“Sell Your Business Your Way: Getting Out, Getting Rich, and Getting On With Your Life,”
by Rick Rickertsen with Robert Gunther;
Amacom, New York,
New York; 2006; 302 pages $27.95.
The business you own is like your baby. Whether you bought it or created it out of the proverbial blood, sweat, toil and tears, you built it from ground zero to a point you hardly dared imagine when you started. Now you’re ready to move on. It doesn’t make any difference why. The reasons can be anything from the desire to scratch an emotional itch to be at the cutting edge of a new business once more to satisfying the desire to live life at a less frantic pace.
Whether your goal is getting into a new business or leaving the business world behind, author Rickertsen makes the point that, unless your business has made you wealthy, funding your dreams will primarily rely on the money you generate from its sale.
It may seem simple enough, but Rickertsen’s central point is that the process of selling your business is far more complex than most business owners believe. Worst of all, even the best deals can fall apart in a heartbeat after months of negotiating. He puts it this way: “The sales process also brings with it many moments of truth along the way – times when you have to make tough decisions or when things fall apart or come together. Selling a business is not a simple process. It involves deep soul searching and enormous complexity. It involves many players and many moving parts. There is a lot that can go wrong, and there is no better feeling than when it all comes together. As in building the business, there is a fair measure of skill involved, as well as a healthy dose of luck. But I also believe that with thorough preparation and foresight, you can create your own luck.”
The author initially suggests a series of questions that prospective sellers ask of themselves. First and foremost among these is, “Why are you selling?” This is quickly followed by “What do you want out of the deal?” These two questions are supplemented by a third, “Who do you think will buy?”
Sometimes the answers to these questions are obvious. According to Rickertsen, this doesn’t make the selling process any easier. One of the most interesting suggestions the author makes covers two of the clearest situations: selling to your children or other family members and selling to your current employees (usually called an Employee Stock Option Plan or ESOP). Rickertsen suggests creating an advisory board to help put the deal through. He comments: “One of the best ways to maintain some perspective on the business and keep family issues from dominating it is to create an advisory board stocked with outsiders. A good board with expertise in key areas can be a great way to test ideas and keep the operation and governance professional.
“…You don’t need to be a public company to benefit from the advice of a board. You will need to compensate your board members, but it will generally be worth every penny. If your only advisory board is other family members, you will never be able to step back from the business to see family issues that need to be addressed for the company to prosper. Outside directors can play a vital role in offering this sense of perspective.”
“Sell Your Business…” is well thought out and clearly written. It is certainly an excellent primer on a subject that all successful business owners will wind up considering. The author has extensive first-hand experience on the subject, as well as knowing the type of attorney, accountant, bankers, and other businesspeople to consult.
As you might expect from any good “how-to” resource book, about 25 percent of it consists of appendices of checklists, self-questionnaires, and organizations (accountants, law firms, business brokers, investment bankers, and many more that might be invaluable resources for anyone seeking to sell his or her business. There’s even a chapter on what to do after you’ve closed the deal. In short, “Sell Your Business Your Way” offers a banquet of ideas for the price of a good dinner.
-- Henry Holtzman
BESTSELLING BOOKS
Here are the current top 10 bestselling books for business. The list is compiled based on information received from retail bookstores throughout the U.S.A.
1. “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” by Steven D. Levitt (HarperCollins…$25.95) (1)* Why you shouldn't accept the official version of anything.
2. “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More,” by Chris Anderson (Hyperion…$24.95) (5) Why a growing number of products are generating unending sales.
3. “Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Red Book of Sales Answers,” by Jeffrey Gitomer (Pearson Education…$19.99) (2) Sales guru offers answers to sales questions.
4. “Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business,” by Patrick Lencioni (John Wiley & Sons…$22.95) (4) Why meetings should have a purpose beyond getting together.
5. “The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux…$27.50) (3) Why business globalization has arrived and is likely to stay.
6. “The Five Dysfunctions of A Team: A Leadership Fable,” by Patrick M. Lenclon (John Wiley & Sons…$22.95) (7) Common problems that prevent teams from working together.
7. “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High,” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, & Ron McMillan (McGraw-Hill…$16.95) (8) Why open discussions in difficult situations are essential.
8. “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins (HarperCollins…$27.50) (9) Climbing the steps from being good to being great.
9. “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,” by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan…(Crown Publishing…$27.50)(8) The key to transforming dreams into reality.
10. “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth,” by T. Harv Eker (HarperCollins…$19.95) (10) The missing link between wanting wealth and achieving it.