What you’re doing is working. You’ve built your own business that provides for your family. You’ve willed your way through every challenge imaginable and then through some that were previously unimaginable. Your customers are happy. Your employees are loyal. Your business is established. Why would you change your approach? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” right?
Limiting beliefs give you limited results. If you want to achieve the ultimate Win that is your exit, there are quite a few reasons to push yourself and your business beyond what simply works.
Break Your Ceiling
A lifestyle business—meaning one that primarily exists to support the owner’s personal finances—can be extremely rewarding to run. You can do the same thing for decades and charge lucrative rates for your expertise. You can be your own boss, make your own schedule, travel, run expenses through the company, and be a proud business owner. However, it’s difficult to successfully sell a lifestyle business because buyers know it’s heavily reliant on the owner being involved.
Every business owner exits eventually. If you want the higher ceiling of selling your business based on a valuation multiple, the business needs to be scalable. That entails innovative thinking and risk-taking.
Shape Your Workplace
Scaling your business isn’t just about making more money. It’s about people, purpose, connection, and culture. The pursuit of more and better shows in every aspect of your business, from the space you occupy to the talent you recruit and the relationships you build. Your customers certainly want stability and predictability, but they also love to see that you’re continuously enhancing your business. They want assurance that you’re anticipating and planning for what’s next. Whether seen or unseen, and whether said or unsaid, the improvements you make internally benefit your relationships externally.
Evolve Your Approach
It’s one thing to be healthy. It’s an entirely different thing to be fit. The latter adds challenge. Instead of running the same distance every day, you’re challenging yourself with cross-training. Instead of keeping pace, you’re building muscle. You’re constantly learning new movements and getting better at new exercises. Being a business owner is similar in that you can always be cultivating a new skill set. Just like you’d hire a trainer in the gym, you can hire a coach in business to show you how to challenge yourself the right way for maximum results.
Modernize Your Business
Just because something works, doesn’t mean it works as efficiently and effectively as it could. Outdated office technology not only hinders your business, but also deprives you and your team of the latest and greatest advances. Especially in the age of the hybrid workplace, business owners are wise to stay ahead of the curve and envision the workplace of the future. Outdated technology will “work”—until it doesn’t. If you wait until that point of failure, it’ll require much more time, money, and energy to adapt than if you proactively identify technology upgrades.
Enable Your Exit
You’ve proven you can do what you’ve always done. Now, let’s see if you can find the same fulfillment and even greater success doing it a new way. A scalable business is a salable business. If you’re happy with where you are as an owner-operator, you’ll be even happier with a truly professionalized business that attracts buyers. That’s how you achieve your Win with our Exit Engineering® methodology of exit strategy consulting.
By Andrea Steinbrenner, Chief Operations Officer, Exit Consulting Group
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