A 2005 Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey shows that fewer than one in five small-business owners plan to stop working and retire over the long term.
WHAT!?
O.K. Maybe more than 80% of small business owners like to be kept busy. Maybe working in their business is how they foresee they will be kept busy until they just can't get out of bed in the morning.
That's not exactly what I had in mind when I became a small business owner myself. I have other things on my bucket list besides being my own employee until I am so incapable that I can no longer work. Ugh. That sounds like slavery. I want to be the guy who starts a business, grows a business and sells a business and can hold the check in his hand with a big smile!
It was before year five in my first business that I began seriously asking the question, "If I were to sell my business today, what would it be worth and who would buy it?" It was one of those questions that filled my mind every day. What would happen to my wife and children if I were to be unable to work? Would my business be worth enough (anything) to take care of them? That question sent me on a journey.
Here's what I learned:
Lesson One: Owning a Business is Not Just about Earning a Living.
If I want to earn a living I can get a job. But owning a business (listen to that word "owning") is an investment. A financial investment. And who wants to invest in something that doesn't have a good return?
Lesson Two: To Sell a Business It Has to Have Worth Apart from the Owner.
This was a hard lesson to learn. My pride in my achievements got in the way of my being able to see what was really going on in my company. I had a long hard talk with a successful business executive one day. After telling him my situation he said, "Your company only has worth as long as you are working there. Who would buy it knowing that you have no intention of working there after you sell it?" My heart sank. In other words, five years into the business and it was, for all practical purposes, worthless. (Don't misunderstand me - I made a very handsome salary. It was not about what I was earning. It was about what the company itself was worth.)
Lesson Three: If Not Me, Then What?
This was the crucial question that really got down to the nuts and bolts. I imagined taking a big eraser and starting to erase me. What was the first thing I could erase that would leave my company functioning and functioning well? That's where I had to start. This took a little brain power to identify everything that was going on. Maybe this was why I was so tired from working such long hours; I was involved in almost everything. Enough of that.
Lesson Four: Make a Plan and Do It
Weaning myself from my business was like raising my kids to be independent and self-sufficient. It required a whole new way of thinking. An intentional way of thinking. I had to find the right people to fill my many boxes, pass on the necessary knowledge to fulfill their duties, mentor them in their roles, then set them free and walk away.
I have oversimplified what I learned. Please do not think that I learned it quick and easy. . . It took me a while to catch on to what I needed to do. I look back and wonder what it would have been like to know a few short cuts. What took me thirteen years to learn in my first business I applied and achieved in only three years in my second business.
It's time for me to start working on that bucket list of mine. One of the items on that list has to do with giving more than getting. I have a plan to be more involved in the lives of other people; in particular business people. To pass on through a professional relationship the truths that I have learned about what it means to be the owner of a business.
Retirement? You betcha. My bucket list has a lot of things on it and no job is going to keep from it.
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