I’ve watched some business owners become comfortable with what they’ve built and become complacent and uninspired.

If you can find ways to continue to stretch your mind, body, and spirit, it will translate into every facet of your life.

Sometimes the best way to feel alive and to stimulate creativity and what makes us human is to feel a little scared. When we sense that risk, it brings a focus that is often lost in the distraction of our technology-infused world.

And so my challenge to you is…

Many of the brightest visionaries and business owners I know have gotten to where they are on pure grit, intuition, and hard work. However, the time comes when they are ready to reach even higher heights, and leveraging data into information can supercharge the journey. 

Shifting from collecting under explored data to arming you and your business with this predictive information empowers you to tweak your business operations in real-time rather than waiting for next month to see your financial results or worse yet never doing this analysis in the first place.

If you’re frustrated about scaling beyond what you can personally do or wanting to take a vacation without worrying about the plant burning down while you’re gone, or simply want to leave at 3 to coach your child’s sports team? How do you build a team that shoulders the load with the same discipline and accountability that you bring to the table?

The biggest, most impactful decision most founders and business owners will make is also the decision they seem to avoid the longest. How will you exit your business? Here at Doescher Group, we help you face that question on your terms.

You are a business owner. But when you arrive at the office in the morning, I’m guessing you arrive as an employee. You might be the highest ranking employee, but you’re an employee nonetheless. You have job duties and responsibilities that need to get done in order for the business to function properly. You draw a salary like everyone else. And the fact that you happen to own the company’s stock does not factor into the reality of your daily work life.

You may be like most business owners. Your business is your passion and hobby. Sure, you enjoy R&R. You like golf and travel, but you feel most alive at the helm of your business, not on a yacht in the islands.

But if you want to find your next act, you’re going to need to do some self examination to figure this out. If golf and travel do not sound like an enticing retirement, you will want to find something that is.

For the first time in months, you open up your desk and pull out your notebook with your priorities listed. Amidst a list with some items crossed off as done and others awaiting your time and effort, one stares you right in the face: “succession plan”.

Every time you consult your list you see that one and then pick something else to work on. Planning your exit is something that just never seems to reach the top of your priority list. It’s never the right time to deal with this one, so you’ve ignored it.

When to sell is an age old question. In most cases, we can only answer this question years later with the benefit of hindsight. Trying to figure out the exact right moment to sell your company is an exercise in futility. That said, let’s discuss what we can and cannot say about market timing with the goal of landing at some practical, actionable advice.