Something Better – Succession Planning For A Better Future
by Leigh Riley · Filed Under: Business Exit Plan · Maximize Business Value · Succession Readiness Assessment
Succession planning is really about developing your business for something better …
Why did you take the risk of going into business ? Was it simply to provide yourself with a job? I’m betting that your reason behind starting a business was to build yourself an asset that would one day provide you with a great lifestyle – a lifestyle that offers Something Better! Am I right?
So in troubled times, when sales are dropping off, think not of lowering your prices. This may attract more sales in the short term but the reduced profit margins also have the potential to reduce the value of your business.
If you want something better from your business in the future, you want to focus on staying steady and true to your business mission – to build something better! Take notice of some valuable wisdom, that I quote from the great John Ruskin 1819 -1900:
“It is unwise to pay too much. But it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that’s all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”
Something better – worth working for, worth planning for. How prepared is your business to generate something better for your future? Find out with a FREE online assessment with customized report emailed directly to you.
To Your Profitable Business Succession!
Leigh Riley
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- Business Succession Plan Tips - 5 Practical Ways To Maximize Your Business Value
- Something Better - Succession Planning For A Better Future
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G’day from Sydney Leigh,
Sounds like a wise perspective – not reducing prices and cutting profit margins because of the long term impact on business value.
I’m getting a lot out of your posts and will refer my clients at http://WinAtWorkZone.com/blog as I think many of them could really benefit from this kind of information.
Do you have a date yet for the release of your business succession book?
Further to Something Better!
One day, whether we like to think of it or not, we will all exit from our businesses. How ‘nigh’ that is cannot always be known, because there are so many factors that can trigger business succession. Most people think they will decide when to leave, however factors such as disputes, divorce, bankruptcy, sudden illness or death can rob a business owner of the luxury to control the decision. Part of good succession planning is about making sure a process is in place to deal with both the known and unknown factors. A good succession plan will allow a business owner to fully realize their full financial reward (cash flow and profit) on their business, through any circumstances.
Now notice I said ‘part’ because I say that succession planning includes not only the end, but also the beginning. Succession planning under my definition is another string to the bow of the much discussed topic of business planning and development. Succession planning involves every single aspect of growing a business, and must be implemented as such. The sooner, the better.
Thinking about about succession planning at the end is useless, because it’s almost always too late to truly capitalize on the benefits which include adding the much craved value to our businesses.
In fact, if business ownership is cut short by any of the above mentioned unplanned factors, it is almost a certainty that success will not be achieved in the way the owner had dreamed without a good succession plan. So while a business succession plan is very much about having the end in mind, to be fully beneficial, it must be implemented from the beginning, or as soon as possible thereafter, and not at the end!
Thanks for asking about the book – I’m expecting “Your Business Succession” to be ready to hit the shelves on January 31st 2009!
To your Profitable Business Exit!
Leigh Riley