Monthly Archives: July 2018

How Do I Know I’m Ready To Sell My Business?

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If you’re a business owner and you haven’t thought about when you want to sell your business, or you haven’t thought about it in a while, here’s a sign that you should be thinking about it.  As we know, most people don’t start or buy a business with an “exit plan” in mind, but it’s something that you as an owner should be thinking about on a regular basis.  Because if you haven’t thought about it, how do you know if you’re ready to sell?

While this is an easy question to ask, it’s certainly a hard one to answer.  Perhaps a good place to start is giving you a few reasons for why you’d want to sell your business.  These could include:

  • Being Backed Into A Corner: maybe you have a partner and you can’t stand working with this person any more or you’re just simply worn out from the day-to-day (or decade-to-decade) grind of owning and running your business;
  • Unsolicited Offer: maybe the idea of selling wasn’t even anywhere near your radar, but you’ve been approached by someone who is interested in purchasing your business; or
  • Planning and Ready: maybe you’re in the minority of business owners and you’ve actually been not only thinking about this but actually laying some plans down to sell and executing on these plans. Things like getting a core team in place to run the business when you’re not around.

So if you’re in any of these above situations, how do you know if you’re actually ready to sell?  A big factor in being ready to sell is that you know what you’re going to do next.  And it doesn’t have to be “retiring” but instead could involve another business venture, but could also include family stuff and hobbies.  You might just be ready for a change.  Or that unsolicited offer might just be the right price for you to walk away from it all.

Whatever your particular situation, we share several stories of clients or ours in tonight’s show and we know some of them will relate to you.  Enjoy!

People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show

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How Do I Fire Someone?

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No matter how long you’ve been in business or how many times you’ve done it, firing an employee never gets easy.  In fact, we have found that short of outright theft, most small business owners will do just about anything to delay firing someone.  Even when they know logically that it makes sense to fire someone.  The very real emotions of the thing can often get in the way.

In tonight’s episode we don’t focus on how do you determine whether or not you should fire someone.  That includes things like lists of pros & cons, annual and quarterly reviews, etc.  Instead, we focused tonight on how do you actually do it.  What does the event look and sound like?  What message do you deliver to the individual and the rest of the team?  How long do you allow for a transition?  Do you allow the person time to find another job or do you escort them out at the end of the day (or something in between)?  Who is going to pick up the tasks this person was doing (short-term and long-term)?  Should you offer a severance package, and if so, how much?  Don’t even get us started on all the HR stuff for what should you be documenting to protect yourself and your company in case you get sued!

The answers can be very different to each of these questions depending which category the employee falls under.  For example, is the person:

  • Family: these involve the strongest bonds/emotions/relationships and you will likely have to see this person again (e.g. family get togethers, holidays)
  • Long-Term Employee: these often involve tremendous bonds built over years or decades where you know them and their families pretty well and you may even be friends with this person, but unlike family, you will likely not see this person again after they are terminated.
  • Short-Term Employee: while this may seem like the easiest one since you haven’t had the chance to form significant bonds with this person yet, this is the case where you might find yourself being the most introspective and applying blame to yourself. You will likely ask yourself if you could have helped this individual more or managed them better or put them in a better situation to succeed.

No matter what the situation, it’s not easy when it comes to firing someone, especially in a small business where people aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet.  Much of the guidance you’ll find out there is geared toward bigger companies and we know small business is a bit different and typically more humane (and human).  Take a listen to tonight’s show as we shared several different client stories that fall into each of the above categories.  We’re sure at least one will relate to your current situation or one you’ve been in before.

 

People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show

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How Do I Lead In A Time of Crisis?

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While at times in business you will be faced with situations that seem like they could be life or death, it’s rare that your actual life will be put in danger.  But that doesn’t make the current crisis seem any less critical or threatening.  During tonight’s show we discussed several business lessons that can be gleaned from the recent rescue mission to save the 12 young soccer players and their coach from a cave in Thailand.

There are several things that were done, especially from a leadership standpoint that can help you as a leader in times of crisis.

  • Stay Calm
  • Plan
  • Act
  • “Not To Do” lists are often more important that “To Do” lists
  • Be Open to Help
  • Stay Positive

During the show we share not only how the rescue team used these skills but also shared stories of how our clients implemented many of these Leadership styles to successfully navigate their ways through a crisis.  We also shared some stories that didn’t go so well because they weren’t following these Leadership qualities.

 

People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show

 

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How Do I Know If Someone Is Doing A Good Job Or Not?

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As silly as the question might sound, how do you know if someone is doing a god job or not?  How do you really know?  Is it based on a gut feel?  As the owner and boss, you often aren’t aware of all the details of how things are going day-to-day.  It can be different for a key manager in your business vs. one of the more junior folks on staff.

We try to keep things as simple as possible for our business owner clients.  This starts with giving them clarity on what their role or job description is as the owner.  Three simple words: Plan, Direct, Control.  When in doubt as the owner for what you should be doing, focus on those three words.

When it comes to judging whether someone is doing a good job or not it starts with the Plan.  What goals did you have for this person and their role in the company?  Is it clear to both you and them?  How are you able to measure the results?  Have you provided clear Direction?  Did you hear them feed back that direction to you so you know you’re on the same page?

The Control part comes through a series of regular meetings and reporting.  If you have good communication, chances for success increase exponentially!  A couple of simple clarifying questions.  Based on what you know today, would you hire this person again?  If this person came in and gave you their 2-week notice, would you be secretly relieved or distraught?

People, Companies and Resources We Mentioned in the Show

Good to Great by Jim Collins  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_to_Great

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