Category Archives: Management & Ownership Transition

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Two Small Business Owners and Widely Disparate Business End Games

Typically, I write about what I refer to as “successful closely held and family businesses” that have minimum values on the order of $5-10 million or more, and often, much more. But many small businesses don’t have and may never have had such levels of value. Today’s post focuses on two baby boomer small business owners, Martin and Steve, whose businesses are worth about $2 million each. Martin and Steve have taken two different paths in their treatment of the earnings of their businesses, and have widely different business end games and retirement prospects as a result.

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Not-So-Favorable Reasons Why Businesses Change Hands

In our prior post, we discussed favorable reasons why businesses change hands. In this post, we take a look at the other side of the coin – the not-so-favorable reasons why businesses change hands. Unfortunately, many businesses sell or change hands under less favorable, even downright unfavorable, circumstances. The list of unfavorable circumstances that cause a business transfer is longer than the list of favorable reasons. Let’s take a look at some of these not-so-favorable reasons.

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One Owner Who Did Not Sell in Time to Maximize Proceeds

As optimistic business owners, we tend to think that bad things happen, but to other people. So we wait to do things we know we should do. Financing that is readily available today to accomplish diversification objectives may not be available tomorrow. This can happen because of adverse events at your business, changes in the availability of financing, or both. Don’t wait.

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Upcoming Webinar: Unlocking Private Company Wealth – A Tutorial for Business Advisers

During this webinar sponsored by the American Society of Appraisers to be held Tuesday, February 24, 2015, Chris will walk through key portions of his new book, Unlocking Private Company Wealth, and talk about the implications for business owners while relating the content to business advisers. He will discuss not only ideas and concepts that will enhance the quality of conversations you have with business owners, but will provide real-life examples of these concepts in action. Learn more about it here.

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What is the “Middle Market” of Companies and What Do They Have in Common?

Use of a term like “middle market” to categorize companies may be helpful to writers in national publications. They are looking at ways to describe the world, as are companies who do business with other companies. However, in reality, few business owners think of their companies as “middle market” businesses. What we know about middle market and larger companies is that each one is defined by its business and markets. We also know that one thing they have in common is that all of them need to work on things like I write about in Unlocking Private Company Wealth that have nothing to do with the particular business they are in, including complex ownership, a need for workable buy-sell agreements, management transition planning and execution, ownership transition planning and execution, and management of private company wealth.