sjsmith.com.au - blog

What to do at the end

When you first start your business you're not even thinking about the time when you will finish up.  You're so focused on growth and sales and marketing and the thousand other things you need to do in order to keep things running.  I talk quite a lot about future planning and theres a good reason for it.  The sooner you start implementing plans for long term goals the easier things are for the future.  Recently, I talked about financial and wealth planning.  The earlier you get your finances organised the easier your future will become.  The same is true for succession planning.  The earlier you can start to think about how and when you exit your business the easier that path will be.

Do you have a strategy if you or one of your primary staff get sick or even worse?  If you've been working in your business for a number of years it may be your primary source of income.  Do you have adequate insurance - both life and income protection - if you're unable to work?  Would you or your family be able to manage without your income? 

If you're over 40 have you thought about when you’d like to retire and what will happen to your business when you do?  Do you have a successor in mind to take over?  Will you sell the business as a going concern?  Will you liquidate the assets and wind the business up?  Do you need to think about things like notice for employees, suppliers or clients?

If you're planning to sell, do you have strategies in place to maximise the sale price? If you've got someone in mind to succeed you, do you plan on staying on at all or handing the reins over completely?  Is your successor fully trained to take over?

Drafting exit and emergency strategies may seem like an unnecessary step or even tempting fate but, like making will, the clearer your plan, the better chance of your wishes being followed.  Look at it this way, you've spent a good portion of your life building this business to what it is.  Don't you want to be the one who decides what happens to it in its next phase?

Till next time,

Sarah-Jane X