In this past week I’ve seen 3 situations where business owners did not take the advice of the specialist engaged to deliver it.  Here is what happened.

Situation One: Involved a company in financial distress; where the business owner simply had no idea how to get out of his situation.  He conveyed his situation to several different advisors and each were adamant in the direction he should take.  The trouble was, the advice from each was so diametrically opposed, it only became more confusing.  In the end he simply chose one to follow, angering the others because each felt they were right.  Time will tell, but it’s looking like his own gut feel was correct.

Situation Two: Involved a successful company that was heavily impacted by the Global Financial Crisis.  Sales had declined by half yet costs remained unchanged, and it was clear the company had to restructure urgently or perish.  Retrenchments were necessary, but the method recommended for this did not sit well with the owner who had a strong and caring relationship with his employees.  He agonised over the decision about how to do it in a way that would meet his own moral code, and in the end went against the advice to do it his way.  The outcome was a tremendous success with the exiting staff actually agreeing to the need to be retrenched, and using his own style has those staff leaving on a friendly note.

Situation Three: Involved a business owner negotiating to sell a family asset that was co-owned by a sibling.  Relations had broken down so significantly, it was almost to the demise of all parties.  Advice had been sought and a plan of action had been agreed, but when the deal was required to settle, the family business owner went with his gut feel rather than taking the advice entirely.  He orderd a change in tact, resulting in a successful outcome for all.

What this tells us is that Experts can only provide you with so much guidance, and their advice will only ever be as good as the information you provide about the situation or problem and the experts own experience.  In some of the cases, the experts involved were put out and even became angry at their client, but their clients were correct to follow their own intuition.

So as a business advisor, you’re probably wondering why I would share with you about cases where the clients were clearly in a better position to decide for themselves ultimately, as it seems a bad advertisement for specialist consultants.  However that is my point entirely.

No specialist is going to be right every time, but you are quite right to consider many alternative views before you make your decision about the matter at hand.  By listening to others in the know, you are learning valuable information formulated from their previous experience and knowledge base.  When you blindly follow advice, there is likely to be more trouble ahead than can handled, so listening, thinking through and weighing up the options for an outcome that sits well with you, is the most effective thing you can do.

Here to Your Profitable Exit!

Leigh Riley

Business is a Competition

I’ve not revealed this before, but earlier this year I was invited to be on the panel of judges for the “ActionCoach My Business Magazine Awards”.  I felt it was a great honour to be asked so could not refuse the request.  The task was not easy for many reasons.  The number of entrants was significant and thousands of pages of data had to be considered carefully to form an assessment of each candidate.  With most being of such an incredibly high standard, this truly made the task for judges very difficult.  Amazingly though, most of us formed a fairly similar opinion of those candidates that really stood out from the crowd.

It got me thinking about how important it is to stand out from the crowd when you’re in business, and not just to win competitions.  It demonstrated to me yet again, that it’s no accident when a business is successful.  It does become obvious to everyone when you stand out from others in business, and there is a lesson in it for each of us in business.

As a follower and regular reader of this blog, you already know that I bang the drum (rather loudly) about business succession, and I do so because you are operating a business that I know you will one day hope to sell.  You’re working hard building an asset, and often you’re so hard working ‘in’ it, that you can overlook working ‘on’ it.

I want to see my followers succeed and stand out from the crowd, especially the crowd that is gathering around the ‘for sale’ post.  I’m referring to the tsunami I mention in my book “Your Business Succession”, because the average demographic age group of small to medium sized business owners are so near to retirement and are looking for ways to extract their equity to move on to another phase in their life.  With so many about to do this (80% in the next 5 to 10 years) there will be quite a crowd of businesses selling.  It will become a buyer’s market and only those that ’stand out’ from the crowd will gain the most when they exit.

You Business Succession
Leigh Riley

Too Young To Exit?  Think Again

Now before you zone out because you think you’re too young for formal exit strategies and succession plans to matter, think about these two very important points:

• 50% of business owners leave well before retirement because of factors they could not have imagined, such as dispute, divorce, disability and death.  You don’t want to get caught out in a weakened position trying to liquidate your business equity in a crowded market, so take steps to ensure you have an action plan that will keep you in control to capitalise when you exit despite your circumstances.
• Raising Capital to grow your business or release your equity when exiting your business takes time to organise.  In fact it’s damn hard for an SME like yours to get finance for anything related to business if you don’t have a clearly demonstrated and formal exit strategy in place. That means your business growth could be stifled or you could get stuck without any funding when you do leave.  Either scenario is one you definitely want to overcome well beforehand, so get ready now.

Time For Your Business To Stand Out In The Crowd!

The  reason I’ve commenced a series of FREE educational webinars, is so you can see what you can do to ’stand out’ and make the difference for maximised cash flow and profits, with an enhanced  business valuation and a strategy to ensure you get paid what you deserve for your lifetime of effort in business, through most circumstances.

I’m pleased to reveal the finalists have been chosen for the ‘ActionCoach My Business Awards’ .  You may see those that ’stood out’ for yourself by clicking here.

Here’s to your business success and profitable exit!

Leigh Riley

Australian Websites Sales Are Booming, Is Your Business Cashing In?

Australian Internet sales rose to $51 billion (3.6% of GDP) during 2010 and this is rising.  If you’re trying to BOOST the value of your business, that’s a business statistic you simply cannot ignore.  If you haven’t already made an attempt to learn how to ride the web wave, it’s likely your customers or clients could soon be choosing competitors over you, leaving you with that ‘dumped by a wave’ feeling or worse, with a dramatic fall in sales adversely impacting your business valuation.

Ride the Web Wave to Wealth for Your Business

The web wave has been building for a while, but many businesses have been caught out by failing to understand how the internet has enabled a broader trading field with global wide competitors rather than those only in the immediate community.  Some of you may have thought too narrowly and failed to realise your customer base has potentially widened significantly.  Without a strong internet presence you are failing to capitalise on that potential and not boosting your business valuation the way you could be.

If you’ve established a website, you’ve started paddling toward the web wave to wealth and success for your business, but this alone is not enough if your business is to stand out and be found online amongst the trillions of sites already in cyberspace.  You might be surprised to learn that having website prominance in your niche is not just about expensive advertising.  There is a lot you can do to organically lift your search engine ranking and get found.  It just takes a little knowledge with some training to make the difference.

FREE Webinar to Learn How to BOOST Your Website Traffic for Increased Online Sales

I want to help you take every opportunity to BOOST your business valuation and profits however I can.  That’s why I’ve decided to have a FREE Webinar on the topic: How To BOOST Your Business Valuation With Your Website! The FREE webinar will be held this Thursday at two different timeslots, 11:30am and 7:30pm.  I’ll be interviewing special guest and website expert, Karyn Clarke from HubsiteBuilder.com.  During the sessions, Karyn has promised to reveal 6 of her best secrets about how to BOOST your website ranking organically, so you can get your business found and start to make more sales online.

If you’re looking to ride the web wave to wealth and success for your business to BOOST its valuation, you really can’t afford to miss this session with me and Karyn.

Register by clicking here now. Who knows, it could turn out to be the most profitable 45 minutes you spend learning about your business website presence.  Don’t delay because places are limited to just 14 attendees.

Here’s to your BOOSTING Your Business Valuation With Profits From Your Website!

Leigh Riley

How can You Boost Your Business Valuation?

Increase Your Business Acquisition Attractiveness by:

• Developing a market presence that is desired by potential buyers
• Obtain critical mass with demonstrated consistent growth across niches
• Maintain higher margins than your competitors
• Add value with a management team and systems
• Create effective planning that aligns your business motives with your employee’s actions

If you haven’t already done so, make sure you register yourself to attend the FREE Webinar I’m running so you can learn all you need to know about how to BOOST your Business Valuation.  I’ll be interviewing Business Valuation Guru, Sean Hutchinson live from San Francisco. Sean excels in explaining the levers you can control to increase your business valuation and I’m very certain you will learn a lot from listening to him. Register for

Date: Thursday 8th September, 2011
Time: 11.30am
Register Now for the FREE webinar at http://yourbusinesssuccession.com/bizval-webinar1.php

You can’t afford to miss this opportunity to learn all you can about how to BOOST your business profits and valuation.

Here’s to Your Profitable Business Exit!

Leigh Riley

Previous article in series |

How can You Boost Your Business Valuation?

During the last post, we discussed how building a robust financial history for your business can help to BOOST your business valuation.  Many business owners mistakenly believe that BOOSTING their business financial position is the only to change the way their business is valued and viewed in the market place.   You may be surprised to learn that risk mitigation strategies can play a much larger part in BOOSTING your business valuation.

Lever Two: Reduce Risk to BOOST your business valuation.

You will learn a lot more about this at the FREE Webinar I’m running on

Date: Thursday 8th September, 2011
Time: 11.30am

where I’ll be interviewing Sean Hutchinson, Business Valuation Guru live from San Francisco.  Click here to register your place now.  Here’s a brief look at the second lever you can control to BOOST your business valuation.

Reduce Risk and BOOST your business valuation by:

• Understanding the sweet spots that contribute most to your business profitability so that you may rule out lesser profitable activities thereby increasing the economic value of activities engaged in your business
• Decrease your business capital base to remove underperforming activities
• Strategise to mitigate specific risks identifiable to your business industry and insure key persons of your company to implement a clearly defined and formal succession strategy, thereby making your business more attractive to financiers and capital raising sources.  Buyers will always value higher a business that has the ability to raise capital due to it’s robust risk managment strategies.
• Operate more efficiently than your competitors and lower the cost of capital by continually testing the market to compare costs of debt and capital raising
• Reduce customer concentration with diversification, so that your business has no more than 10 to 25% of revenue from one source.  Signing customers to long term contracts will secure your business revenue into the future, adding a significant valuation boost.
• Form a management structure so you as the owner, are not central to the business

In the next post, I intend to discuss how to increase the economic value of activities your business engages in to BOOST its valuation.

Until then, make sure you register for your FREE place at the Webinar to be held on Thursday 8th Septemeber 2011 at 11.30am.
You can’t afford to miss this opportunity to learn all you can about how to BOOST your business profits and valuation.

Here’s to Your Profitable Business Exit!

Leigh Riley

Previous article in series | Next article in series

How can You Boost Your Business Valuation?

Here is a taste-test of some of the items to be covered in the FREE Webinar I’m running on:
Date: Thursday 8th September, 2011
Time: 11.30am

You will discover how to BOOST your Business Valuation when I interview Business Guru, Sean Hutchinson, live from San Francisco. Sean is sensational at explaining the levers you can control to increase your business valuation. You can Register Now for your place at the FREE webinar at http://yourbusinesssuccession.com/bizval-webinar.php

In this post, we will discuss How can you Increase Earnings in a way that increases your business market valuation?  Here’s how:

Lever One:

Build a Robust Financial History for your business by:

1. Increasing sales, but not just any sales.  Increase the sales of your products and services that add the most economic value to your business.  It’s worth spending the time to understand which of your products and services are the most profitable to your business.  Making more sales of products and services that are not overly profitable doesn’t make good sense.  If you want to BOOST your business valuation, concentrate on increasing sales where it counts most.
2. Lowering cost of goods sold means taking control of the input costs of production of your products and services, to increase profitability.  You may want to renegotiate with suppliers to lock in lower in-put costs. If your business sells services, consider how you may reduce costs by making more efficient use of lower cost labour and materials. Segmenting the costs of your service offerings will allow you to understand which of your goods and or services provides the least and most economic benefit to your business.
3. Controlling operating expenses Segmenting the costs of your service offerings will allow you to understand which of your services provides the least and most economic benefit to your business.  Once you can clearly define the most profitable products or services sold by your business, you will be in the position to make decisions about how your business will continue forward.

Timely Factors: don’t leave it ’til the 11th hour

Understanding fully the levers that you can control and manoevering them to boost your business valuation, can take time.  For some strange reason, business people too often think they don’t need to worry about it until the moment before they exit. Here are the important reasons why that’s faulty thinking:

More than half of business owners will be forced from their business due to factors they could not have imagined (statistics show 51% leave due to sudden and unplanned events).

• The sudden event means there is no time to prepare; and
• When you’re vulnerable due to unplanned events, it leaves you without power to negotiate

This means you are forced to be a ‘price taker’ and to accept whatever is offered without question.

The time it takes to build a business of value means it is not something you can leave to the last minute or just prior to exiting.

Business Boosters

In the next post of this series, stay tuned for: “How Can You Increase Earnings in a way that increases your business market valuation”, I’m going to reveal the 6 risks you must overcome in your business if you are to increase your business market valuation.  You’re going to be surprised at how large a part mitigating risk in your business will BOOST and contribute to your business valuation.

Until then, make sure you register for your FREE place at the Webinar to be held on Thursday 8th Septemeber 2011 at 11.30am. You can’t afford to miss this opportunity to learn all you can about how to BOOST your business profits and valuation.

Here’s to Your Profitable Business Exit!

Leigh Riley

Previous article in series | Next article in series

How can You Boost Your Business Valuation?

This would have to be the most commonly asked question by business owners preparing to exit.  Buyers are scrutinising more carefully than ever before, so you would want to pay attention to this blog series. The factors impacting your business valuation can seem extensive, which is why I’m running a FREE 45 minute Webinar to explain in simple terms on Thursday, 8th September 2011 at 11.30 am.  You can register your place FREE by clicking here.

FREE Webinar to find out How To BOOST Your Business Valuation!

At the FREE Webinar, I’ll be interviewing Business Valuation Guru, Sean Hutchinson live from San Francisco, USA.  I’ve chosen Sean because he is the best I’ve ever met in my 23 years experience.  Sean breaks down the individual factors without the jargon so you can clearly understand what you can do with your business to BOOST its valuation.

When you attend the FREE Webinar, you’ll discover things like:

• the levers you can easily control to maximise your business valuation
• the 6 risk factors that you’ll want to overcome
• the 3 proven methods to increase your business earnings
• the 5 ways to increase your business acquisition attractiveness
• You’ll have the opportunity to learn exactly how much your business is currently worth; plus learn
• One incredibly simple thing you’ll want to do immediately to dramatically boost your business valuation
  Places are seriously limited to this Webinar and this topic is popular, so don’t delay in registering for your place.

We can’t wait to help you BOOST your business valuation!

Here’s to Your Profitable Exit!

Leigh Riley

Next article in series

When a Wall Street capital markets guru from New York directly quotes what I have to say as a Succession Strategist, it’s time to pay attention, sit up and listen.   I can almost hear you thinking “I have no intentions of exiting my business for some time, so I don’t need to worry about exit planning yet”;  Sound familiar?   But Here’s why:

1. Taking notice to understand what a business buyer wants is the key to understanding how to position your business so that it can be sold any time, at a premium price through just about any circumstances.

2. These days, business buyers are getting smarter and already have the end in mind before they buy. That means they want to know you have an exit strategy in place before they buy, because one day they will want to release their capital quickly and easily too.

3. Financiers just aren’t lending on business acquisitions the way they used to before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).  These days they also want to see there is a clearly defined exit strategy before they’ll loan to buyers wishing to purchase a business.  So you better get your business in order if you plan to sell it some time in future.

This all adds up to one very important point for you.  If you’re not prepared with an exit strategy for your business, you’re virtually not in the game as a possibility to be sold.  If you hope to profit from the business asset you’ve built, an Exit Strategy is a ‘must have’.

You will never know when, why or how you’ll leave your business.  I only know that you will definitely leave it, even if they end up carrying you out in a box.  If you would like to control the circumstances to your benefit and profit, take action today!  Implement your business exit strategy today.

Here’s to Your Profitable Exit Strategy!

Leigh Riley

(You can see the Wall Street Capital markets guru’s blog at  http://weybenjamin.wordpress.com/)

To reward myself for my hard earnt new qualification at Chicago, I took a quick trip to New York City where I made some amazing new business contacts and book sales too, but I found myself attracting people that were hungry for guidance about succession planning.

On the roof top of the apartment I rented at Hell’s Kitchen, I struck up a conversation an American executive (I’ll call him Ritchie) who seemed a bit troubled and open to discussion about his business problems.  To protect his privacy I can’t reveal too much detail about the compnay details, but I can tell you we ended up having a 2 hour discussion (virtually a consultation) as he poured out his anguish around the succession of his father.

View from my roof top in NYC

Family Succession Suffering

Ritchie had been his father’s succession plan and since his dad’s departure, the company had entered troubled waters.  Ritchie had a Harvard Education so he felt he was well qualified to make business decisions.  As a teenager, Ritchie had worked in the company performing menial tasks and his father had wisely insisted that Ritchie must gain some experience with a competitor before allowing him to work in a management position with his own firm.

The trouble for Ritchie was that his father did not adequately prepare him to fill his shoes of as the CEO. The succession handover was rapid and this did not provide Ritchie with adequate time to win the respect of the staff. Despite his education and work experience in another company, the staff treated Ritchie as if he was a spoiled boy of priviledge and undermined every decision he ever made.

Ritchie was feeling quite down about the situation which was amplified by the fact that he was going to have to downsize and cut staff to maintain a competitive company position. He felt this decision would further decrease his popularity in the company and that he may never gain the respect of his co-workers. When he sought his father’s advice as a mentor, his dad categorically refused to provide any guidance whatsoever.

Lessons for Family Business Succession

The lesson is significant for all of us with Ritchie’s situation:

• Statistics show that only one third of family businesses handed to the next generation will survive.
• The statistics worsen to one in seven survival for 3rd generational family companies.
• Preparation for family successors needs to start early.
• Education alone is not enough to support the next generation, and experience with another similar company may be of help, but nothing substitutes the gradual responsibility and succession handover so necessary to assist the next generation.
• If your family business is important to you, preparation should commence as early as possible.

Family business can be the most difficult succession plans to arrange because of the family dynamics, which are sometimes too soft on successors and other times to hard on successors. It can make or break and be the difference between successful continuity of a business built over a lifetime. Don’t delay,  take action on your business succession plan as early as possible! Family Business needs just as much time to prepare it’s successors as any business.

Here’s to your Profitable Exit Strategy!

Leigh Riley M Bus, Certified Exit Planning Advisor® (CEPA®), DFP, Cert IV A & WT
Consultant Business Succession Strategist, Author, Speaker, Trainer

You can’t imagine how honoured I was to be asked to write my next book especially for Australian doctors, and after much hard work and research, I am so excited to finally be holding in my hands ‘hot off the printing press’ copies of “Your Practice Succession …. How to Leave a Legacy and Reap the Rewards of a Lifetime of Service to Your Community”.

Your Practice Succession By Leigh Riley

This book has been specifically written for Australian medical General Practitioners (GPs) and covers situations and cases unique to them affecting their succession and exit planning.

Australian GPs provide an extremely important role in maintaining public health to Australian communities.  The continuity of their services is essential to the wellbeing of all of us which is why my passion has been further fueled to assist this essential sector by writing this book.

Of the nearly 60,000 Australian GPs, their average age is 50 years, and many of them are looking at retiring in the next 10 years.  Without a strategy to exit their practice with a continuity program, it could be that community shortages for their valuable services may be inevitable.  It’s in all of our interests to see GPs manage this process effectively.

Topics that are covered in the book

The book:  “Your Practice Succession” is a detailed look at how to prepare a medical practice so that continuity of service can be achieved whilst also enabling GPs to:

• ensure the quality of lifestyle they worked so hard to achieve
• maximise their practice valuation and sale price
• find the right successor
• pre-arrange the sale terms to lock in the arrangements and practice valuation
• safeguard the practice legacy they will leave
• remain in a position of power and security at each phase of the business cycle in their practice
• be released from debt commitments and exit from their practice with financial freedom
• maximise their cashflow
• maximise their practice profits
• exit from their practice with ease.

Find out more

1. If you would like to purchase the book, you can do that here.
2. If you would like a sneak preview of the book, you can download your FREE chapters here.
3. You can also read book reviews here

I’m so proud to have been part of this project, and it doesn’t stop here. I’m on a mission to ensure succession planning becomes a smooth transition for as many business owners that my work can touch.

Here’s to your Profitable Exit Strategy!

Leigh Riley