Every business broker has said some version of the “prayer” below.

Please grant me the strength to tell clients that their business is worth much less than they think and the patience to have them blame me.

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Fast forward twenty years of adding one task here and one task there, and you get a big hairball of tasks that can’t be delegated and must be done by you (the owner). After several years of doing all this work you don’t like, and you can start to get resentful. Yet you continue to show up for work every day because it’s your business.

Several years ago, a client. Blurted something out that encapsulates what I’m describing. He said,

      “If I didn’t own this place, I’d quit.”

Most business owners won’t allow their minds to go as far as this client’s did. They keep showing up at the office and not loving what they do. They should; owning a business is supposed to be fun.

If you treated someone else this way., they would revolt. If you treated one of your employees as badly as you treat yourself. They’d call you “mean” and quit. Here’s a challenge. How about you give yourself a break and commit to start enjoying work again? It can be done!

In the Half-Retire world, that process begins by untangling your hairball of work. It’s not the easiest thing to do, and it’s almost impossible to do for yourself.

You can’t see the hairball, and its effect on you. Just like it’s hard to put on makeup or a tie without a mirror, it’s hard to see your own hairball.

If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to reduce your stress, workload, and hairball, take the Half-Retire Assessment. You can see if you can Half-Retire and ditch the hairball by answering a few quick questions.

https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/T8qsQM8cCA

The post Why do business owners settle? appeared first on Half Retire.

Do you recall the early days of your business? If you are like most owners, you worked very hard for very little pay, perhaps for several years, in order to launch. Back then, you did not take a salary, did not have a company car, and did not have any perks, just work – hard work. During this phase, your reward was growth, and that worked!

Now the business is more successful; you enjoy lots of nice perks, a big salary, dividends, and more. The work-reward ratio has flip-flopped. In the early days, you were under-rewarded for your hard work. Now, you may be over-rewarded. Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. I’m not saying you are overpaid. You are just getting back the rewards you earned for all your early hard work.

If you sell the business before being “paid back” for all your sweat equity, you might be giving all your efforts to the buyer. The chart below represents the inflection point where you have earned the right to flip the effort-reward ratio.

There’s an old adage: “Business owners don’t sell out; they bail out.” If you get frustrated and bail out by selling too soon, you will lose the opportunity to extract a great deal of wealth which you have rightfully EARNED.

The post Is there ever a wrong time to sell your business? appeared first on Half Retire.

We sent a small batch of emails, and several came back, such as the one below.

We also had business owners who died on the job, etc. It’s heartbreaking that twenty years of work nets a $0 sale price. That’s why I will work for nothing because you might get nothing.

Why does a business owner shut down? The business has a brand, customers, and some value…or does it? I’m guessing that the owner of this award company felt like the hassle of selling the business was not with the pittance they would receive. Again, this is heartbreaking.

We have done plenty of autopsies on situations like this, and there’s one thing in common – the owner has a job called a business name, not a business. No one wants to buy your job.

If you want to maximize the value of your business, there are some proven strategies to avoid these heartbreaking situations:

1. Make sure the business is not entirely dependent upon you. If you can’t take vacations, that’s a sign. Heed it and fix it.
2. Make enough money that buying your job could be attractive. This may sound funny, but think about franchising. Plenty of people plop down good money for a franchise that is standing behind a counter making sandwiches or scooping ice cream. In fact, a general rule in franchising is that the franchise fee should equal one year’s earning potential.
3. Be unique. Great brands and business models get premiums when it’s time to sell.
4. Have great workflows and systems and document them. Not only will this help remove you from the daily operations, but it will demonstrate to a buyer that you “have your act together” and will ease typical buyer uncertainty.
5. Lock down key team members. The buyer of your business will be very dependent upon them, so make sure they are paid well, and they are staying at their job for reasons beyond personal loyalty to you. It seems like ninety percent of business owners cite personal loyalty as a reason key employees stay. That’s great for today, but what happens when you are gone? Make sure work is satisfying. Consider locking them up with good pay, equity, or both. Know what motivates key team members other than loyalty; it’s going to come in handy when you exit.

The post I will sell your business for nothing! appeared first on Half Retire.

Five Most-Common Strategies for Business Exit

• Sell the Business to Family or Friend
• Sell the Business to Employees
• Merge or Get Acquired
• IPO
• Liquidate or Quit

For quite a few business owners, none of these methods create a desirable outcome. Here’s a typical example:

Samuel owns a profitable 3^rd-party employee contracting business nets him $500,000 a year. He doesn’t have any family members or friends that want to take over the business. The employees can’t afford to buy it and probably don’t want to. The business is not large enough for private equity firms to be interested in, and a public offering (IPO) isn’t viable. Liquidation seems silly as the business is profitable.

The only remaining option is a sale, merger, or rollup by a competitor. Samuel checked into selling the business, but the valuation came back at only $1.5M to $2M.

After figuring commissions, legal fees, and taxes, Samual would reduce his proceeds by at least twenty-five percent, giving him a maximum of $1.5M. That’s not enough for Samual to maintain his lifestyle or not fret every penny he spends in retirement.

What does Samuel do? If he keeps slogging away until his health gives out, or he gets tired of the daily grind, he will have to settle for around $1M for his $500,000 per year annuity. Ouch.

A business owner with less than $750,000 profit in an industry with a price-to-earnings multiple less than six or seven (i.e., a business not high tech, patentable, SaaS) is probably in the same situation as Samuel. That is, you have a valuable income stream from the business, but that income stream is far more valuable to you than to any outside buyer.

Fortunately, there’s a sixth exit strategy that’s gaining momentum, Half-Retirement. Half-Retiring is defined as:

Working as much or as little as you’d like. Doing only the work you enjoy and keeping your income stream in perpetuity.

An exit strategy of Half-Retirement is a viable method for many business owners to get full value from their business, and it has a hidden benefit.

A Half-Retire exit strategy is different than working until you are too old to keep working. If you work until you can’t anymore, you will be forced to settle for whatever offer you can get. Usually, that offer isn’t very attractive. The chart below compares a Half-Retirement exit strategy to working longer. You can read the detailed article on this topic (working less vs. Half-Retired here).

The biggest risk of maintaining your status quo is “hitting a wall.” No one ever thinks they will hit a point where they just can’t take the headaches of business ownership anymore, but it happens to everyone.

Today, you feel fine putting up with cleaning up the messes employees make, working longer hours than you should, and playing the catch-all for all the work no one else can or will do. Each passing year, this “daily grind” wears you down until you can’t take it any longer.

For owners who have not worked to make the business less dependent upon them, it may be hard to sell the business for a reasonable price. Why? Because now you’re desperate, and you can’t take it anymore. You just want out.

By using Half-Retirement as the exit strategy, you can avoid this disaster. Half-Retirees can create a business that is far less dependent upon them. When the time comes to sell, buyers will be excited to buy a quality business with less hidden risk than the others for sale. That should yield a quick and profitable transaction when you decide to sell.

To learn more about the six-step Half-Retire process, download the Blueprint to Half-Retirement.

The post The 6th Exit Strategy appeared first on Half Retire.

The answer is most situations offer two primary options to choose from, and in almost every case, the two options are imperfect. The business owner may see each option’s imperfections, and as a result, they avoid picking either option, because they are flawed.

These owners become one of those who hold out, hoping for a better option that just doesn’t exist. I term this “holding out for Option C.” Option C combines the best parts of the two primary options but lacks the flaws. Why wouldn’t someone want to hold out for such a great option?

The problem is that while waiting for C to materialize, you are guilty of inaction. Tom Peters always said, “Ready, fire, aim.” The word sequence tells us no initiative will begin without flaws. When you hold out for Option C, you are falling prey to innate human psychology and subconsciously being indecisive.

The post Waiting for “C” appeared first on Half Retire.

Recently, a client was explaining to me some of their family and home issues. The more they talked, the more I realized how much their workload and stress was adversely affecting other aspects of their life. In this case, like many others, the client did not make the connection between spillover from work and the negative impact on other aspects of their life.

During my 11,000 coaching sessions with business owners, I’ve seen a variety of work-life balance issues created by a negative work environment. Here are just a few that I’ve seen firsthand.

• Drinking too much
• General malaise. Right now, you’re probably saying, “Oh, this isn’t me,” and maybe you are right. However, I would estimate that 25% to 50% of business owners are stuck in malaise. They show up for work and do things they would prefer not to do because they have to. After a while, this grinds you down, and you get used to it. You forget your hopes and dreams because you have to do all these things to keep the business going. One of my favorite things is to help business owners hit the reset button and blow up their belief system about things how things “have to be.”
• Smoking too much
• Other compulsive behaviors
• spouses and significant others complaining they don’t get enough time with you
• lack of hobbies or outside interests
• ignoring your friends
• not planning for vacations or other fun activities because are simply not enough time or you can’t get yourself to even think about it
• being reluctantly drug to family events
• calling your significant other “the cruise director.” This may seem innocuous, but how it plays out is the business owner never plans anything outside of business and just follows whatever their significant other wants. This can lead to resentment or feeling like important family events are just one more thing to do.
• Lack of exercise. If I had a dollar for every business owner that’s told me they needed to exercise more, I could buy a nice car. If it’s important, how come business owners everything around to it? It’s because the never-ending list of todos occupies too much space in their head and too much time on the calendar.
  • Side note – another reason important things like exercise don’t get done is “The Try Harder Plan.” most people default to what I call “The Try Harder Plan.” Under this plan, you don’t need to reduce anything you’re doing; you just try harder to do even more. It never works because you’re already trying awfully hard. It’s pretty safe to assume that every business owner will need to reduce work in order to take on something new.

If any of these apply to you, there’s no need to be ashamed. You are in line with the majority of business owners. My challenge to you is to do something about it.

A good place to start is to download two free chapters of the Half-Retire book here.

The post Is your business stress coming out sideways? appeared first on Half Retire.

I’ve seen too many business owners that don’t enjoy their work anymore. It’s a shame. Usually, it happens accidentally over twenty years of running a business. There are little pieces of work that the team can’t do, so they land on you. There are ten different reasons, but it doesn’t matter; your workload keeps increasing, not shrinking.

Twenty years of one task here and one task there adds up to a big, messy hairball of work that can’t be delegated and has to be done by the owner. After a few years of doing a bunch of work you don’t enjoy, and you start to get resentful. Yet you continue to show up for work every day because it’s your business.

Several years ago, a client. Blurted something out that encapsulates what I’m describing. He said,

       “If I didn’t own this place, I’d quit.”

Most business owners don’t even allow their minds to go as far as his did. They just keep showing up for work and not enjoying their days. If they treated someone else this way., they would revolt.

If you treated one of your employees as badly as you treat yourself. They’d call you “mean” and quit. So how about you give yourself a break and find a way to start enjoying work again?

In the Half-Retire world, that process begins by untangling the hairball of work the business owner does each week. It’s not easy to do and almost impossible to do for yourself.

You can’t see it, Just like it’s hard to put on makeup or a tie without a mirror. It’s hard to see your own hairball.

If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to reduce your workload and stress, take the Half-Retire Assessment. By answering a few quick questions, you can see if it’s possible for you to Half-Retire and ditch the hairball.

https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/T8qsQM8cCA

The post Why are business owners so mean… appeared first on Half Retire.

Business owners can ditch the work they don’t enjoy, cut their workload dramatically, and keep their income in Half-Retirement.

Inevitably, the first place business owner’s minds go when trying to create a plan to Half-Retire is, “Ah ha, I need to delegate more.”

Delegation can be a mirage. In the Half-Retire world, delegation sounds wonderful in theory, but in reality, would you not have delegated your work already if you could have?

If you haven’t delegated the work you can’t stand anymore, it’s for a reason; that work cannot be delegated. Watch the video below for one business owner’s ah-ha moment.

There are plenty of reasons why delegating an owner’s work is so complicated.

• Delegation costs money many don’t want to spend. Your helper needs to be paid. Many times the cost of the delegee gives business owners pause.
• Delegation can potentially slow down the organization and cost profits. We’ve all seen it happen; you delegate work, and it makes the situation worse, not better. Time is lost training and supporting the delegee only to have less than optimal work completed.
• Delegating can ruin your Half-Retire bliss. I’ve seen business owners jump headlong into delegating their entire workload and calling themselves Half-Retired, only to be yanked back into the business a few months later when the business is near the edge of the cliff. We ban the word delegation in the Half-Retire world for a reason. It’s dangerous thinking. Most business owners lack the team talent, time, patience, and money to make traditional delegation work. There’s a better way to become Half-Retired than delegation.
• Delegation is more than “throwing a body at it.” It goes something like this, a. I have work I don’t want to do anymore, b. I hire someone to do it on my behalf. The new delegee does not have your experience, skill, positional power, and more. The Throwing a Body at it Plan won’t solve anything other than frustrating you and draining your wallet.

If delegation isn’t the answer, what is? To radically reduce the owner’s workload, we use a multi-pronged approach that is radically different from traditional delegation. I’ve seen owners go from a 20-hour-a-month task down to a one-hour task. I’ve seen Half-Retirees reduce travel from 80% of their work time to 20%. We’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of business owners cut out the work they don’t like…just not via delegation.

If you’d like to discuss your specific situation, schedule a 15-minute complimentary call.

The post Can delegation be the enemy of Half-Retirement? appeared first on Half Retire.

Inevitably, the first place business owner’s minds go when trying to plot their course toward Half-Retirement is, “Ah ha, I need to delegate more.”

Delegation is a red herring, a mirage, in the Half-Retire world. It sounds great conceptually, but in reality, if you could have delegated your work, you would have already, right?

If you haven’t delegated the work you dislike, it’s for a reason; it cannot be delegated.  Watch the video for one business owner’s ah-ha moment regarding delegation.

There are plenty of reasons why delegating the owner’s work is so tricky.

• Delegation costs money. You have to pay someone to do the work you delegate. Many times the cost of the delegee gives business owners pause.
• Done wrong, delegation can slow the organization down and drain profits. We’ve all had it happen, you delegate some work, and it makes the situation worse, not better. You lose time training and supporting the delegee only to have substandard work output.
• Done wrong, delegation can destroy your Half-Retirement. I’ve seen business owners jump headlong into delegating their entire workload and calling it Half-Retired, only to be pulled back into the business six months later when the business is near death. We ban the word delegation in the Half-Retire world for a reason – it’s dangerous thinking. Most business owners lack the team talent, time, patience, and money to make traditional delegation work. There’s a better way to become Half-Retired than delegation.
• Delegation can turn into “throwing a body at it.” It goes something like this, a. I have work I don’t want to do anymore, b. I will hire someone to do it for me. The new person/delegee lacks your experience, skill, positional power, and more. Throwing a body at your work won’t solve anything other than frustrating you and draining your wallet.

If delegation isn’t the answer, then what is? To radically cut owner’s workloads, we use a multi-pronged approach that is counterintuitive vs. traditional delegation. We’ve seen business owners take a 20-hour-a-month task down to one hour. We’ve seen Half-Retirees reduce business travel from 80% of their time to 20%. We’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of business owners cut out the work they don’t like…just not by delegating.

If you’d like to discuss your specific situation, schedule a 15-minute complimentary call

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