wanted to do now was invest time with her family.

With the help of her Exit Planner and Advisor Team, Janet did exit within her target departure date of two years, selling her business to a third party. She had to do so because of her health. Indeed her business sold for a lot less than she expected, and as it was her largest asset. As a result, she is not able to do all she was hoping to do in this season of life.

In a pursuant conversation with her friend Jim, Janet asked how he was able to make it happen. Jim seemed to have exited under his own terms and conditions accomplishing all of his goals and had no regrets to how and when he left the business. One of the key takeaways for Janice was Jim’s comment, “I decided 10 years ago that I wanted to exit in 10 years…and that gave me the time to get personally ready, and get the business ready for me to exit when I wanted to.” Now, Janice was going to have to deal with her own regrets, as she had never given serious thought and planning to this day that was inevitable.

Like Janice, Jim had a target departure date for his exit. The difference was Jim’s date was established well in advance and not forced upon him. Hence, he had time to plan and be in control of when and how he left. Establishing a target departure date well in advance is a critical element for creating a successful plan for exit. It is very likely that it will change, possibly many times. Without it though, your chances of a successful exit are greatly diminished. With it, you are much more likely to exit with no regrets like Jim.

Contact us today and get started on your plan for your planned departure date. You can also get an exit readiness score with our FREE Exit Readiness Questionnaire which takes 15 minutes to complete.