So I attended a conference in Las Vegas at the end of May 2022. The conference was about “How to grow your YouTube channel”, shout out to Shawn Cannel and the Think Media team. https://www.thinkmedia.video/ The big takeaway I got from the conference is to niche down to separate yourself from the market.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about my niche in the business world. I love talking about business and all things business, but I think I can help people the most by talking about selling their businesses and how I was able to sell my two businesses.
Also, I think if I interview others that have gone through this same process of selling their business and find out how they invest their proceeds or how to start another venture. This will be great for my audience.
Let me know in the comments if this is something you would like to see more of.
- I’m not a retiring kind of guy.
- There is never enough money
- Learning to relax.
- Be in a better business.
- Concentrate on your core thing.
- Sell at the top.
- You have to decide to sell.
- Use an attorney that specializes in selling businesses.
- To get top dollar, have all of your books in order.
- Be flexible and don’t make it personal.
So let’s get into it. Top 10 things I learned from selling my businesses.
1. I’m not a retiring kind of guy.
So for those of you that have no idea who I am. I owned a wholesale bakery at the Jersey shore for over 30 years. It’s been a few years since I sold the bakery and I don’t regret that for a moment.
The bakery was very good to me and my family but it really beat me up over the years. As a wholesale bakery, we ran 24/7 which meant at any time of the day I had employees working either baking to make the bread or driving to deliver it.
That was a constant mental drain. So although I’m pleased to have removed myself from that grind I realize I am looking for a new challenge to feel fulfilled. This is why I started this Blog and my Youtube channel.
I get to share my experiences over the years to help business owners and aspiring business owners not make the same mistakes I did. Writing this all down and talking about it in my videos is weirdly therapeutic.
2. There is never enough money.
Please don’t jump all over me for this one. Money at its core doesn’t drive me but freedom does. And even though some people would look at my bank accounts and say why would you still be working I feel like it can all run out at any time.
Personally, I am glad I feel that way it keeps me striving to be better. I am working on relaxing just a little bit because I have two terrific young children that I really want to be present for in these next few years because I will never be able to get these years back.
This time around I am going to focus on a balanced life. That is easier said than done but I more than most realize we are on this ride called life for a very short period of time.
3. Learning to relax.
This is a tough one. I don’t have hobbies, I’m not a big beachgoer, I don’t really drink and I have never done drugs so I guess I’m kinda a buzz kill. That being said I truly believe that the key to a great life is balance. So I really have to practice relaxing and enjoying what I actually built.
I watch my friends go to the beach, go golfing, and spend time on their boats. Work was always my hobby (yes I know that is not healthy, Karen) I’mm trying over here cut me a little slack.
4. Be in a better business.
The fact that my bakery took so many hours of my life and I really didn’t make any more money than I would have if I operated a different business. For example, we owned an ice cream store.
Even though the ice cream store did 12 times less revenue than the bakery the profit margins were much higher. What did that mean we’ll I had to work so much harder to make money with the bakery than with the ice cream store.
Think about the business you are going to go into. Is it high margins and a great business that you don’t need a lot of employees to operate i.e. an internet business or is it low margins and high help intensive? Obviously, by this rhetorical question, I would not go into the wholesale baking business again.
5. Concentrate on your core thing.
This is a huge lesson I learned. Being all things to all people is not a great way to grow. Yes Amazon sells everything and it’s mother now, but when he started Jeff sold Used books and only used books.
Then once he had a loyal customer base he started selling more things. I will bring up our ice cream store on this point. When we opened the store we could have sold all kinds of things sandwiches, Nick Nacks, you name it but after failing in the restaurant business several years before I knew if people were confused about what the core business was they just wouldn’t come. We focused on the fact that we were an ice cream store. That served us well in building a great business that we were very successful in selling.
6. Sell at the top.
My father, unfortunately, passed away extremely young at 49 so he wasn’t around long enough for me to really learn a lot of his life lessons but one life lesson I learned early was to sell at the top.
My mom and dad’s restaurant was very popular in the ’80s when people had a ton of money and everyone wanted to impress their friends by dining at fancy restaurants. So my dad had a special gift of making high-end food that people loved.
I can remember people talking to my dad about selling the restaurant and my dad laughing. Fast forward a few years and the economy went to crap and my dad looked into selling but by that time the numbers didn’t make sense for someone to buy it.
Be like Sinfield and go out on top. We were very fortunate to sell both businesses when they were flourishing.
7. You have to decide to sell.
This sounds like a no-brainer, duh john, you obviously have to decide to sell. No Carl u actually have to decide.
How many of you go through a shitty day or month or quarter in your business and say I gotta sell this thing. Well, I did that for years. Once I got cancer and was told to get my affairs in order I decided I Am SELLING.
Once I made that decision I got rid of all my limiting beliefs. Like no one is going to buy my business or if I sell then what am I going to do? And so on. I put my head down started calling prospective buyers and was not going to stop until I got the business sold.
8. Use an attorney that specializes in selling businesses.
I’m a pretty thrifty guy and I really don’t like spending money where I don’t have to but having the wrong attorney can really be detrimental especially if the deal goes bad later.
I was fortunate with the sale of the bakery to have hired a terrific law firm and I thought I paid too much which was over $20k but it turned out to be the right choice in the end. After the deal closed I was in an earn-out contract and the new owner was going completely against everything the contract stated he must do.
I told the purchaser once I’m fully paid you can do whatever u want with the company but until that time he had to follow the contract. He didn’t, we enforced the contract and threatened to sue and in the end, we settled. Without my attorney team, I feel I would have gotten almost nothing. And because I had the right attorneys I received pretty close to the full amount of the contract.
9. To get top dollar, have all of your books in order.
When we sold the Ice Cream store we were asking for the top of the market in price. We knew we could get this amount because we had the books to back up the numbers.
Most people selling a small business don’t have great records. We were complimented several times by buyers that were impressed with the type of records we kept. Sales, employees, weather, inventory.
All of these things make it easier for the buyer to analyze if they want to buy your business and it makes it much easier for them to come in and run things once the deal sells.
10. Be flexible and don’t make it personal.
So many small business owners have poured their heart and soul into their business over the years so when it comes to negotiating they get defensive. To be honest this absolutely happened to me and I was able to realize it was nothing personal.
People are just trying to get the best deal for themselves which is exactly what I would do.
Conclusion:
Being in business was some of the best years of my life. There are definitely things I would have done differently but it seems to have worked out for me despite myself. This go around I will be much more strategic in choosing what business I go into and I will definitely build my next business with the thought process that I am going to sell it. The reality is if you sell your business or not, building it to sell just creates a better business than if you were just building it for yourself.
