Rick checked one more time to make sure the lights were out and the doors locked, then headed across the empty parking lot to his car. Last one out again.
As he swung out onto the highway, he turned off the news station and put on some quiet music. He needed some time to think.
It would take him about 90 minutes to drive to their mountain house. He had already missed dinner and the grandchildren would be in bed by the time he got there. Nancy would be very
understanding, as she always was, but he was beginning to wonder if it was all worth it anymore.
The Business Has Been Good to Me
“The business has been very good to me and my family”, he thought. “We’ve lived comfortably, put our kids through college, built a second home. But, my 60th birthday is coming up in a month. It’s a good time to think about all the tradeoffs we’ve made—the late dinners, missed ball games, evenings spent in front of the computer while Nancy went to bed early”.
It has taken a lot to build the business, and it has been worth the sacrifices—but how long do I want to keep going? How long do I want to be tied up and tied down in the business? Am I ready to wind down and kick back a little? All those things we put off until later—the vacation trips, spending more time with our parents, visiting the children and grandchildren, mentoring high school kids—we can’t put them off forever. Some of them won’t always wait. Maybe “tomorrow” should be “now”.
The kids and their spouses have made it pretty clear that they don’t want to move home and run the business. They have plenty of other interests and options thanks to all the opportunities that Nancy and I have been able to give them. So, the logical answer is to sell the business to someone else who could keep it going and even grow it to the next level.
But, this is new territory for me. Sure, I’ve been approached by business brokers and even a few competitors over the years, but those had been short conversations. I always felt that I had more to do, and was energized by the challenge. Now, I’m not so sure.
What is the Value of My Business?
What is the value of my business—really, the value of 25 years of late nights, risks and worries? How do you place a value on a life’s work? I know that the real value of his business is only what someone else would pay for it, but thinking about selling raises a lot of new questions—when to sell, who to sell it to, how to evaluate offers, and the intangibles—how to take care of my people, my customers and our community?
How much money do Nancy and I really need to live the life we want and worked so hard for? After all, I can’t run the Lexus and the country club membership through the business any more—no more long weekends in Florida tacked on to the end of a conference or trade show.
Once I decide to sell, I can do some things to make the business more attractive to potential buyers, just like staging a house before you put it on the market. But if I only have a year or two, which ones would really make a difference? Which ones should I do first? Which ones not at all? Who can I trust to help me figure all this out?
As he pulled into the driveway, he saw Nancy waving from the kitchen window. It was good to see her. They had a lot to talk about tonight.
Note to reader: an upcoming article will explain Rick’s next step.
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Contact David at david.roberts@newportboardgroup.com
