621: When To Know If It’s Time To Sell Your Business

It was five days since I had called to check in on a contractor owner with no response.   Finally, hoping everything was ok, I texted another check in, to his simple reply, “Honestly, when I said I work all the time I wasn't embellishing the truth. I just wrapped up another long day and headed home now.”   That was on a Sunday night for a business that shouldn’t have much to do on the weekend. For too many business owners, the harsh reality is that the business is owning them and it may be time to sell.   There are three helpful filters to flush a decision through when timing a potential sale of your business. First, do you have a desire? Desire cedes ground to opportunity that has lured many business owners down the path of “profitable distractions” - where the potential of profit distracts from what the owner desires.   Ownership is hard, and owners must have a continued desire to own and lead the business in a way that others desire to follow.   Second, are you at a relational impasse? Many owners are leading their business based on the expectation of generations before that this would “always be a family-run business”.   There is no badge awarded to the longest-running family-owned enterprise; the odds are often stacked strongly against.  Each person has their own unique skill set and we should not assume that our children or kin either have the desire or the capability to run the business.   It should be their dream and not yours. The third filter to use when thinking about selling is to ask, “would others lead the business better than you?” Life runs in seasons.   The Byrd’s (quoting the Jewish Proverbs) remind us that there is “a time to plant and a time to pluck up.” Just because you have owned your business for 10 years does not mean you need to own it for 40 years.  What season of life are you in?  What season of life is your business in?   Merge those questions with desire and relationship and you will start to focus on the value and timing of selling your business.