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For years, my Exit Planning goal was to get out of my business on my terms. But I didn’t act until I saw the consequences of inaction staring me in the face.” –A Former Business Owner
“I believe that my exit from my business will most likely occur as a result of planning and action items that I implement.” —80% of respondents to The BEI 2016 Business Owner Survey
Most business owners know that they need to plan for their business exits.
Once they begin the Exit Planning Process, they often find relief in the actions they can take to assure a financially independent exit. Why then do fewer than 20% of owners have a written Exit Plan?
BEI’s experience with Exit Planners and statements from business owners themselves suggest that it is unrealistic to expect owners to act on their own initiative or even at the suggestion of an advisor. For any number of reasons, most business owners push Exit Planning to an unset, later date. But some owners do act. Why? For insight, let’s look at the situation of Miles Smith (a pseudonym for a representative owner).
Inaction: A Common Reaction to Solid Advice
Miles Smith owned a successful environmental remediation company. At age 62, he knew he needed to do something to prepare for his business exit. He first met with his financial planner, who referred him to Sally Campos, an Exit Planning Advisor .
During their first meeting, Sally did two things: First, she summarized the Exit Planning Process using examples from prior Exit Planning engagements. Second, she described the relationship between transferable value and Miles’s role in the business. Sally then asked Miles which role he played in his company’s major decision-making actions.
“Just about everything that matters goes through me,” Miles said proudly.
Sally knew that Miles’s role in his business would need to change if it were to have transferable value, and she shared her thoughts with Miles. Miles knew that he needed to do something to make sure that his company would still be valuable without him, and he even told Sally that he agreed with her. But after he left Sally’s office, he did nothing, despite Sally’s comprehensive description of the importance of transferable value, despite how Exit Planning could increase transferable value, and despite all of Exit Planning’s benefits.
This passive refusal to act by savvy, decisive business owners seems paradoxical. Why don’t these smart people do what is in their best interests?
In my experience, business owners feel comfortable being business owners. They enjoy what they do, but rationally, they know they need to change their roles in the business eventually. But most owners don’t resist planning their exits on a rational basis. They resist Exit Planning at an emotional level.
This emotional resistance manifests not as outright rejection of the Exit Planner’s suggestions, but rather as passive inaction. Business owners know that Exit Planning is necessary, but emotionally, they are not prepared to take that plunge. So, they ignore the problem until they’re ready emotionally, and by then, it’s often too late to create a plan that helps them exit their businesses on their terms.
How can business owners and advisors confront and overcome emotional roadblocks, especially when most owners and advisors would consider themselves experts in rationality?
Understand That Rationality Only Goes So Far
As professionals, business owners and advisors are trained to be logical, accurate, and rational. When Sally met with Miles, she used logic to explain what Miles needed to do if he wanted to exit his business on his terms. Miles agreed, because he understood her argument and what he needed to do, but he did nothing. Miles knew he had to do something, but he didn’t feel he had to do it now.
Whether you’re a business owner or advisor, you might read that last sentence and think, “That sounds like laziness or irresponsibility to me.” I can assure you—based on my own experience and countless stories from other owners and advisors—that rarely are such situations the result of laziness or irresponsibility. Instead, they’re the result of neglecting the important but sometimes hard-to-wrangle concept that exiting a business is an emotional event that requires an emotional response from both business owners and advisors. BEI has found a way to address these issues without requiring a doctorate in psychology.
Understand That Speaking to Emotion Is Necessary and Valid
In their 2010 book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath noted, “. . .the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people’s feelings.”
It’s common for business owners and advisors to disregard emotion when making business-exit decisions, because most of us are either uncomfortable or unversed in handling the emotional aspects of a business decision. Yet, in talking with owners about their business exits, it is important for advisors to realize that, for owners, this is not a simple, logical business decision. It is one of the most emotional decisions business owners will make in their lives, on top of being one of the most important financial decisions that they will make. That’s why speaking to emotion is not only valid but also necessary for a successful business exit. But how can we do that?
Speaking to Emotion in a Business Context
Let’s give Sally a second chance and assume she understood the need to focus first on emotions over rational explanations. How would that meeting go?
First, rather than try to convince Miles of the need to change, Sally let Miles convince himself that he needed to change his role. She asked Miles to complete a short assessment provided by BEI that identified his exit goals and objectives, and pinpointed the specific areas of his business that he felt needed improvement.
For example, Miles answered “No” to the following prompt about his management team:
Related: Succession Planning Gives Business Owners Time to Do What They Want
Asking owners to assess their businesses appeals directly to both their rational mind and their emotions. In completing this short assessment, Miles concluded that his business would collapse without him at the helm.
“This business would not exist without me,” Miles said. “I can never leave.”
“And is that OK with you?” Sally asked.
The consequences of his continued inaction stared Miles in the face, and he felt it in his bones.
“No,” he replied. “But what can I do?”
Sally then described Exit Planning as both a process to exit his business and a means of moving his business forward. She explained to Miles how Exit Planning could help him create transferable value that would allow him to reach his personal financial goals and ensure the business would continue to flourish without him. The idea of progress appealed to Miles.
With Miles on board, Sally then explained that Exit Planning and value building would take years. Fortunately, during those years, Miles could change his role and focus his efforts on areas of the business that would most benefit him and his company. Sally showed Miles that Exit Planning did not mean exiting before he was ready, either financially or emotionally. Working toward an exit on his terms also appealed to Miles.
Once Miles understood that every Exit Planning action would be based on his goals, aspirations, and concerns—both financial and personal—he was willing to trust the process and Sally.
In explaining the benefits of Exit Planning to business owners , appealing to both their minds and hearts is essential. That idea is at the core of The BEI Seven Step Exit Planning Process.