Deep Thought of the Week

[Scott]

Each day we wake up and "do our thing". We make customers happy, get referrals, answer the phones with a friendly voice, and generally keep motivated in our own ways.

But what about "the end?" When you're just not motivated any longer, or you've reached some certain point in your career, what is your plan on how your business will look when you finally hang up the wand?

Plenty of folks are owner/op their whole life and they're perfectly happy with the arrangement. There's certainly nothing wrong with this set up if the O/O is content with doing most or all of the work and have no plans to grow beyond their own capacity.

So what's your plan when you punch out?

Hang it up for good and walk away?
Sell your baby?
Pass your biz to family members?
Retain ownership but hire replacements?

Me? I'm selling at a certain point. I've been preparing to sell my baby for several years and still have a little bit to go, but with each passing day it becomes more ready for that inevitable day.

This is a tough question because we get so caught up in the doing it stage that we often forget or don't place any importance on succession or selling until we're forced to make that decision.

So what's your plan?

Scott

 

[danpauselius]

Train my kids to take over at some point. If they want nothing to do with it, probably sell it to an investment group and let them run it into the ground, LOL.

 

[Scott]

LOL - yeah, no kidding...assuming an investment group even wants anything to do with our industry!

My kids, now, have zero interest in the business, and that's ok by me. Both will be successful in whatever they choose.

Then again when I was their age, I wanted nothing to do with my dad's business either. In fact when I was in high school, I joined the Air Force to get away from the biz and told my dad I would NEVER be a carpet cleaner. LOL! Time changes everything.

Scott

 

[Desk Jockey]

Those are questions we have also had lately.

We are fortunate to have several key members of our staff that are capable of operation the business without much supervision.

So in the coming years we could have limited involvement and still maintain ownership.

We also have a couple of Third generation Chavez's on staff right now, one of Dan's sons and my son. Maybe in 10-15 years they would be available?

Dan also has a son who graduated last year from college and is working at a bank out of state, that expressed interest at one time, he would be a good choice he he were still interested, he grew up in the business.

We have given it some thought but for now we are planning for growth in the up coming years, succession will come later.

 

[Driguy]

I am on my second read through of the E-myth series of books. One of the things i really liked is the idea of building your business with a Franchise model. Not saying to build it so you can open more locations, but build our business so that it can be reproduced, packaged and sold.

When i sit down and think about how i would run a company, i think of ways i can take my ideas; box and label them, and make them for sale when i eventualy would want to sell.