When you start your own business, you hardly ever fast forward ahead to ask yourself: How do I transition my business to the next generation? And when the time is right, probably about 20-30 years down the road, most small business owners don’t have a clue as to the right way to go about handing the keys to the castle over to the new leaders…possibly leaders that you are related to…your children, the next generation.
Jack Mencini and Adam Sonnhalter, coaches with Maximum Value Partners (MVP) www.maximumvp.com and cohosts of the revered weekly radio show/podcast: Dirty Secrets of Small Business have found that with over 15 years of coaching small businesses, many of their clients usually approach this transition in one of three ways.

“You would be amazed that some owners we know said that their adult children could follow them around for about six months during the work days to get the hang of things and be ready to take over,” said Jack. “Adam and I call this the Osmosis Approach in that the owner believes that this next generation will breathe in the air around them and miraculously know what to do. It is a little like the old legend of sleeping with your text books before the big final and hoping that the knowledge on the pages would miraculously find its way into your brain. Everyone knows this doesn’t work and yet, the Osmosis Approach is alive and well, even though most folks know it doesn’t work well, when it comes to the young ‘uns successfully taking over running the business.”

The other factor in dealing with transition is called the Death Factor. Unfortunately, many owners feel that if they avoid the transition of power long enough, nature will take its course and they will die. When this happens, it won’t be their problem of how well their children are capable of keeping the business going successfully. This is not really a conscious choice, but we’ve heard some folks use the phrase “if” when talking about their eventual death vs. using the phrase “when”.
Maximum Value Partners feels that the third option is really the only one if you want a successful transition of your and that is the Planned Approach Factor.

In their 15 plus years of coaching small businesses, Jack and Adam have a stellar record of providing insight, direction and good counsel in helping business owners plan for the day that they shake hands with the new leader, give a goodbye salute to their team and walk out the door knowing that the company is in good hands. They also know that from planning with MVP, they have taken the multitude of necessary steps, which include the 7 Keys to Success http://maximumvp.com/7-keys-to-success/ in preparing and working with the next generation over a period of time to share the knowledge and insights on all nuances of the business.
The answer to how to transition is knowing that planning, preparation and open communications with the new leaders to be and including the entire team at your business are critical to the profitability and success when the new leaders take over and the original owner is no longer on the scene.

For the entire overview on how to transition your business successfully to the next generation, including how to deal with situations where multiple children are involved, listen to the January 23rd podcast. Access all the Dirty Secrets of Small Business podcasts on iTunes or at http://maximumvp.com/dirty-secrets-small-business-radio-show-podcast/

Do you have any How Questions of your own to email to Jack and Adam? Do it by sending your questions to radio@maximumvp.com or submit a question on their website at http://maximumvp.com/how/.
If you have a success story or a question you would like to share, email or call (radio@maximumvp.com or 877-849-0670). You can also call in during the show each week at noon (EST) – 1:00 pm on WINT 1330 AM, call 440-946-9468 to ask your question to the Maximum Value Partners’ coaches!

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Jack Mencini and Adam Sonnhalter, coaches with Maximum Value Partners (MVP) www.maximumvp.com know that small business owners are faced with numerous questions and challenges day in and day out. With over 15 years of coaching business owners (and having owned many small businesses themselves), Jack and Adam have heard all the stories and questions that plague the hard working owner.

Nearly all of these dilemmas and questions start with HOW? Such as: How can I make more profit? How much can I charge for my products or services? Many of these HOW questions repeat throughout the course of a business and MVP has heard them all!

On Dirty Secrets of Small Business in this week’s program, the HOW question they tackle is “How do I know when it is time to split with my business partner?” Through this segment, the hosts, Jack and Adam dissect this question, which was emailed to them from a business owner in Willoughby, OH.

To really get to the core solution, the coaches discuss how the situation may differ and how to strategically handle it depending on if the business partners are husband and wife, brother and sister (or any sibling partnership), another family relative like a cousin or distant relative or even a very good friend. Each dynamic will play out a little differently because with family issues, you need to concentrate on the deeper relationships such as saving the marriage and then saving the business.

In this week’s discussion, Jack and Adam also give insight on how it may be daunting for the retiring owner to hand the leadership of the company over to the kids. It is not usually that tidy in the passing of the baton if you haven’t thought all the ramifications and land mines through before taking the leap and throwing the keys to the new young leaders.

Many times a good course of action takes years and not weeks to have a successful and less stressful transition from the person who has built his or her whole life around the business and then is seeing (perhaps) a different leadership style (which is not wildly accepted) from the kids. All of the trauma and stress can be minimized if you turn to coaches like Jack and Adam who have navigated these treacherous waters with numerous small business owners for great outcomes.

For the entire overview on how to know when it is time to split with your business partner, listen to the January 16th podcast. Access all the Dirty Secrets of Small Business podcasts on iTunes or at http://maximumvp.com/dirty-secrets-small-business-radio-show-podcast/

Do you have any How Questions of your own to email to Jack and Adam? Do it by sending your questions to radio@maximumvp.com or submit a question on their web site at http://maximumvp.com/how/. Many of the How Questions can also filter back into the 7 Keys to Success to help you deal with these questions http://maximumvp.com/7-keys-to-success/

If you have a success story or a question you would like to share, email or call (radio@maximumvp.com or 877-849-0670). You can also call in during the show each week at noon (EST) – 1:00 pm on WINT 1330 AM, call 440-946-9468 to ask your question to the Maximum Value Partners’ coaches!

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On Dirty Secrets of Small Business, business coaches and entrepreneurs Jack Mencini and Adam Sonnhalter of Maximum Value Partners (MVP) www.maximumvp.com tackle the challenging questions that many small business owners face. In this week’s segment, Jack and Adam first discuss a client dilemma with a personnel issue of one employee “having feelings” for another employee, who did not take kindly to the additional attention.

The business owner turned to Adam for advice to see if the next step should be to talk to a labor attorney. Adam and his MVP client did some brainstorming in dissecting the details of the situation and decided that a call should be made to the labor attorney.

“In these situations, it is good to have a coach to talk you through the “what ifs” of the situation,” said Adam. “For many small business owners, there is no one that they can brainstorm with on critical issues. Jack and I do a lot of discussions and role playing with our MVP clients.”

For a good number of MVP clients, role-playing gives the business owner a chance to practice their communications and become comfortable with the strategic paths they are taking. “The client develops confidence with the position they are taking and the outcomes are usually very successful,” said Jack.

In this week’s show, Jack and Adam also cover the How Question of: How do I make more money? They go over the details of sales, revenues, profits and planning.

For the entire overview on How to make more money?, listen to the January 9th podcast. Access all the Dirty Secrets of Small Business podcasts on iTunes or at http://maximumvp.com/dirty-secrets-small-business-radio-show-podcast/

Do you have any How Questions of your own to email to Jack and Adam? Do it by sending your questions to radio@maximumvp.com or submit a question on their web site at http://maximumvp.com/how/. Many of the How Questions can also filter back into the 7 Keys to Success to help you deal with these questions http://maximumvp.com/7-keys-to-success/

If you have a success story or a question you would like to share, email or call (radio@maximumvp.com or 877-849-0670). You can also call in during the show each week at noon (EST) – 1:00 pm on WINT 1330 AM, call 440-946-9468 to ask your question to the Maximum Value Partners’ coaches!

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We find most business owners struggle to balance all the things vying for their attention. Everything from employees to customers to vendors to family and friends who want the owner’s attention. As a result, the business owners often find themselves in firefighting mode. With all these variables tugging at them, many struggle with staying focused on the right things. Jack Mencini and Adam Sonnhalter co-hosts of Dirt Secrets of Small Business and business owners themselves with Maximum Value Partners (MVP) (www.maximumvp.com) just might have insights and answers to your questions on being focused.

As the business owner, you should be focused on your primary job, which can be summed up in three simple words: Plan, Direct, Control. Given that definition, your primary focus should be your plan. As the owner, you should feel comfortable asking anyone in your organization, “What’s the plan?” One of the dirty secrets of small business is that most owners don’t have a plan. Instead they are in a mode of reacting to the daily rhythm of the business. We focus all of our business coaching clients on pulling together a plan based on the 7 Keys to Success (http://maximumvp.com/7-keys-to-success/), starting with the Profit Plan. How are you going to make money in your business this year? What could be more important that having a plan for this? As the business owner, this should be your primary focus and the thing that drives your daily activity.

Jack also commented that one of the things some business owners wrestle with is the boredom that comes with overseeing a well-run company. This might sound a bit crazy to those who have never experienced this, but when things are going well and you have good people on board to run your business, things can get a bit boring. Especially compared to those “good old days” when you were in constant firefighting mode! Helping the team achieve the Profit Plan can be very energizing and provide tremendous focus for both you as the owner as well as your team.

For more insights on being focused and getting stuff done, listen to the entire podcast. Access the podcasts on iTunes or at http://maximumvp.com/dirty-secrets-small-business-radio-show-podcast/

Do you have any How Questions of your own to email to Jack and Adam? Do it by sending your questions to radio@maximumvp.com or submit a question on their web site at http://maximumvp.com/how/. Many of the How Questions can also filter back into the 7 Keys to Success to help you deal with these questions http://maximumvp.com/7-keys-to-success/

If you have a success story or a question you would like to share, email or call (radio@maximumvp.com or 877-849-0670). You can also call in during the show each week at noon (EST) – 1:00 pm on WINT 1330 AM, call 440-946-9468 to ask your question to the Maximum Value Partners’ coaches!

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