There is an entire industry and philosophy surrounding why you should sell your business, but it doesn’t need to be that way.

There are many reasons why people choose to sell their businesses and really the reasons can be broken down into two different things. 

1. Long Term Goal To Exit: A strategic decision because their plan all along was to sell their business and they have something else more desirable to do with their time (besides golf).

2. Looking for an Exit strategy after losing faith.  They hit a point of frustration or desperation and are no longer either enjoying the business or don’t believe they can get it to the next level. 

The first point is a goal to exit, the second allows you to think it isn’t going to get any easier, it might be better to sell. And there are a lot of people who will want you to sell. This means you can feel forced to exit.

In this episode we discuss the top 5 reasons people regret selling, and how you can consider different perspectives and opportunities.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

 

Kevin (00:00:13) – Welcome to the Growth Whispers podcast, where everything we talk about is building enduring great companies, companies that we’re thrilled to be a part of for years, decades, ideally even generations. I’m Kevin Lawrence here in Vancouver, bc along with Brad Giles, my co-host down in Perth, Australia. Brad, how’s it going today?

Brad (00:00:32) – Excellent, excellent. And I’ll tell you what, we spent 165 episodes to get to this point where we’re talking about building endearing great businesses through every episode. But this is, this is such an important episode. This is what it’s about. It is

Kevin (00:00:48) – Guess why people regret selling. And it’s something that we get very passionate about, angry about sometimes when people are looking to sell for the wrong reasons, which we’ll get into in a minute. So, what’s your word Or f Go ahead, go ahead.

Brad (00:01:02) – Oh, but this is, I know we want to get into it. It’s such, everything’s an important issue, but we see the pain on the other side. All right, so I’ve got that out. I feel a little bit better now. Uh, go back to the zen, uh, what’s my word of the day? Cooperation. Um, I, I, I feel, I remember, I remember you said something offline once, uh, which is about the function of a coach and a leadership team together, and how there, there’s challenging and then there’s arguing wrapped around that is how are we all cooperating to get the same outcome in healthy debate? So cooperation.

Kevin (00:01:53) – Awesome. Well, the word is, you started talking, I changed mine. My mine is conflict because, you know, conflict is really important to a healthy team, but health conflict can be done with respect. Yes. And care. And it’s, it’s a different thing when you make, when you make your point and you start to feel like you’re yelling and screaming and threatening, that’s a whole other thing. And usually when people start yelling and screaming and threatening is cuz they have no other way to communicate. And they’re kind of, they’ve surpassed their ability to communicate and their resort to those types of things, which I know I’ve, I’ve been like that before. Yeah. So both, both cooperation and conflict kind of go hand in hand. You gotta have conflict sometimes to keep that cooperation going, but it’s a matter of how good the conflict is or isn’t. And this kind of drips a bit into what we’re talking about today because selling a business, you know, and sometimes one of the reasons we’ll get to people wanna sell a business is, is just, it’s just, there’s too much internal conflict and too much pain.

Kevin (00:02:52) – But the point though, that we’re looking at here today, and this is our, our deep passion and you know, as we’ve talked about, there’s a whole industry and lots of people believing that selling your business is the ultimate goal. And the truth is, for some people it is. But there’s others who don’t really want to sell, but sell almost out of desperation or losing faith that it’s even possible to have a great company and enjoy their job. And what we want to talk about today, that it doesn’t need to be that way for those that really deep down inside don’t want to sell. And, and we’re gonna get into some, some strategies that we, or some situations we’ve seen and some things that actually help people to work their way out of it when they kind of lose faith. And, you know, we really break this down into to two different things is one is sometimes people have a long-term goal to exit. We’re not talking about that. There are people who, that is their goal from the beginning to build it, get it to a certain point, and sell it, and then go do their next thing. The one we’re talking about is that people end up looking for an exit strategy partway through cause it’s not going so well. Yeah. I dunno if Brad, if you wanna add anything into that, oh, between those two philosophies

Brad (00:04:06) – So much, I get 17 hours to dribble on about this stuff. But I’m gonna start with, many people say, what’s your exit strategy? That should be the cornerstone or the beginning of a business plan potentially, but I

Kevin (00:04:23) – Guess all time I hate it. I hate it,

Brad (00:04:25) – But, but why? Wh where is the, we’re challenging the orthodoxy around that we’re challenging. Well, why, why does it need, I just

Kevin (00:04:36) – Thought of something. I just thought of something. It’s like when you’re getting married, someone’s saying, Hey, so what’s your exit strategy? Like when we get married, we don’t have an exit strategy. Why, why wouldn’t you start building a company that people tell you you need to have an exit strategy?

Brad (00:04:53) – And this is because we see this stuff day in, day out. We see the pain and the, and the, the toll that this kind of stuff takes. So what we’re saying is that it doesn’t, you don’t need to think about it like this. And I want to tell you how, where was the first point where I began to think differently about this? And it must have been 15, 17 years ago. There’s a guy called Tom runs a painting business right now, you might think painter, not sophisticated, probably a terrible business model. But this guy was the complete opposite. Even on reflection, the strategy, the execution, the everything. It was brilliant. Right?

Brad (00:05:35) – Now, Tom said to me, he said that the, he’s seen so many people, a bit of an aged fella, but he’s seen so many people who have been running their business. He said there’s two types of people. There’s the, the ones who get in and then they try something, um, and then they sell that business and they, they start another one and then they, they get fed up or they sell that to make a dime. And then they, so they’re always kind of switching around a bit like the fox and the hedgehog, right? They’re always, he said, but these people were never successful. They get to their fifties, sixties and they’re like, I was always waiting for that big deal. I was always waiting for something that would scale. Right? He said, but the ones that are truly successful are the ones who get to their fifties and sixties and they’ve stuck at it and they’ve gotten better and better and better and better and focused. And they’ve nailed it over time. He said, you, you, he said, there are these two people and if you wanna win, you’ve gotta be the latter. And I’d never thought about it like that as a young, as a young entrepreneur who was full of beans. But that’s where my, the first change in my mindset began.

Kevin (00:06:52) – Interesting. So what we’re gonna dig into is we got kind of like five core things of why people end up selling their businesses almost under a bit of internal duress, higher degree of potentially regretting it. And the root of it is generally in life we’re more likely to regret decisions when we are fear-based and running away from something versus when we’re opportunity-based and running towards something. And, you know, we got five things I’ll outline to five and then we’ll dig into ’em. But partner or shareholder issues, they can’t see a way through. So exiting seems to be a solution. They don’t believe themselves as the founder or the leader that they have the skills or sometimes energy to get to the next level. Fed up with people wanting to build or needing some personal wealth or needing, wanting some personal cash or wealth, uh, outside of the business.

Kevin (00:07:43) – And then just basically not enjoying it. Like they don’t like their job and they’re not enjoying their job. So we’ll dig into those. And I’ll start off with a story from, um, uh, actually it’s in the front of my book so I can talk about openly. A guy named Nigel and he almost sold his business because of partner frustrations. His partner and him did not get along. And also he was kind of tired of running the show and he couldn’t have have, have a good president and he had a deal and it fell apart, which is funny. End of the day he ended up finding a way to bioTE partner and he bought his partner out and he got somebody in his team. The third try, he got a great president in place. It’s gotta have been 10, 12 years ago that that all happened. The company’s doing well. Nigel is able to keep his strategic role a, a a as the majority shareholder. His president is also a shareholder too. Um, and and able to do all the cool stuff he wants in his life. He’s got his cake and he’s eaten it too. And it couldn’t be better. So he found a way through and thankfully the transaction didn’t happen,

Brad (00:08:53) – Thankfully. Um, so partnership. Mm. A partnership is the only ship that’s built to sync. Okay? No one builds a ship with a plan to sink. But, but the structural nature of partnerships means that when we go in, we’re all excited. We’re all, uh, looking forward to the future, and we have a common enemy. Okay? The common enemy is the growth of the business to establish and build something. Okay? But then over time, all of the little bits and pieces mean that the common enemy either isn’t there because we’ve built the business or there becomes little points of conflict that either way over time. Uh, I remember there was one Sydney team who had a partner conflict. Uh, when they had nothing, it was fantastic because they were all gonna go and do the work and get stuck in, but then this conflict became massive and I had to try to work through with them that conflict so they could build an agreement document after the fact because they were thinking, I’m just gonna exit. It’s no good. And this business has potential to be in like 10, 20, 30 countries. This is an amazing business. And they were like, yeah, it could change their whole lives and their grandchildren’s lives kind of thing, right?

Brad (00:10:09) – So we, we started again, we built the uh, uh, partnership agreement document, and then we went forward. Um, another example, we had a minor shareholder owned, I dunno, 20, 25% of the business. And they kept coming in and telling everyone to do, the team hated it, okay? Because this person was totally destructive. Uh, or, and, and disruptive those issues eat away at the energy of the founder and the leader for sure. All of those issues. And they’re like, you know what, it’d be easier to do something else.

Kevin (00:10:46) – Yeah. And we’ve had a few situations. The hard part is actually a lawyer from of mine says, look, one of the biggest, a big, a big profitable area for law firms is partnership agreements. He says, the funny thing is though, you can rarely get them signed, people have a hell of a time agreeing on it’s hard, especially when you’re already running the business. So, you know, I’ve gotten a A C E O that was having partnership issues and they, they just, and because they didn’t have full control of the company, it was a nightmare and it was really creating a lot of stress and affecting their health. Long story short, they found a guy who’s a master facilitator of partnership agreements, not a lawyer who is able to bridge agreements and find creative ways to take thing care of things so the partners can get back on the same page and move forward.

Kevin (00:11:38) – And sometimes it might require buying one out or different shares that they would get so they’re no longer voting and other things, but they have. And so I, now, I have a guy that in that I, uh, know as a resource for my clients that if they have issues that there’s always a way through it, but often the CEO e o can’t deal with it. So mm-hmm. To kinda wrap, so basically partnership shareholder issues, there’s, there’s, there’s always ways. One of the way, uh, chapter 12 in my book, there’s a thing called tackling Tough conversations. And sometimes you just need to have a tough conversation or sometimes you need a magic man like this guy that I know who is able to go into these tense way situations and talk to people almost like a mediator and, and find a way through. But there’s, there’s almost always, it’s just a little harder than we think. Well, let’s, let’s jump onto the second one. Mm. The founder, not basically they lose faith in themselves. I mean, they are getting beat up on a regular basis and they don’t believe that they can get it to the next level.

Brad (00:12:38) – Mm. So this is the, this is the story that people tell themselves that founder-led companies can’t scale. Yeah.

Kevin (00:12:47) – Yeah.

Brad (00:12:48) – And it’s a story because it’s, it’s made up, right? Mm-hmm. , they can totally scale. Uh, now some people maybe be not in some circumstances there’s always exceptions to the rule, but you don’t need to sell because you can’t take the business to the next level. Okay? The objective is freedom at a personal level and at a financial level for starting and running and scaling a business. So keeping that goal in mind, we then come back to, well, who are the people that we need to put into what places? Mm-hmm. , another way to think about it is there’s a, a, a statement which is you need to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you mm-hmm. . So if, if, if you don’t have the smarts when it comes to operations or marketing or the way the machines plug together or whatever it is, then you’ve gotta find people who can be exceptional at that. And then your job Yeah. Becomes to scale.

Kevin (00:13:51) – And the thing is, where, where, where there is truth about many founders can’t scale companies. It’s absolutely true. It’s just cuz they won’t learn like they get in their own way. So if you’re hu humble and driven, you can do almost anything. But you need to learn, you need to surround yourself with better people. You need to make tough decisions and do a bunch of things. But if your ego’s in the way or if you just can’t find a way to work well with people, well then maybe that’s different. So let’s,

Brad (00:14:21) – Let’s just, let me just interject there. That could lead to all of these things. Could lead to, so what you’re saying, if we were in a coaching role, so you’re gonna exit the business when it’s got a 6 million valuation compared to when it’s got a 67 million valuation. Yeah.

Kevin (00:14:36) – If, or a 670 because you’re not willing to learn

Brad (00:14:40) – Because you’re not willing to learn get well,

Kevin (00:14:42) – Get to work. Like most of the most effective CEOs that we do that work with the building during great companies, the ones that cross a hundred million, 250 million, 500 million, a billion, whatever it is, they are voracious readers and not constant learners cuz they want to get to the next level. But you gotta go learn what it’s like to be, and we’re required at the next level. And if you don’t, most people won’t naturally get there. So, you know, I I got a c e O that, and the company was just under a billion when, um, I started working with this one. And it, it was to the point where they were like, I don’t, I, I can’t see it. I don’t, I don’t think I want to do it. But when I went in and looked at the operating system of the company, like how the c e o was doing their job,

Brad (00:15:28) – Yeah,

Kevin (00:15:29) – Of course, of course they were smart and capable. But we had to do a whole almost what I would call like, like a, like a reset of the, I call it a boil down. We had to boil down all, there was so much complicated junk in the system. Yeah.

Kevin (00:15:47) – And, and it wasn’t even clear what the most important stuff was. It was noisy and messy. So we had to go and re-clarify the CEO’s goals and what the c e o wanted out of this machine. Then we had to go through and fix strategy, fix people, and then fix the financial reporting and returns part of the business. Like all of it, because it was just through the growth, it got messy and good. Good. C e o just needed to really do Yeah. Just to clean it up. And then all of a sudden they’re like, wow, I got an awesome new team strategy is really clear, the financial reporting, we know what we gotta do and what we need to focus on. It’s like they’re thrilled. It’s just like they, it’s like the backyard had overgrown and become a jungle and we went in and groomed it and had them get set up with an operating system to get the gardener and the arborist and all the stuff to continue to take care of the property.

Brad (00:16:41) – Yeah. Yeah. So you don’t have the skills or energy hire people who can do it or learn and do the hard things because the return is worth so much more. Like there is, there is no reason you can’t turn your business into a business that you love, that gives you energy. That’s the objective. Sure. You might not be able to do it by next week, but there’s no reason that you can’t. So let’s move to number three.

Kevin (00:17:07) – Unless, unless your business, unless your business model flawed. So, so, but on, on two, so from, from, um, again, my, your oxygen mask first is written with this in mind. So chapter eight, learn like your life Depends on It is key to, you know, not having the skills and building the skills. And two, is that Chapter 11 quadruple your iq. It’s who you surround yourself with. Get way better people around you. Normally when people like that, they don’t, they’re not surrounded by awesomeness in every direction. Go ahead Brad. Number three,

Brad (00:17:36) – The Yep. Third one fed up with the people issues I was asked today by a founder, c e o when you’re coaching people, is every single conversation about people issues

Kevin (00:17:51) – ?

Brad (00:17:53) – Um, maybe not every single one, but certainly we talk about people issues regularly. Uh, so we’ve seen the tax that this has on leaders. It’s horrendous. Yep. Okay. And once you see behind the curtain of building a great tame of a players, once you understand it, you can’t unsee it. And then it only compounds the frustrations you have when you don’t have the right people on the bus doing the right things the right way. See, building a great team of A players is the job of the c e o leader. Like, that’s it. You’ve gotta surround yourself with the best people smarter than yourself, as we said before. So there’s one leader, and for many years, uh, had several mediocre people. And you, he used to always say to me, look, uh, I can’t bring in the best people if, if, or I can’t build the business and build a great team if I’ve just got people always going out the back door departing the business. We focused on it, we built scorecards and we got a players in. And now that business is absolutely cranking. You look to every single corner of the business and it’s just cranking and compounding and compounding.

Kevin (00:19:14) – And we see that story again and again and again, Brad, is that generally people tolerate people that aren’t thriving in their roles. And of course, who wants to, who wants to run a company when you don’t love all the people you work with? And I had one c e o that, um, that, that we had a conversation with and really good guy and his team was driving him crazy and he just says, I just don’t wanna deal with it. Think I’m ready to sell. Went to market. The valuations weren’t good enough. The business was at a bit of an awkward stage. And then finally he goes, okay, based on all the feedback from the private equity firms he talked to, they all said the same things about what he needed to fix in his business. And he goes, well, the reality is I want to get it to the next level.

Kevin (00:19:57) – I want a better value than I could get now. So now I’m gonna go and do the hard work and go and fix the people things. And there was half a dozen people that needed to be exited, needed to change the structure a little bit. So now he’s gonna go and do the work. And I said to him, just, just be prepared, , that you actually might not want to sell it after you do it. You were hating your business because you didn’t have the right people doing the right things and it was pushing up a lot of headache to you so you get the right people in place. So this is a huge apart, it’s 90 something percent of our conversations and it’s the game changer. And most people tolerate too much with people in our world. It’s an A to stay. We want people who are thriving in their roles today, not five years ago, not in five years. Today we need greatness. So again, and oxygen mask first chapter 10, make yourself Useless, one of my favorite chapters. Right. Surround yourself with so people, people so good that you don’t have to do a lot. And then chapter 12, stop being chief Problem Solver. Stop telling people the answers to their questions. Get people to solve their own problems or get people that can solve their own problems. So you’re freed up to actually do the CEO’s or the founder’s job.

Brad (00:21:09) – We see that so often. Uh, I, for, for the people who didn’t see the video, I was cracking up when you were saying that. Uh, because so often people, all of these five things, they build up and they’re like, no, I just want out. I just want to easier life. I just wanna do it. And then they realize the valuation of the business or what their look life looks like afterwards. And then they end up coming back to they, they go kind of go through this whole emotional phase. If they don’t exit, then they say, well actually this is just the business that I want. And then they build the business that they want from that Yep. Realization, right? So, or

Kevin (00:21:49) – They do exit and then they get bored after a while and then they go and build another company, which is the business that they

Brad (00:21:55) – Want off. Yeah. Off.

Kevin (00:21:57) – And especially if they’re still in their forties or fifties. Yeah. What

Brad (00:22:00) – We’re kind of saying here is, you don’t, or wisdom comes from learning from other people’s mistakes. You do not need to go through this pain yourself. All right, so moving on to the next one. That one was, again, so number one, partner, shareholder issues. Number two, founder not believing they have the skills or energy to take it to the next level. Number three, that one was fed up with the people issues. And then this one’s interesting. Number four, wanting to build some personal wealth, personal wealth or security. They’ve invested everything back into the business or a good deal and they’re like, look, I just wanna take some money off the table, or I just, I don’t experience the wealth that I want.

Kevin (00:22:43) – Why is this? Yeah. And the idea. Yeah. And, and, and, and the reality is people only only need so much money, but if you’re, if, if a business is generating, I’m making up numbers, you know, 5 million bucks a year of profit, whether it’s 500,000, 5 million or 50 million, whatever the number, you know, the reality is one of the CEOs wanted to sell. And I said, fine, I, I can understand how you want to take some of your, your net worth out of your, your company and put it somewhere else. And we went through a bunch of different scenarios. And one, because basically you just think like a private equity firm would, what are they gonna do? Well, they’re going to e leverage the balance, borrow a bunch of money and use, you know, the bank’s capital and investors capital, but use the bank’s capital and get the business to pay that off while it continues to grow.

Kevin (00:23:30) – So I said, you really got options. You can go borrow money against your own company and pull it off and put it in a holding company and do it that way. Or just focus on improving your cash in the business as it’s growing so that the company can afford to generate more additional cash. And of your 5 million, depending on the business model, maybe you could pull out, so if you did the lump sum borrowed some money, you could probably take, you know, 20, 30 million out of the company if you really wanted to, especially if went back when rates were good, or of the 5 million of profits depending on the capital requirements. Um, maybe you could start to pull out two, 3 million extra a year and, and transfer that to a holding company. And over, um, a number of years, you could end up in a, in a quite a great position, but you have to take the time to think the strategy through, and you could sell it and get all the money today, which is the alternative. But there’s, there’s ways to do it. And a lot of people, um, see the lump sum exit as, as the magical solution when there’s other ways. And if you plan in advance, you can just do it over time.

Brad (00:24:38) – How much do you want? That’s the first thing that comes to mind. Mm-hmm. . Um, and what is the itch that you’re trying to scratch? Because if you wanna build some personal wealth, how much do you want? Do you want it because you wanna buy a boat or a plane, or you wanna buy an investment property or you wanna buy a farm? What, what’s on your mind? You wanna invest in other companies because u understanding why you have that desire can lead to, well, once you buy a plane, what does that mean? You need to run it, you need the operating cost or whatever that might be. But when you know what it is, then you can say, okay, well what do we need to do to the business to extract that amount? And over what period of time?

Kevin (00:25:21) – Yes.

Brad (00:25:22) – A sale might be, let’s say a three x multiple. Now if you’re in software, you’d be laughing because you’d be doing a 10 x revenue rather than, uh, three

Kevin (00:25:29) – X or 20 it’s, or 20 at some point that they were doing. Yes.

Brad (00:25:33) – Yeah, I agree. But, uh, uh, the average business might be doing a three to five times profit multiple to get the

Kevin (00:25:40) – Well small ones, the bigger ones, bigger businesses get, like some of the bigger ones have been, you know, 10, 12, 14 times profit Perfect on the big ones, but the Yeah, just a clear Yeah.

Brad (00:25:51) – Yeah. But the point is still how much do you want? And then what do we need to do to the business to make that happen? Because if your business is spinning out cash, that’s what you want. You want a business that spits out cash rather than sucks cash. And if

Kevin (00:26:09) – It doesn’t, you need to go fix it

Brad (00:26:11) – And you need to go fix it Exactly. If it does. But, but a business that you own should be one of the best investments that you make that should Yes. Generate some of the highest returns, cash returns that you see if it’s run well. And that’s what we’re saying. So there was an example. Yes, I had a professional services firm, uh, and the c e o was talking to me and she was saying, look, I just want out. We’re just getting, you know, I’m just tired of it. It’s, it’s not creating the results. And I think she even said, I’d be better off going and working for someone else. Um, and so yeah, from that we, we worked to implement the business, uh, and we followed through. Now they’re at 30% profit growing at 30 to 40% a year. And she’s totally delighted that I, um, helped her through that, that situation.

Kevin (00:27:01) – So in both of those scenarios, whether it’s pulling more personal cash for a reason or change in fixing your business, so it generates substantial cash that both requires strategy and some big brains to, well, sometimes simple brains to help you figure it out. So let’s go to number five, and this is the most important. I got a quote behind me, um, uh, in the red about this, but it’s about enjoying the ride. And a lot of people don’t enjoy it. And that’s really unfortunate. And so there’s a chapter in, um, your oxygen mask first called Invest in Your Sweet Spots, which is basically do the work that you love and that that gives you energy. Uh, and you mentioned something about this a little bit earlier, Brad, and then also do it in the way you like to do it or the environment you like to do it, but basically engineer your job.

Kevin (00:27:50) – So you love it. You’ve got control and you can structure the company to custom suit you. And a lot of part, a lot of times, this is when a CEO’s been doing it for a long time and they’re just tired of the operational part of the role and the boring basics. And truly, it’s, it’s often time, and I see, especially as people get late forties into their fifties and they’ve been doing it for a while, where there’s often the c e o and president role are kind of combined. I’m, I’m holding with my hands, kind of holding ’em above and below each other like two cups. And generally the true strategic cce, the true c e o role is very strategic. And the president part of that role is more operational. So it’s often the splitting of those roles or changing of the org structure.

Kevin (00:28:33) – So the c e only only has a few direct reports, so the CEO o can stay strategic and not stuck in the operations. And right now I got probably four of my CEOs going through this transition. Mm-hmm. getting themselves to truly be what I call the capital C C E O or a strategic c e o, where they are not really involved in operations at all. They’re freed up to be strategic and working far into the future of the business and where they’re working out, you know, ideally it’s like three years plus, of course there’s a bit of operational stuff they have to stay on it, but they can use their understanding of the business to provide really good input and flag step operationally, but it’s not flowing up to them. And they can stay in strategic mind, uh, stay in their strategic mind way more often. And after 10, 20, 30 years of doing it, most people are more than ready for it. And, and sometimes wait a little bit too long to make that change.

Brad (00:29:32) – The, the cost of engagement or not having a highly engaged founder owner, c e o can be much higher than we might anticipate. And so it could be the time to appoint a president or c o o or a C E O, and then the founder will take on a more strategic or a board position or whatever. Um, but that cost is so high. So what gives you energy and what drains your energy in your role, uh, run to lists and then try to focus on the things that give you energy. And I love what you said, again, I was gonna reiterate it, but you did three years into the future is where you should be spending most of your head time in a mature business. Um, yes. And there was a, a quick story, but we had one CEO we were working with, and they built a plan around that to maintain their, their engagement in the business, knowing that they were feeling a bit stale and dry, and now they do what gives them energy. And that’s kind of what matters.

Kevin (00:30:41) – Awesome. So a couple in, in your oxygen mask first chapter four, invest in your Sweet Spots. I mentioned chapter 16. Keep going for it. Keeping yourself stretched personally so you also stay inspired. And then the final chapter, chapter 17, plan, plan, plan. Again, go back to your personal Strat plan, what do you want, what do you not want? And then take that to help you re-engineer your role. So we’ve covered off five principle, five reasons people sell when they don’t really want to. And remember, some people their goal is to sell from day one. Awesome. That’s your deal, that’s your gig. And a number of our clients have done that, and that’s our strategy and it works well. We’re talking about the ones who reluctantly sell out of frustration and pain. So it’s whether it’s a shareholder issue, losing faith in your ability to take it to the next level, fed up with people, uh, needing some cash out of the business for your own personal wealth or use, or just generally not liking your specific role in how you spend your time. And so keep those in mind and know that there’s, there’s a saying where there’s a will, there’s a way. So if you don’t want to, then you just gotta look out for the right resources and tools and help and people like ourselves that help people build the business they want.

Brad (00:31:54) – Mm mm That is true. Something we’re super passionate about. So much. So we’ve spent years talking to people about building enduring great businesses, and that is obviously this podcast called The Growth Whisperers . You can find us on YouTube if you just search the Growth Whisperers. If you’d prefer to see our smiling faces. We greatly appreciate you subscribing, uh, commenting, and also you can find us, uh, where you listen to your favorite podcast again, uh, the subscription, uh, and the commenting and the rating is so important to us. It makes a big deal. If we could ask for anything in favor, we would really appreciate the ratings in your podcast app. Um, and you can find Kevin, his book is referred to a few times today as your oxygen mask. First, his website is lawrenceandco.com. You’ll find also an interesting weekly newsletter that he publishes by myself. Uh, I have two books made to thrive and onboarded. You can find me at evolutionpartners.com.au and again, a weekly newsletter you may find interesting. Hope you’ve enjoyed the episode today, and we look forward to chatting to you again next week. Have a great week.