[now what?]
MOST BUSINESS OWNERS have a quick answer when asked what they?d do if they sold their company: travel, write a book, volunteer, or perhaps the most common reply, buy or start another business.
The knee-jerk responses are the kind of thing owners daydream about, when things aren?t going so well. But when the time actually comes, ?what?s next? becomes less obvious, as several stories in this month?s issue make clear.
For all the nuts-and-bolts items that we cover in our special package on exit strategies, the more difficult question may be the simple yet existential: Now what?
Jack MacBean tells about his journey to retirement from Ostbye & Anderson, the local jewelry manufacturer. At first he had no intention of leaving the firm that he?d led for 30 years. He went to a ?transitions breakfast? for business owners, sponsored by Steve Coleman of the Platinum Group, simply because he liked Coleman, not because he wanted out.
Eventually he brought on his son, Craig, who had built a successful career with other corporations, and the picture started looking different, so much so that he exited his company a few months ago. He recommends two things: a sabbatical, to be used as a testing platform that?s not as scary as a wholesale resignation; and a clean break when you do leave, because the outgoing management just interferes with the new.
(Coleman says it?s important to hammer out in meetings details of the new arrangement, for example, how much information the outgoing CEO will get, and in what format. For MacBean, that means he gets quarterly updates that he uses at board meetings, which he still chairs.)
Most important, MacBean says, when the passion fades it?s time to pass on the business.
Karen Oman, who sold Certes Financial Pros late last year, tells Upsize she didn?t organize her exit, as so many advise, but rather let it happen organically. Stay away for a month, she says, then stay away for six months, then stay away for a year, and if things are still going OK, you?ve got an exit strategy.
But she also credits more deliberate planning as reasons for her successful sale: her staff, who stepped up and took over for her weaknesses; great advisers, especially her investment banker who guided her through the sale; and her CFO, who went to a conference and came back with the industry scoop that if she ever wanted to sell, now was the time.
Now she wants to be a role model for other baby boomers retiring while they?re young, and that no doubt will be an organic process as well.
Dan Buettner, founder of Quest Network Inc. and the subject of this month?s Back Page interview, may have the best answer to the question, what?s next: keep pursuing your passions your entire life. ?I didn?t start out to be an entrepreneur,? he tells Upsize. ?I?m first and foremost an explorer. I do what I?m passionate about and then find out how to make money.?
That sounds like a good motto, as is the answer given by one business owner when asked what she would do after selling her business. ?I would create something else,? she says, then repeats it, more emphatically. ?I would create something else.?
? Beth Ewen
Editor and co-founder
Upsize Minnesota
bewen@upsizemag.com
