Exit Strategy
Exit Strategy? Why would you be thinking about how you'll exit your business when you may not have started all that long ago?
It's a good question, especially if you are really enjoying what you're doing.
Think of it like building a house though. You don't just throw some bricks together and hope for a house to exist when you finish the work. You have a plan, a blueprint, a strategy, an endgame.
Some good questions to ask yourself are:
- What do I want this business to do FOR me?
- What will my (our) life be like after I leave this business one day and what will that feel like?
- Will I sell it, leave it to someone, gradually ease back, or simply close it down?
Just like with the house build, you want at least an idea of how you plan to eventually finish the thing and what that will look and feel like. Excuse the pun, but the answer doesn't have to be set in concrete - situations change!
Why Is It Important to Plan Your Exit?
Crazy though it may seem when you're focused on building your business, you also have to consider:
- How would I eventually like to leave this business? (Or will I just drop dead on the job one day?!)
- Is this going to fund my retirement and eventually be my big pay day? If so, how big and how much is enough?
- What if circumstances forced me to leave? E.g. If my partner or I were sick and couldn't work, how would that play out?
- Will I leave this to a family member, or faithful employee as my legacy?
These are all good questions. They can often force us to confront the uncomfortable, like the idea of writing your will.
The important point is that if we know what we want to achieve, and more importantly why, we can more effectively reverse engineer from that, and figure out how we're going to make that happen. This is what we mean by an 'exit strategy'.
That's a big part of what I do - guiding you through the thought processes involved.
Contact me for a free chat today!
