You SELL Your Business, Now What?

I came across this article recently, making the very valid point that:

“Selling your business is a landmark event, often accompanied by emotions ranging from sheer joy to deep regret.  Proper planning can help ensure this is a time to be celebrated—years of hard work have paid off!—by alleviating the stress and anxiety related to your exit.”

And then it went on to discuss the virtues of this, but from a purely financial position only. There is so much more to selling a business than just the financials!

The very reason you’re selling it would indicate that. If it is just about “cashing in your Super”, then so be it. But what if it’s about:

  • getting out of a business partnership that no longer serves you or what you want to achieve with the business?
  • failing health being the prompt?
  • you actually wanting to do the something else you’ve always dreamed of doing, before it’s too late?

And just as importantly, what if this has been your “identity” for many years? What about this cash machine that you built, which has fed and clothed and schooled you and your family? This is not a decision to be taken lightly, or quickly.

These require just as much thinking as the financial considerations, especially when pulling on the heartstrings. Don’t let your head be the only ruler in this decision making process…

The Promise of Entrepreneurship… is bigger always better?

We are made to believe that when it comes to business success, bigger is always better. In our super-sized, consumption-oriented culture, not even small business is exempt from the pressure to grow for growth’s sake. We fixate on top-line revenue growth and increasing numbers of employees and locations. We pepper entrepreneurs with questions such as, ‘What are your plans for expansion? What’s next? How many cities will you go to?’ instead of asking what their goals are or why they started their business in the first place. When talk about growth we focus on speed, not sustainability. When we talk about success we focus on size, not satisfaction.

So much so that entrepreneurs doubt their own success and skill if they aren’t pursuing the largest form of their business possible. We’ve talked with countless business owners who run profitable ventures, make a good living, enjoy what they do every day, and have significant impact in their industry—but who also hesitate to call themselves successful. Why? Because their companies could be bigger, or they decided not to open several more locations, or they don’t have the largest market share—even though these are not the things that they want.

We believe that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is an alternative that is both rewarding and attainable—it just requires rethinking things a bit…

Another gem from ChangeThis.com by Adelaide Lancaster

The Micropreneur Manifesto: How to Stay Solo, Bleed Passion, and Build Products that Matter…

By Rob Walling for ChangeThis.com.

Single founders creating products for niche markets are known by another name: micropreneurs.

Micropreneurs may write software. They might design themes for a blogging platform. They may produce exquisite wedding invitations, or how-to books. Micropreneurs are agile, inspired, independent, knowledge seekers who can’t live with the 9-to-5 status quo.

If this resonates with you, read on. This manifesto attempts to distill the key points you’ll need as you begin your micropreneur journey.

I learned every one of them the hard way…

Again, whilst I’m not fussed on yet another version of the entrepreneur tag, Rob offers plenty of good stuff to assist in alleviating start-up pain that we have all experienced in some form or other. Enjoy!

A Human Journey: From Agricultural to Entrepreneurial…

Ken Phillips (Exec. Dir.) and the team at “>Click here for the full article:

Some of Simon’s observations include:

“… entrepreneurial economies [are] based on knowledge and ideas rather than economies of scale.”

“There are big differences between the former industrial ‘managed’ economies and the new ‘entrepreneurial’ economies.”

“One outcome is that, while a managed economy favours large businesses and corporate managements, an entrepreneurial economy offers more advantages for small businesses and more opportunities and rewards for entrepreneurs.”

“Although there may be clear signs that the successful economies of the future will be entrepreneurial economies, a lot of our thinking has not caught up with this and is still derived from assumptions which were more appropriate to the earlier second-wave Fordist era when big business ruled.”…

Entrepreneur Families Produce Entrepreneurs…

As reported by Ken Phillips (Exec. Dir.) and the team at Independent Contractors of Australia

Daddy, where do entrepreneurs come from? Well son (Daughter), a daddy entrepreneur and a mummy entrepreneur who love each other very much…” Um! John Findley’s submission to the review of Business Immigration in Australia makes an interesting point in a light-hearted way.

John says (more seriously): “…compared to wage earner families, entrepreneur families produce significantly more entrepreneurs.” That is, countries that bring in entrepreneurs though migration create more entrepreneurs. John says that the current Australian migration rules encourage this and shouldn’t be changed. John has supplied us his submission:
http://www.contractworld.com.au/pages/PDFs/John-Findley-Visa-submission.pdf

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