Business Owners - Why You Need an Exit Strategy

If you are like most business owners, you have been busy starting, growing and improving the company. You have never given any thought to an exit strategy.  After all, you’re trying to maximize your company’s cash flow and you have no intention of selling it anytime soon.

We run into a lot of people who have those exact same thoughts. Many times they will get to this time of year (4th Quarter), and suddenly decide they should sell their business. Owners might jump to the decision to “sell it now” because they are tired, they have lost a key employee, they or one of their employees has a major health problem, someone in their family has a health problem, interest rates are too high, there’s too much political unrest, or they think their business is at the top of its potential. You get the idea, there are so many reasons to sell and most of the time it is a sudden decision. They’ve never had a business valuation done, they may not have built the business to run without them, and they are unrealistic about what it takes to sell their business.

Enter the need for an exit strategy.  A good exit strategy requires time, ideally two or three years before the sale. While that rarely happens, that is the way to maximize the value of your business when it is time to sell. We would be happy to meet with you and discuss this in more detail. Give us a call, so we can work together to get the most money possible when you decide to sell.

Jeff Moody CBI, CM&AP