9 Moving on
There comes a unique stage in our relationships with our companies when it is time to leave. We will all move on from our companies at some point for various reasons: we hit retirement age, our business fails, we burn out, or we see that it’s a logical time to harvest some (or all) of the value we have built. We have heard stories of entrepreneurs who have decided, for all different reasons, to make a change and move on. There are a lot of ways to exit. We can merge with another company, go public, sell to our employees, find a financial buyer, or just pay off the bills and close the doors. But how do we know for ourselves when it’s time to leave? What is important to consider when thinking about a new ownership structure? How can we ensure that our values of social responsibility carry on? What if our business is failing and we need to shut down?
In this chapter, Lisa describes her values-driven focus on finding the right equity partner. Margot tells us about the challenges of selling her business to her employees. Carol tells us the truth about what happened when her company was on the brink of closing. And Gary gives us great advice about asking better questions and remembering that nothing is impossible.
Exiting with the Values in Place
LISA
One of the greatest pieces of advice I got from my advisory board was offered by John Leehman. He told me that the best way to run your company is to position it to be sold in three years. At the end of that time you can either sell it or emotionally “buy” it. I went through this process at the same time as Tami Simon from Sounds True Recording. At the end of the three years, I sold my company and she “bought” hers.
When I turned forty, I started to position my company to be sold. A myriad of circumstances were converging to confirm that it was time for me to leave. My customer base had consolidated into much bigger companies, and it was difficult to remain a regional supplier—we would need to be national or at least multiregional. My vendors and ingredient suppliers had also become larger as more and more big companies bought out the small guys and made an entry into organic products. My personal relationships with both customers and suppliers were disappearing as their organizations became more corporate. My company needed to be significantly larger, yet I had absolutely no interest in running a $200 million company. I also faced the reality that this business was not really my passion, and I was becoming more burned out, stressed, and unpleasant to be around.
I had to face that the time had come to leave, and I had to begin to let go of my positional power. I had been in this business since I was twenty-one years old, and my identity was very wrapped up in it. I wrestled with a lot of conflicting emotions as I was making my decision. My company was the largest woman-owned business in the state and one of the top ten fastest growing companies. I enjoyed being involved with local and state issues and having my opinion sought out.
I also had to start thinking about money differently. In a growing manufacturing company, anytime I had money I poured it back into the business. Have some money? Upgrade computers. Have some more money? Increase inventory. Borrowed some money? Replace aging equipment. But as I started to position the company to be sold, I had to place the focus back on myself and ask the question “How much is enough?” To support my family, cover health-care costs, give money away, and invest in new ventures, how much do I need?
I also needed to figure out how to exit the company so that it kept the same values of social responsibility that were embedded in my business every day. I couldn’t just abandon these principles on the way out the door. I made a list of all the values that would need to remain present to be sure I found the right buyer. When I first wrote the list, it was pages and pages long, but I kept refining and distilling it until I had four bedrock values.
My first value was a commitment to keep the jobs in southern Vermont. The jobs needed to continue to offer livable wages with good benefits. One of the core values of Vermont Bread Company had always been to provide livable jobs to the “bottom third” of our school system. These jobs allow people to care for themselves and their families in a workplace where the key value is respect.
The second value was that the buyer had to have a history of granting stock to employees. At my company, I often said we were running on “bootstrap and bank debt.” I was fortunate to have bankers that believed in me and that let me operate two years ahead of my balance sheet. I actually never knew what it was like to have a positive number in the checkbook because I lived in my line of credit. At one time my debt-to-worth ratio was 11:1. It was important to me to couple the new incoming equity investment with ownership for our key employees.
The third value was that the new owners had to maintain a commitment to certified organic production. Under my leadership, most of our new products for the past few years were certified organic, and this dedication to sustainable agriculture was critical to me.
The fourth value was that the new owners had to have enough money to realize the vision. I had met too many people with what I refer to as the “Wimpy strategy.” Remember Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons? “I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today.” We had already run this company without adequate cash, and that was one stress I wanted to take off my employees when I exited.
With those four values in mind, I was fortunate to work with a wonderful man, Steve Mintz, who found a buyer (actually a few buyers) who met all my criteria. Still, it’s always hard to know if you’ve made the right decision. A few months after I sold a majority interest of Vermont Bread Company, I led a tour through the plant. Many of my employees came up to me and said they were sad not to be working with me anymore. The opposite was also true, though—they thanked me for providing new opportunities for them in a much larger company. One brave woman pointed out that she appreciated how rested I looked; she had been worried to see me so burned out at the end.
Since I sold my company, I feel like I get younger and my energy lightens every day. I’ve joked that I would never, ever be an employer or an employee again. But who knows? I serve on boards, I am still employed by the private equity company that invested in Vermont Bread Company so that I can help with acquisitions, and I am writing this book. That seems to be keeping me out of trouble for now. As I “fade to black,” it feels, at least at this point in time, like it’s going as well as I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
Handing It Over to the Employees
MARGOT
In 1991 I began to ponder how my company could go on, how this complicated thing that had grown up over the years could survive without me. I had become a figurehead of the enterprise, and in order for me to move on, this had to change. The logical step for most entrepreneurs is to find a competitor that will buy the company. Several parties were interested, and I could have made a lot of money that way if a deal had worked out. But they weren’t really interested in the company as an ongoing enterprise; they were mostly interested in the brand name, which had become almost a household word. A well-known brand is a very valuable asset. As a brand extension, it can be put on all kinds of merchandise and can be very profitable. But we did not own the name—we only had the rights to use it in this country—so we couldn’t sell it. And I didn’t want to dilute the brand by putting it on unrelated goods. After all, it was a manufacturing brand, not just a marketing brand.
I asked Mr. Birkenstock whether he wanted to buy all or part of our company. He and his family discussed it and couldn’t come to an agreement. Finally, they told me that it wasn’t in their plan to own any foreign distributors. They wanted them to remain separate entities. At that point I decided to hand over the company to the employees. We already had an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) in place. We had a generous profit-sharing plan and had always funded it in cash. One year when no cash was available, I paid the plan with stock. It diluted my own interest, but my employees had helped me build the company, so I wanted them to share in the profits with me. By the time I was thinking of stepping out, the employees owned about 10 percent of the company, and I began to plan for them to acquire the company over time. I felt that would be the best answer—after all, as employees, they should be very much invested in the company’s future success. That next year I sold another 30 percent to the employees on a note with the promise of selling all when the first portion was paid off. The first portion was paid off about five years later. What happened after that is a long tale. I retired and gave up active leadership but stayed on as board chair. Things did not go as well as anticipated, and I had to learn once again that the best laid plans can fall apart. It is the nature of life.
People ask me why the employees didn’t do better as the company owners. The answer is not simple. Several events happened at the same time. First, Mr. Birkenstock retired the same year I did and handed the reins over to his three sons. The leadership change on both sides of the ocean put a real strain on relationships. The sons had created five different brands on the “footprint” of the Birkenstock design principle. When I was CEO, I had tried to market all five brands under the umbrella of the mother brand. When the sons took over, they started their own distribution companies in the United States for each of the brands, and this created a big problem for our new leadership, eventually eroding the relationship between Mr. Birkenstock’s sons and the employee-owned company here.
Another reason the employees struggled is that there is a big difference between having all the employees own the company versus having one owner in charge. While I was head of Birkenstock USA, I felt we developed a good ownership culture in our company. We had financial training for everyone, team-building sessions, and problem-solving forums. In theory, the employees should have felt the same ownership as I did, but when they actually owned the company, there wasn’t just one signature on the line of credit—one person wasn’t making promises to the bank that she had to uphold. It wasn’t as though one person’s house was on the line, making her respond quickly and effectively. Employees often don’t feel a personal connection to the fate of a company, and they wind up running it like any corporation.
Another thing that happened after I left was that the bank, which had been easy on credit, suddenly tightened the reins. At the same time, pressure from Germany to buy more led to inventory purchases that were too large. Cash became scarce. Bills couldn’t get paid on time. When the company couldn’t pay the bills, trust with the Germans eroded, much-needed sandal shipments were held up, and a chain reaction was set in motion that spelled trouble for everybody.
Three years after I sold the company, the situation had not im proved. The employees were having a lot of trouble. The youngest Birkenstock brother wanted to help. He was interested in the U.S. business and asked to buy a majority portion. Writing contracts back and forth took forever. When one side thought there was an agreement and all that was needed was a signature, the other side would say no, and someone would be very angry, so the deal would fall through. I saw that the company was going in the wrong direction, but I could do nothing to rescue it. It is very difficult to see your child “drown.” I was at a loss, and I felt that I had done the best I could. At that point I resigned totally, board and all. It was difficult—letting go is a grieving process, and it takes time to recover. It took me over a year before I could sit back and just watch what was happening with curiosity and objectivity.
The German company did finally buy the U.S. company. It was a new beginning. The ESOP is gone, but a more secure future is ahead. How do I feel about an ESOP? I still think it is an excellent vehicle to engage people in running a business because it helps them to look further into the future as opposed to focusing only on the immediate bottom line. It’s not easy having an ESOP, though. An ownership culture needs to be nurtured, which may be easier in a smaller company. Still, in the final analysis, it is not the size of the company but the commitment of the management team that makes it work.
Will I ever totally break free from Birkenstock? In all those years with the company, I had become “Mrs. Birkenstock” to the world and will probably always be remembered that way. Just a few weeks ago I was in San Diego, and I visited a Birkenstock specialty store near my hotel. I met a woman there who was trying on sandals. When she learned who I was, she practically screamed, “Thank you. You saved my life! I could never do without these shoes.” She went on to buy three pairs. Experiences like this make everything worthwhile. They warm my heart and make me feel like a success after all.
Would I do it again? You bet. I know so much more now, it would be easier sailing. The most important advice I have for you is this: It is lonely at the top. Stay open and keep learning. Get all the help you can. The final decisions will still all be yours, but a good advisory board is a mighty helper!
Getting Through the Last Stage (Laughter, a Gym, a Pond, and a Fling)
CAROL, PUTNEY PASTA
The end of my company began when we lost a big account we were dependent on and we had just burned through all our cash because of the low-carb craze. We had a couple of new prospects, but they didn’t last. I was dependent on make-or-break deals with two customers. I figured if we could get just one, maybe we could survive a little longer. It was a juggling act. I felt like I was getting bombarded everywhere. I really couldn’t find any more places to cut back. You can usually cut another few percent somewhere, but I felt like we were as trim as we could be. We didn’t have a big production staff to begin with. Only seven people were left, but they were a dream staff. If we cut back and then we got more business, we would have had to max out those few remaining people and eventually would have lost them because they would have burned out. Plus, if both of the accounts came in, I would have enough money to hire back the people we let go, and then they might not be available anymore. In the end, everyone stayed.
My employees showed up every day, and I showed up, too, because I felt that if I stayed home, I would be giving in to the fact that I was losing the battle. I have a very strong sense of responsibility to the business. My employees kept saying, “Are we going to make it? It’s not looking good.” A number of them came to me and said, “I’m here until the doors close, Carol.” They were great people. Even though I tried to put a positive spin on our situation, they knew what was going on. Still, I wanted them to know I wouldn’t quit easily. I wasn’t going down without a fight. So I kept the doors open. By showing up, I kept some hope alive that we could make something happen.
I’d arrive with a smile on my face because my being there provided a sense of comfort to the employees, but I could smile only long enough to get through the door of my office. Then I shut the door. I used to always have an open-door policy, but during that time, I never had my door open. I didn’t want to hear about the daily issues. The little idiosyncrasies that I would have overlooked before were magnified. I can’t tell you how many times I thought it would be easier to shut the doors for good and stop the pain, but I didn’t want to disappoint my two support team members, Lisa Lorimer and Steve Mintz. In my heart I didn’t think there was any way I could win the battle. It hurt so much. I wanted to be taken out of the misery of losing this company that I had worked twenty-two years to build. I just thought, “Kill me quickly.” It felt like a slow torture, like I was reading a book, and I wanted to go to the last page to see how the book ends. It looked like we were never going to get to the end. It was really hard to accept.
Once I came to terms with the fact that my company was not going to make it to the end of the year, all desire to stay connected started to diminish. I lost humor and kindness. I was sad, and that’s not me, I’m not a sad person, but I kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, twenty-two years, and I’m going to have to kiss it good-bye. Life isn’t fair.” I felt like I couldn’t fight to keep it going because no matter how much I fought for it, nothing would make a difference. I hit a wall. I didn’t want to be with anybody. I didn’t want to see anyone. I still went to work, but some days I’d come home, get on the couch, cover myself with a blanket, and just lie there. I wouldn’t put on music or news or anything. This lasted three or four months, through one whole winter. I felt if I got a good night’s sleep, which was rare, I would be okay. So I would take a sleeping pill, unplug the phone, and get into bed at eight o’clock. The next day I might wake up feeling much better, and I’d start the morning off great, ready to rally again. Then I would get to work and all the vendors would call and scream, the bank would pressure me, and my assistant would take the calls and say, “All I can do is take a message, and we’ll look into it and make sure it’s in payables.” I was dodging everyone. I don’t usually dodge issues because I know they don’t go away, but I just didn’t have the strength for it. By the end of the day I was ready to go back to bed and cocoon under my blanket.
At that point, I knew the stress was going to a new level, and that wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t doing anything with love— everything was just another responsibility. It was an overwhelming feeling. I was impatient with everyone: gas-station attendants, store clerks, whomever. I have an elderly mother, and I even lost my patience with her. I also have an amazing son. I have never had a fight with him in my whole life. He’s been very easy, and we’ve always had a really good relationship. He was the only one I enjoyed sharing time with. He knew everything that was going on. He was twenty-five years old and in sales for the company. I would call him and ask him to come down from Burlington when I needed his company. I could be open and honest with him, and he was very supportive. He would come home and say, “Okay, Mom, where’s my list? You got things you want me to do for you? Here, I’ll go stack some wood.” One day I realized I couldn’t share quite so much with him because he would have a hard time staying motivated in sales if I said, “What’s the point? We’re going to be out of business anyway.” I needed him to stay focused and motivated on the off chance that we did pull out of this, so I had to stop sharing with him. I had to try to put on a facade even for him. Sometimes I snapped at him. I didn’t like what I was turning into.
I had a wonderful network of friends, but they weren’t able to do much in terms of giving sound advice on the business side. I was telling everyone, “I’m not going to make it.” And everyone was saying, “You’re going to make it.” And I would say, “You don’t understand how bad it is this time. I’m not going to make it.” And they would say, “Oh, yes you are.” They thought they were supporting me.
Up to that point, my life had been pretty easy. I felt charmed. I’d never had major hurdles to overcome. I came from a good family. We were comfortable. I could go to whatever school I wanted to attend. Life was never hard. I always thought some guardian angel was looking out for me, telling me I was lucky. Whenever I got close to an edge, I would get pulled back. My lawyer and my bankruptcy attorney were always saying, “You are just so lucky, I don’t believe it. You’ve called me so many times to tell me you were almost out of business, and then it always turns out okay in the end.” They were right. I felt like that so many times, but this was the first time I was saying to my guardian angel, “Alright, what’s the plan here? How come this isn’t working out? What are you waiting for? Am I going to have a heart attack before you pull me out of this one?”
We were pursuing one potential buyer. It was a long shot, but I kept at it. The buyer finally made an offer to the bank to buy everything. It was a great offer, but in the end the deal fell through because I found out that my main competitor in natural foods had just been purchased by the largest distributor in the industry and I had to disclose that. Still, that news gave me hope because if my competitor could sell its company in this environment, then I probably could, too.
That hope was there, but what really got me through were a couple of good friends, a gym, a fling, and a pond. My two friends Lisa and Steve were the only people who didn’t feel like a risk to talk to. They were both business owners and understood the issues inherent in running a business. Lisa and I had a long history of being there for each other. We sat on each other’s advisory boards. We didn’t judge each other, and there wasn’t a sense of superiority about whose business was bigger, or who was the expert. We had a tremendous amount of regard for one another. We sort of flip-flopped on who had the issues and who was supporting whom at certain times. It wasn’t as if we were best friends outside of work, but the trust between us was deeper than in any of my other friendships. We were both in manufacturing, which has its own issues that are different from those of sales and marketing. So we connected at a peer level, which is a beautiful thing. When I told her something, I knew it wouldn’t go any further. Every day during this time, she and Steve would call me and make it their goal to get me to laugh at least once during the conversation. It was really healing for me to access that ability to go deep and find the laughter that was always there. No matter how dark it got, somehow that muscle or that spirit that was connected to laughter and resilience was still alive.
I had gained about thirty pounds during that time, and with Steve and Lisa’s encouragement, I hired a personal trainer and made myself go to the gym three days a week. I was committed because I had this trainer, and I never wanted to let her down. I had to have someone like her to hold me accountable or I would get off the highway in Putney and turn right and be home in ten minutes. If I went left I’d be at the gym in the same amount of time, and I would be there for an hour to an hour and a half, so it was really tempting to go right and go home. More often than not, when I didn’t have an appointment with Carla, I’d get to that crossroads and I’d go right because I felt like I needed to be home to be by myself. Being alone was my first choice, but the gym was much healthier and made me feel better in the end.
Another thing that helped was my winter fling. He was the first person I’d been with in thirty years besides my two husbands. I called him a transitional guy. That romance came at a perfect time. I still didn’t leave the house, but this fling lit my heart and brought some sparkle back. I’d been heavyhearted for a long time, and this helped hold the old car battery charge for a while. It made everything not as scary and more manageable. Before the fling, my life had been one dimensional. It was just work and sadness and fear. This was the only thing that could take my mind totally away. I didn’t think about the business for hours.
Then I also discovered the pond. The pond was sort of a metaphor for everything that was happening during that time. In the summer, I have to mow my lawn and my fields. I mow my fields with my tractor and my two acres of lawn with my riding mower. I have a reputation for mowing—that I will risk my life and limb for another two inches of lawn. One day, I was mowing down by the pond on my property. I’d been alone for this horrible autumn, winter, and spring, and that summer day I was thinking how gorgeous the place looked, yet I wasn’t really enjoying it. I hadn’t put the flowers on the deck; I hadn’t planted a garden because it felt too time-consuming. I had to be really careful what I did with my time because I had only two days a week at home, and there was always stuff to be done. It was a hot day, and I hadn’t been swimming all summer. I started to think how I had this pond as a resource but never used it because I always heard my mother’s voice in my head telling me never to swim by myself. That day I thought, “Forget it. If I drown, I drown—it will put me out of my misery. This pond is here, and I am going swimming.” I took off all my clothes and jumped in. I swam around for a bit and then I thought, “How am I going to get out of this pond?” The ladder didn’t work, but I managed to get up onto the dock, thinking, “Thank God no one is around.” But that day was my liberation. I realized that I had choices, and I get to make them. I had chosen to isolate myself and mourn. This first venture into the pond was a different kind of choice. The pond saved my life. When things were awful, every sunny weekend day I would go down there and go skinny-dipping, floating around on a raft for hours by myself, and that was the most calming, relaxing thing I did all week long. There is something about water.
What new entrepreneurs need to remember is that you will eventually recover and continue living. Life goes on. You will figure it out. One day after a good night’s sleep, when I’d had a few days respite from all the bombardments, I showed up at work, picked up the phone, and called every one of the vendors who had been calling and calling. Then I called the bank. I knew it was the right thing to do. I had wanted to do it before, but I hadn’t had the strength. I could do it now because I’d refueled—I’d gotten a little break and caught my breath. I had the strength to face what I needed to face. The people who had been calling were people I had done business with for a long time. Out of respect for them and for my own feeling of doing the right thing, I finally began dealing with it. I didn’t think I could possibly do it at that point, but I did.
I believed if the business closed, that would be one more public humiliation, but I didn’t have to face any humiliation because the business sold at the end. What a difference it makes to be able to say, “I sold my company.” Even if I got almost nothing for it, that was so much better than having to say, “We had to close the doors.” I don’t know for sure because I didn’t have to close my doors, but I think the difference in how it could have ended and how I would have felt are like night and day.
I feel like my knowledge is there and it’s being appreciated by the new owners. I don’t know if I would have gotten that same respect or if I would have felt that same confidence going in and helping a pasta company if I’d had to close the doors. I know a guy who’s running a pasta plant, and he’s already said, “Maybe one day you’ll come in and run my plant.” No, I won’t. I’d be happy to help him out, but I don’t want to go back to running a plant. Because I sold the company, there’s that respect, though. He can actually appreciate all that I know. Would he feel the same way if I said to him, “I’m looking for a job running a plant—I just had to close mine down”? I don’t know. It is all the same experience, all the same knowledge, all the same everything—except how the world perceives you. If you sell your company, whether it’s for a dollar or for ten million, to the public it’s all the same.
Now I’ve lost thirty pounds. I feel like I felt when I was twenty years old: emotionally lighter, lighthearted, free, happy, and upbeat.
Why Not?
GARY, STONYFIELD FARM
When I decided to try to get my shareholders an exit, I wanted to do it right. Stonyfield was my baby. It was my whole life. It was, at that time, eighteen years of work. I looked at the conventional choices that were available. One choice was to sell the company. I didn’t want to do that because I didn’t want to stop running it. I just wanted to get the shareholders their much-deserved liquidity. Another choice was to take the company public. After watching the experience of Ben & Jerry’s, I knew that taking it public was basically selling the company no matter how you sweet-talk and lather it on. I also looked at a DPO (direct public offering), but when I sat on the board of Blue Fish, another company that had been through that, I saw what a disaster it was. It was just a modified version of taking the company public. In the end, though, I had to learn the hard way—through my own process.
At first, I thought we would take the business public, and I put together a special board committee. We spent a year interviewing bankers. Eventually, we narrowed our choices down to two bankers. We spent about $100,000 or more during the process. The night before the special board committee was supposed to make the decision, I realized I didn’t want to do it, and I pulled out.
Our next choice was to start all over again by finding a banker who would help us create a joint venture. That was very different from our last search. The two bankers we had chosen would have been good if we had wanted to take the company public, but they were not right for a joint venture. We ended up picking a very different banker. I ultimately hired this particular one because when I told him what I wanted done and asked him, “Do you think I can do it?” he said, “I don’t know, but I’m willing to try.” That’s all I wanted to hear. After I chose the banker, I spent a year talking to prospects. The first person I sat down with was the head of M&A (mergers and acquisitions) at a large international food corporation. She was the first of many, many people from many different companies I would talk to. I told her what I wanted to do, and she literally laughed at me. She took her glasses off, set them in front of her, and said in her very heavy French accent, “That’s hilarious, Gary. You mean to tell me you want to sell me 80 percent of your company and still remain in control?” I said yes and she laughed again. She thought that was very funny.
The slogan “Nothing is impossible” is true—because I wound up achieving exactly what I set out to do when I closed the deal two years later. After a year of looking, we found two companies willing to do this deal. Most of the time I knew within ten to fifteen seconds of meeting the person sitting down in front of me that it wasn’t going to happen. Finally, we began negotiating seriously with these two companies. It took about two more years. The head of M&A was already gone by then. I called her up and said, “I just want you to know it really did happen.” She laughed again.
There’s knowing when to fold, but there’s also knowing when not to fold, knowing when to persist in finding success when all the doors seem to be leading to failure. I didn’t start with a solution. My process wasn’t linear; I learned while I went through it. I just kept asking better questions. That’s what got us to a better answer. I used my Hampshire College background. I always describe Hampshire as the perfect business school for entrepreneurs because you design your own curriculum, you don’t get grades or credits, and there are no requirements. You progress through a series of evaluations called modes of inquiry where your faculty members kick you into asking questions. They are constantly saying, “Have you asked this? Have you asked that? Have you thought of that?” The final product—the thesis or the business plan—is not the measure of success; the process of creating the plan is what’s important. I have three kids, and I tell them all the time that what they are learning today in school is going to be outdated before they blink. What I learned in my math and science classes as a kid is a tenth of what is out there today. We learned maps in geography that are completely obsolete now. But it doesn’t matter because gaining the information is not what’s important. To know is not enough. The goal of the learning process needs to be to gain the confidence that you can learn anything under any circumstances.
Now I counsel entrepreneurs who are facing that question: To sell or to close their doors? The fact is, there’s a different question out there: Why not? On the boards I sit on, those are my two favorite words. When someone says, “You can’t do this,” I say, “Why not?” And we inevitably come up with something. It’s not always a better solution, but you certainly get a different solution if you stick with that question.
What We Learned
When it is time to exit a values-based company, bringing our values to the forefront can help us make an exit that is in alignment with our original mission. Our entrepreneurs’ stories highlight a few ideas that helped them during this process:
Position your company to be sold in three years. At the end of the three-year period, either “buy” the company emotionally and recommit to it or begin the process of selling it.
Answer the question, “How much is enough?” How much will it take to pay off your debts, take care of your employees, support your family, cover health-care costs, do your philanthropy, and invest in new ventures? Write down the numbers and add them up.
Make a list of your core values that will lead you through the process. Start with a long list, everything you can think of. Then go through the list and find the bedrock values.
Identify the correct type of buyer for your company. Ask yourself if the right buyer is your employees, a competitor, a complementary company, a financial buyer, or a public offering. Try to find other companies that have sold in various ways and compare their processes.
Get a good team around you. The team may include members of your advisory board or not. Find the right people to give you the support you need. Whom you choose for the team will depend on your core values and whom you are targeting as a buyer.
Find a way to take care of yourself during this time. Float in a pond, laugh every day, go to a gym, sing, or do something else!
Keep asking better questions throughout the process. Remember to keep asking, “Why not?”
Laugh and Laugh and Then Laugh Again
Carol tells the story of talking to two colleagues every day when her business was the most troubled. They had a pact that every day during their phone calls together, they must belly laugh at least three times. It helps a lot.
PRACTICAL TIP
Float in Water
Any water will do—hot tub, pool, pond, ocean, bathtub.