A company strips down operations to look lean before selling, cutting costs and space like "burning the furniture to keep from turning on the heat." The problem: employees burn out and leave right after the sale closes, leaving new owners with a collapsing workforce.
I love the term skinny bomb because it implies that it is kind of a ticking time bomb. And oftentimes, it can be. And the phrase that I had never heard that phrase before, but the phrase that I've used is burning the furniture to keep from turning on the heat. And I've worked with companies that were preparing for an exit or a sale or recapitalization. And you come through the front door and like, Literally, there's no furniture, like, because they've, you know, they moved into a smaller building and they left all their furniture at the old building. And now they're back to folding tables and chairs and, you know, really getting that kind of entrepreneurial vibe, which can be really good in that it keeps you thinking lean, but it also can be just burning people out to the point where as soon as that liquidity event happens, everybody's bolting out the door and the new owner's going to be left with that bomb going off.
How Can You Maximize Your Business Value Before Selling? with Randy Katz Video
