This is a topic around business, and a topic I’ve had several times in the last week when I’m talking to business owners about their business model and how they actually want to get out of their business so they can become the authors of their own story. Oftentimes what happens is a business owner’s building the business as a solopreneur and they surround themselves by key people, yet they haven’t been able to take themselves out of the business. In fact, even a worst case scenario, they branded their business around their skill sets and about their name. Now their business is synonymous with them.
This has happened to Tony Robbins, for example, in the personal development field, but this has also happened to one of my clients who was also a coach, as well as another one of my clients who owns a furniture store. What they’ve done is they’ve narrowed themselves in. They didn’t build their business for success or an exit strategy. This is something I recommend all business owners consider. Build your business so you can sell it. Maybe you don’t want to sell it, and that’s fine, but by building your business so you could sell it, so you’re building it as if you’re going to sell it, this gives you a whole variety of opportunities.
One of those key opportunities is pulling yourself out of the business so you stop being the bottleneck of that business and you can go out and you can travel. You can be the author of your own story. Heck, you can start another business if you’d like to if you’re crazy like me, but each person, this gives you more leverage. Each person makes their own decision, but if you’re in the business and you are the roadblock to that business, you can never sell it.
For example, if you’re going to buy Doug Holt Online, you’re going to buy Doug Holt Online, what are you really buying? Yeah, I have revenue, but it’s all based on my brand. That’s not a business that’s built to sell. Whereas if you were to buy something like Kmart or Target, these are businesses that are built on solid principles and not one person in mind. You could own a yoga studio, you could own a furniture studio, you could be a consultant, and you could be in the field of finance. Building your brand around the actual brand concepts and around … Instead of services, building them to products allows you to pull yourself out and actually have an exit strategy. While this may not be, again, your strategy for right now, this allows you so much more leverage over time.
I see this so often where I get the call from the business owner who’s fed up and they want to invest in coaching. They want to invest in coaching because they’re so fed up with their lifestyle. They want out of their business and they want to sell it. Of course, as a business owner, you want to sell it for 5X revenue or more because you know how much value’s in there, but me as an investor, I’m looking at your net income. I’m looking at what I can get out of that business. Chances are, they’re not going to meet at the same place unless you built your business to sell. If you’re selling services, turn them into products.
There’s a great book called “Built to Sell”, and I highly recommend it if you’re in this situation. Of course, you want to also systematize your business. Then you have books like “The Checklist Manifesto”, “The E Myth”, “Traction”. These are business books that can help you along your way, but either way you’re looking at this, what I want you to do as a business owner is grab your journal, or your laptop because this is going to be a process, and look at your business as if you’re an outside investor. You don’t know what you don’t know about the business. Can you pull yourself out? Can you extract yourself from that business and replace yourself with one or two key employees or key staff members? If you’re going to replace yourself, what’s that going to cost? That’s going to have an effect to the net of your business, the net revenue being brought in. If you’re building it to sell it, if you’re building it properly, you’re able to pull yourself out of that business at any time when you need to. That is the key to being the author of your own story.
This is a very simplified version of a very complex subject, but I want to introduce it to you because it comes up so often in conversations with me when I’m talking to business owners. I want this to be something that you’re ahead of. If you don’t have a business yet, but you’re thinking about starting one, this is a great place to start because you start with your exit strategy first, and as you design and build your business structure, you’re able to come at it from a different angle. You’re able to come at it with the idea that you’re able to go in, build the business, but be able to pull yourself out. This also helps your staff because they’re not always coming to you being the control freak, the roadblock, or whatever it is in the pipeline to actual growth and expansion.
That’s it from me today. I’d love to hear from you and continue the conversation on our Author of Your Own Story private forum, but of course, remember, build your tribe. I can’t emphasize this enough. Do the work and build your tribe. Share this with at least three people right now that you think would benefit from this and just have the conversation. Have a conversation with them and open up. That’s it from me today. Go out and be the author of your own story.
If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
Loading...
