Selling a business in Amarillo can be overwhelming. You probably want to be sure that your company will be in good hands after you leave. Don’t wait until after you’ve decided who your buyer will be to make sure that your most important employees remain loyal to you and the business. By then it might be too late. An Amarillo business evaluation is a great first step to ensure you receive a purchase that makes sense. An independent business evaluation will support the company’s business plans and enabled you to attract a good buyer. If you’re thinking about selling your Amarillo company, consider taking the following precautions.

How to Be Sure You Are Leaving Your Business in Good Hands

Most business owners are considering several options for the future of the ownership of their businesses. If you’re keeping your options open, that is typical. But business owners who end up selling their businesses to an outside, unrelated buyer often report that they wish they had known more about what the sale process would be like, and that they wish they had spent more time (years) preparing. So, whether you are actively looking for a buyer right now, or if a sale is only one possibility you’re considering for the future, it’s important to take steps today that could be helpful in a future sale. Generally, there will be a lot to think about after getting an Amarillo business evaluation and putting the company on the market. Anything you can do today to make that process easier is well worth the effort.

If You Love What You Do, Why Should You Make Plans to Leave?

Many Amarillo business owners love the companies they’ve founded, whether it’s because of the work they do, the changes they affect, the money their companies provide, or something else. When you carve out a comfort zone within your business, you might question why you would want an Amarillo business evaluation and plan for your business exit. Let’s look at a few reasons why owners who love their companies should still make plans to leave.

Post-business life usually doesn’t get cheaper

For many Amarillo business owners who intend to leave their businesses before they die, financial security is an absolute must. While you run the business, you pull a salary. You might use perks like company vehicles, insurance, and travel. These things are captured in the business evaluation. Perhaps you take advantage of your personal clout as a successful business owner. Once you exit the business—by choice, death, or otherwise—those things tend to go away.

A strange but relatively common mind-set for Amarillo business owners is the idea that they can cut back on their spending once they’ve exited. This is almost never the case. If you exit by choice, you’ll likely spend at least 75–90% of what you spent when you owned the business. You may want to travel, or lavish your family with gifts, or set your grandchildren up for college: all without the safety net of a steady income provided by the business. An Amarillo business evaluation shows you all of the areas, other than just owning the company, where you benefited and had access to ‘hidden income’. 

In short, post-business life is usually as costly as life before the exit. Even if you don’t intend to exit for 5–10 years (which is what many Amarillo owners say they intend to do), you’ll likely need to know whether you can maintain your current lifestyle once you do leave.

You can begin to determine your financial situation in a few ways. You can establish your goals and estimate what it will cost to achieve those goals. This should be considered in tandem with your business evaluation so your goals match your expectations. You can determine the gap between the money you have and the money you need to achieve those goals. You can also compare that gap to the company’s current value, then begin installing Value Drivers that allow you to sell or transfer the business for the amount you want and need.

All of this requires time. So, even if you love your company and don’t see yourself leaving for several years, or even decades, it’s likely in your interest to start planning for that eventuality. Because post-business life usually doesn’t get cheaper. An Amarillo business evaluation may not seem cheap, however, it is one of the best resources you can provide yourself for retirement planning.

Planning lets you focus primarily on what you love

Many Amarillo business owners often find themselves doing things they never imagined doing within their businesses. Some of those unexpected activities are things they’d rather not be doing. For example, an introverted owner might find that she needs to be the face of the company. A key focus of planning is finding the best people for the right job so that you don’t have to be everything to everyone. 

A common way to do this is to find or train next-level managers. Next-level managers take on many of the responsibilities you likely find yourself stuck with. Oftentimes, those next-level managers can handle those responsibilities better than you can, if for no other reason than you simply aren’t too passionate about those responsibilities. This advice could be taken for your professional advisors too. You wouldn’t plan on going to a general doctor for heart surgery any more than you should plan on going to a general CPA for an expert business evaluation. Make sure your professional advisors take on the responsibilities that you need and feel stuck with.

Life goes on

About 10% of Amarillo owners say that they want to die at their desks. Surely, planning is unnecessary for them, right?

That’s usually not true. Even owners who plan to die at their desks often have people or causes they care about that the business directly affects. You may have family members who rely on the business to maintain their lifestyles. Without proper planning, what happens to them? You may want to assure that after you die, your employees still have jobs (or a safety net that gives them time to find new ones). What happens to them without proper planning? A business evaluation is a key step in the planning process that helps you align your personal, family, and post-sale goals. 

Even if you plan to die at your desk, planning for future success can still be valuable to you. You can install business continuity plans that can give people you care about direction regarding what happens to the business once you die. You can install next-level managers whose goals and managing styles line up with your values-based goals. You can even help your family continue to maintain their lifestyles without the business.