Creating an Exit Strategy and Valuing Your Business

All right, Shannon. Well, I am eager to get to today's guest. We haven't been doing guests lately. In fact, we've been a lot more selective per your requests, folks. So you emailed us feedbackusinessshow co and we have heard you. But there are some guests that are worth listening to, and I think we've got one today.

I do too. Yeah, definitely. And I'm excited to learn more about all building wealth and how to maximize the value of your business and protect your assets. I think it's really an important topic and I'm ready to Small business.

Let's small business. He's Shannon Jean. I'm Dave Hamilton, and this is episode 313 of the Small Business Show.

The one thing that most business owners overlook, but the very first thing that they should do to start down the road of planning their exit is understand what their business is worth. Figure out the valuation for your business. Because if you. If you assume, like a lot of business owners are optimistic people. So if you assume that your business is worth $5 million, but it's worth $500,000, that's not good. So we gotta. So we have to know what the valuation is because then you can decide, well, is that enough? Can I start down this path of my exit, or do I need to shift in this different direct, grow my business a little bit more before I can begin to really start seriously planning for my exit? So it is the very first thing that business owners should do.

So a really obviously popular topic that we cover on the show all the time is getting started, you know, taking action to get your small business started. Get off the ground. A lot of folks that are making that transition from employee or to employer, you know, as they begin their journey towards living that charmed life that Dave and I have been discussing for like, the past six years. But today we're gonna talk about what actions you can take when you're ready to step away from your business. How do you plan for your retirement? How about, you know, if you wanna pass your business on to your kids, your next generation. So today on the show, we have Ashley Michiche. I think I've got that right. Co founder and CEO of True North Retirement Advisors with us, and we're gonna answer these questions and more, including some tips on making your business stronger as things turn around. Post Pandemic, which we're all excited about. Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, us too. This is a cool Topic because I've recently just a couple years out of selling my last company with a bunch of employees. So I'm excited about picking your brain. Let's get a little background here before we jump into some other topics. Talk about your history in the financial advisory field and maybe specifically working with small business owners. And what was the impetus then to go out on your own and start True North?

Yeah. So my father has been a financial advisor since before I was born. I think he started in 1982 or 1983 and he's still working in the industry. He's just on the other side of the wall in my office. But actually I never had any desire at all to be a financial advisor. And then when I went to college I ended up deciding to get a business degree. And when you do that, you kind of have to pick a track. You know, are you going to do finance or accounting or marketing? And I actually really enjoyed finance and not because I wanted to be a financial advisor, but I just liked the number side of it. And as I got closer to graduating college I thought, oh no, I see where this is heading now. And, and so but in finance and college they really, they really kind of prepare you for kind of the back end, the number side, like doing valuations, there's a lot of that kind of back end. Whereas being a financial advisor is very much a relationship oriented business. So. But when I graduated college I thought, you know what, let me give it a shot. I just, I wonder, let's try it out. Because I didn't have a clear idea of anything else that I wanted to do. So I kind of just fell into it by default because it was familiar because my dad had been doing that my entire life up until that point. And so I started in 2007 right out of college. And my dad is very much the type of person who, like when we were, when I was growing up, he would never let me win any games. Like I would have to win fair and square. And so he, when I joined him in his practice in the large financial firm that we were working for at the time, he kind just threw me to the wolves and I had to make a lot of cold calls. I think I made 25,000 cold calls in my first two years as an advisor. Yeah, it was torture.

Yeah.

But I didn't, but that, that sets you up.

Yeah.

Right. Like, I mean that's a no. That, that like that gives you a lot of perspective going forward and then, and there's a lot to be learned from those cold calls. Maybe not 25,000 of them, but you know, a thousand, 2,000, 3,000. Like that's not a bad thing.

Yeah, yeah. And I feel like I can identify with the plight of like the teenage boy who just asking girls out on dates and just get shot down over and over and over.

It's a numbers game. Eventually somebody's gonna say yes. That's right.

Yeah. So an interesting thing about cold calling, which kind of leads me to how I. It was cold calling. I hated it, of course. Like, I don't know anybody who is saying that that enjoys it, but I did it for a really long time. And one of the interesting things about cold calling is that, you know, the do not call list that existed back when started, it did not apply to businesses. So I could cold call businesses. And so I very quickly kind of fell into this specialization of working with business owners because they were the only people I could actually legally call. And sometimes if I was really lucky, I would get a hold of them. And early on, I started working with 401k plans and kind of discovered that, okay, I was like, this is going to be my niche. It's plays into my background and what I know and being a financial advisor and managing and consulting on these 401k plans. And so that is how I started working with business owners and had some early success. I had quite a few 401k plans that I got from cold calling in the early days, and that just kind of grew. And then what I realized about eight years ago is that most of my small business owner clients who I was managing, their 401k plan, they had this business that was an asset. A lot of them, you know, had value tied up in their business and it needed to be part of their plan for retirement. But most of them were getting close to retirement. You know, most of my clients who are owners were in their 50s, if not older, and just had no plan really for how to deal with the business when they were ready to retire. So I kind of started down that path without any grand plans, you know, just kind of fell into it by accident. And then about seven years ago, one of my clients suddenly died and he died of a heart attack in his 50s. And his wife, who had not prior worked in the business, came in, ran it, and she did fine for, you know, the, the cup that she was handed. But the. They ended up selling the business to a competitor on the other side of the country. They quickly eliminated and laid off all of the people who had worked there for like, you know, 2030 years, a lot of whom were close to RET. They sold the business for pennies on the dollar of what it was actually worth prior to the owner's untimely death. So all these things happened and I was just like, this is just terrible. You know, I gotta start talking to my clients more about this and figuring out how I can help that because I just saw this great unmet need that was happening, which is all these small business owners. And unless you're a big fish, you know, you don't have people banging down your door coming to tell you to help you figure out how to exit your business or sell your business or whatever that looks like. So that was really the catalyst moment that helped me to specialize in this and really focus on it. And I've just been going deeper and deeper down that path and doing. Specializing more in exit planning as time goes on. And I have more clients who are, you know, we're taking on and doing that service for them.

So I have a question. I'm probably jumping us way too far down the path, but, but, you know, I know if I'm thinking it, our listeners are thinking this as a, as a business owner, of course, the day that you start your business, you're probably not thinking about what the exit is. Some people do, right. But a lot of times you're just starting a business because, you know, you found a niche or something and off you go. So, like, how far in is. Well, I don't want to ask is too late, but how far in is not too late to start asking these questions of yourself and your business? Like, when do you, when do you advise entrepreneurs to really start digging in on this to figure out that exit strategy at what point in their businesses?

Well, Dave, yeah, you're exactly right. Ideally you would think about it at the beginning, but most business owners, they're just trying to survive in the beginning, right?

Yeah. I mean, if your business isn't going to survive, there's no reason to spend your cycles thinking about how you're going to sell it because it's just not going to happen. So, yeah, I guess, I guess my question is what are some good barometers or litmus tests to apply to say, hey, I need to think about, like, adding this to the things that I plan for?

Yeah. So what I usually advise is, well, first of all, most owners wait until they're too late, they're burned out, they're ready to retire yesterday, and then there's a sort of kind of false pressure that could have been avoided. Had they started a little bit earlier. So it, a lot of it depends on the method of transfer and who that ideal successor is. So if you want to transfer your business to, let's say a key employee or group of employees or maybe the next generation, like it's a family business. If it's an inside transfer, you do need a longer time frame to make sure that whoever that person or those people are that takes over, that we have positioned them for success, we haven't rushed it, they're ready to take the reins. Um, and you've kind of tested them enough over a period of years with greater and greater responsibilities so that when you finally do back away completely, if that's what you want to do, actually we can talk about that because most business owners shy away from exit planning because they think they have to leave their business altogether. But that's not necessarily true. I have lots of clients who, you know, their, their main goal in life is to die working in their chair. So it doesn't. An exit plan plan doesn't have to be a, you know, a hard line exit, but you do need longer to in on an inside transfer. The other reason why you usually need longer on an inside transfer is that because the, you know, maybe the 40 something year old successor owner, if your business is worth $5 million, how the heck is that person going to afford to pay you out? They can't just come up with the money. It's very hard to, to get loans in that circumstance. So a lot of times owners will end up financing the buyout and that just naturally takes a period of many, many years. Most of the time where they're getting a, you know, a dollar amount payout for the value of the business over a long period of time. And so for that reason a lot of owners will maintain control and ownership during that process. And then once they kind of get paid out the, the level that, you know, they, they view as being enough, then they can transition some more of the control to the successor owner. So that does take a long time. But if on a, on a third party sale, that depends. So like if you're in an industry that's really attractive and it's growing and you've got buyers lined up out, out the door wanting to buy your business. I mean it could, your exit strategy could take a few months to put in place and just make sure that you know you're going to have the money you need and you have the right people in the right places and you've done the financial and the tax Planning and all that, because there is some. Some work if you're going to do it right. You know, we have to. We have to lay the foundation for a successful exit. And we can't look, look, look over too many things. We need to make sure that we're doing the right things. And, you know, your key employees aren't going to leave at the 11th hour unless you give them a $500,000 bonus. I mean, good exit planning can address some of those things that owners don' necessarily think about, but that could seriously derail their exit. So, you know, I'd say on the low end, a year, and on the high end, I'd say, you know, maybe 10 years and anywhere in between, depending on what your situation is. So I think a lot of business owners are surprised at that because they're usually about you know, two to three years out. More often when they finally come to the table and say, okay, I'm ready to create and implement my exit plan now.

Yeah, it. I think it's a really tough. Well, I guess depends on what your ultimate goal is. But, like, speaking of my case, where I just kind of. I loved what I was doing, but I had to have someone else tell me it was my wife, who's much smarter than I am. She's, you know, this business doesn't need you anymore. And to take it, go to the next level and to kind of evolve it, I had basically to go do something else. It was very difficult to wrap my head around the fact that it was me that was holding it back, and it was time to let somebody else, you know, to sell it and get some. Some of your equity out and let somebody else do it. Do you hear that a lot from your clients?

Yeah. Really? It's so individualized. But, yeah, I mean, I think that that's a common kind of thought process there, which is, you know, I might. Maybe I'm the bottleneck in this thing and. And it could do better without me or without me in this particular role.

Yeah, no, it's a tough conversation to have, but one that I think, you know, analyzing your own role as the founder, owner, that kind of thing, and in your best use of your time. And maybe it's just not like to your point where you said, maybe you don't have to leave altogether, but get something, you know, something else, something else going. So it's a fascinating conversation, and I love the fact it sounds like the answer to me is it. It's kind of never too early to start having that conversation since, you know, I heard a piece of advice years ago and I don't know where it came from, I can't remember, but it was that if you run your business like you're, you're going to sell it tomorrow, your business is just going to be so much stronger because your, your financials, your financials are in, in order. You've got all these systems in place that you've developed because you think, wow, somebody could come in and be looking at this to, you know, tomorrow, where it's very easy to kind of let those things slide a little bit. If you think, oh, I'm just going to be doing this and I'll take, I'll deal with it so fast.

Right, Exactly. Yeah, that's a really good mindset. And I kind of, I'm wired that way. So I think about those things in, in my own business, you know, with True north, because my father and I co. Own this business and you know, we have to deal with our own succession plan and our own, you know, exit strategy and what that looks like for him. And, and so, you know, I'm living it every day. But, but because I'm sort of wired, understand these things, I'm always like, okay, how can we systematize this and how can we, you know, making sure we have the right people in the right places so that we are positioning the company for success in terms of, you know, valuation and being attractive to somebody else. Because, you know, I have no intentions to want to sell it right anytime soon. You know, I'm only 35 years old, so you know, I got a long time and I love doing what I'm doing. But it is very important, even if you think you're 30 years out like I am, that you are doing the right things because you don't want to be scrambling at the end, right, to set up, you know, get the right people in the right place. And that's hard. That can take a long, long time. And I've, I know I've made some bad hires myself so, you know, you got to have the ship, has to be a tight running ship by the time you get to the end.

You know, we always talk about doing an executive summary at the end of the year or beginning of the year, talking about what happened in previous 12 months. And we have a template up on Business Show Co. I'm going to add that question in there. It's like, what have you done today or this year to prepare your business, you know, to sell or to pass on? I think it's just a good Part of the planning process to get people to start thinking about it.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. I. I have. I actually want to ask you about your podcast because I. There's. There's some. There's some things that work exactly in line with stuff we've been doing on this show this year. The first thing I want to do, though, is talk about our sponsor. And today our sponsor is Uber for Business. Look, finding simple and effective ways to keep your employees engaged and your customers happy is always top of mind for us as business owners and managers. Right? And that's especially challenging when face to face interaction is limited. Now, now, you trust Uber as a way to request rides and order meals from restaurants you love, right? But did you know about Uber's platform designed specifically for our businesses? It's true. Over 160,000 companies use Uber for Business to improve customer and employee satisfaction. So are you having a hard time getting people to show up or stay engaged in virtual team meetings or events? Well, with vouchers from Uber for Business, you can add $20 to their personal Uber accounts so they can easily order meals through Uber Eats before your meeting. Want to make your customers love your business even more? Offer them a voucher for a free meal or a ride when they make their first purchase or spend a certain amount. Right. So any company can sign up for free and immediately start delivering extra value to the people who matter most to your businesses. Vouchers are simple to send and to redeem. Your business has total control over who gets the vouchers when they expire, what portion of the ride or the meal you want to cover. Vouchers are shared via email or text and can be redeemed with a single tap. I've used these. I've had Uber vouchers before when I've gone on, like, you know, press trips or whatever. People want to make sure I can get from the airport to the event. And they just say, look, here's a voucher. And it may like, it's super, super easy. And now you can do this for your business, too, because right now, Uber for Business is offering companies a $50 voucher credit when you spend your first $200 with vouchers. But you got to go to uber.com SBS to learn more. That's uber.com SBS for a $50 voucher credit. One more time. Uber.com SBS terms and conditions apply, of course. And our thanks to Uber for Business for sponsoring this episode. All right, Ashley, so you do a show called the One Minute Retirement Tip with Ashley and I like looking through the list of topics here. It fits exactly with something we've been doing for about the last year, which is really focusing on things that people can do to take action today. So tell us about your show and then maybe tell us about one of your favorite tips or actions that you've shared recently.

Yeah, so I actually started the podcast on a complete impulse. I had not planned to do that. And then so back in 2018, a friend of mine has his own podcast and he was telling me about the Amazon Alexa platform and their Flash briefing. So it's like a brand new platform and how if you have short form content, you know, like a few minutes of this, it's a really good platform for it. So I'd been thinking about, gosh, I wonder if I think I would like doing a podcast. But I didn't want to go through all the effort, you know, like you guys doing, finding guests to interview and doing, you know, it's just a lot of work. So when this idea came along, I thought, oh, this is perfect because I can do, you know, one to three minute little quick retirement tips, just little nuggets and people could kind of bite size, consume those things and then kind of go about their day. And that's the point of the Flash briefings on Alexa, is that, you know, whether it's news or weather or in, in my case, retirement tips, it's just a quick little actionable tip. And so that's what I started doing in 2018 and I've done an episode every single day since then. So I'm on episode like eight, something that's awesome. And it's, it's a, it's a lot of fun and I, I enjoy it way more than I thought that I would. I don't, not that I wouldn't enjoy it, but it's, it's so much fun. And I have listeners who will reach out to me and, you know, ask me questions and tell me about their situation. And it's just, it's been a real, real unexpected blessing. I just absolutely love it. And it's also because I write out my talking points, it's really helped me to, to solidify my values and beliefs and kind of my own angle that I come from in terms of what I, what do I believe about money? What do I believe about how people should handle money based on my own experience in dealing with, you know, the hundreds of clients that I've worked with over the years. So it's been, it's been a Lot of fun and I really enjoy it.

Yeah, I love that, that point you made about, you know, putting out your topics, your talk, talking points and, and kind of reaffirming, you know, what you want to focus on, your beliefs. And, and I, I kind of feel the same way. We do this show every week. It forces you to kind of sit down and go, oh, we want to cover these topics. And it, I mean, I always say it helps me more than anybody else. Hopefully there's, you know, other folks out there that helps too. But I, I think that's great. One of the things that we really do love is the, this here, take this action and you could do something. Is there something that you could tell our listeners that they could do today that would make their businesses stronger or set them on the right path to build that, you know, long term wealth or exit strategy?

Yeah, specifically for exit or for business owners. The one thing that most business owners overlook, but the very first thing that they should do to, to start down the road of planning their exit is understand what their business is worth. Figure out what is your, what's the valuation for your business. Because if you, if you assume, like a lot of business owners are optimistic people, so if you assume that your business is worth $5 million, but it's worth $500,000, that's not good. So we gotta, so we have to know what the valuation is because then you can decide, well, is that enough? Can I start down this path of my exit or do I need to shift in this different direction and grow my business a little bit more before I can begin to really start seriously planning for my exit? So it is the very first thing that business owners should do is figure out what your business is worth. And the technology that's available today makes it way much, so much easier to do this. Like you don't have to spend thousands of dollars on a, you know, certified valuation. You do in certain scenarios, depending on how. But, but just to start off, you do not need to hire somebody to do a certified valuation. You can, you can figure out what your business is worth for free.

Yeah, that's.

So how do you. Okay, so how, where can I go today to like start that process from myself?

Yeah. So we actually make a tool available to clients. It's not a tool that we developed, but it's a database that has 50 million businesses in there. So as long as you enter your industry and then a couple pieces of information like your revenue and your pre tax income, you can get a good accurate valuation. So for your Listeners who want to take advantage of that tool. It's True North Rank ValueMyBusiness. And they'll get access, unlimited access for free to that tool. And it's amazingly accurate. I've had clients where we've done the valuation through using the software tool. And then because of how they decided to transfer their business, we actually had to go back and get a certified valuation done later on down the road. And it was the certified valuation that they paid thousands of dollars for was very close to the estimate of value that we did using this, the software tool. So I would. That was very reassuring that this is working and it's not going to lead business owners to make some wrong assumptions and go down the wrong path, which is what we want to avoid early on.

That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's great.

Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. You know, I was just talking about my wife because about the show this week and you coming on and I was talking about, about, you know, one of the things I always battled with when I was growing the businesses, you know, one way or another is on long term investments and retirement planning is I was always like focused on cash flow. And you know, when we were growing like crazy, it seemed like it was just all kinds of expensive for different things and needed new buildings, had to buy this, had to buy that. And then when it was slow, you know, you, it was stressful managing cash in and out. It. It really took someone to set me down to get me out of that mindset of, you know, never having enough and, and understanding that it's, oh, you're always going to be going through these things. Do you see similar situations with, you know, when trying to help small business owners that you kind of have to help them change that framework that, you know, this is part of your cash flow and your process. I mean, I was always just holding on to cash so tight.

Mm. Yeah. It's a very common issue. So I'm curious, how did you kind of shift. What was, what was the key to shifting your mindset and changing how you, what you did with the cash flow?

Yeah, it was, you know, it was kind of a combination of my accountant and some other advisors that I had. We always recommend having like a private, you know, board of advisors for or whatever your business is and just having enough. And I think I went on a weekend kind of retreat with these folks and complained that was like, how can I, you know, yeah, all this stuff sounds great, but how do we pay for it. And they, and we just ran with some exercises and showed that, you know, just like your own personal retirement, if you kind of peel this money off before I go out and spend it. Because I was the buying guy, I was the dealer guy and always needed money to go buy. Almost every business I've had has been evolved around inventory and selling products. And so I just had to learn, it took me a long time, years to that I had to keep this, these funds aside to build this equity and build this wealth over time. And thank goodness I did. But, you know, it probably took me, you know, five years to really grasp my head around that because as a top line person, which is what I am, I was like, I can just drive it with more sales. But that's not true. You know, you need to be, somebody has to be a bottom line person too and say, no, you know, we're going to take this money off the table to grow it this way or protect it, you know, that way. So I just had to get it through my, my thick head and have enough people tell me I was wrong.

Well, yeah, and there, there's, there's part of, there's a lot of, I think there's actually a lot of good rational thought behind that, which is if you look at, if you're just thinking about future rates for most successful business owners now, if you have a failing business and you know it's going downhill, then this doesn't apply. But if you have a good growing business and you take that money that you could otherwise defer into like a 401k or some other type of retirement asset, it can't compete with what you, the return that you can get when you reinvest it back in your business. And so I think that's the hardest thing for business owners is that they're like, well, if my average annual return of reinvested money in my business is north of 20%, why the heck would I put it into a mutual fund where I'm, you know, maybe I could get 7, 8, 9% a year on average over that same time frame. So yeah, it is, it is a common, it is a common kind of conversation point that I have with clients. But there's a couple of, there's a couple of issues with just plowing everything back in the business. One is all business owners know there's no guarantee that your business is going to not go out of business in, you know, the next two years, five years. We have seen that become very true and plenty of examples of successful Businesses going out of business because of unforeseen things like Covid. Sure, sure. Yeah. So, you know, if you put everything back into the business and you have. Have nothing outside of the business, that is a huge, huge risk for you, for your family, everything. So from a mitigation risk standpoint, it is important to have that money spread in different places. And so what the. I guess the important thing then is to figure out, okay, if I have this pot of money at the end of the year or throughout the year in terms of cash flow, how much is reasonable to put back into the business versus putting into a 401k or just, you know, beefing up my savings, things like that. So. And a lot of that depends on. I would advise most business owners to not count on your business being part of your retirement plan because it will help you. There's no guarantee that it will be. And it will help kind of make sure that you're allocating money in the, into the right places to ensure that you're going to be okay. If your business fails and you're five years from retirement, are you and your family going to be okay? If you're not, then we need to, you know, reposition how we're investing our money and not put so much back into the business. So it's not an easy problem to kind of figure out what's best to do there. But it is very important because there are too many examples to count where business owners did reinvest everything back in the business. And that was a massive mistake.

Yeah. Once it was kind of budgeted into our system, if you will, and out of my hands, it was fine because I just wouldn't even see it, you know. Yeah. And it worked out. So about that pandemic, you know, you mentioned to us that you've been advising, you know, small business owners about how to make their company stronger and get through this, you know, as we prepare for what I, you know, I'm sure is going to be a really great turnaround. What types of tips are you giving your, your clients right now to help them get through it?

Yeah, one of the, I guess one of the bright spots of COVID is that most of us prefer not to think about our own demise. And, you know, I get it. I don't walk around thinking like, oh, I wonder if I died today, what would happen? But, you know, with COVID I think a lot of us, because especially in the beginning, you know, we were, we didn't know much about the virus. It was, it was a very scary Time not knowing who was going to get sick, how many of us were going to die, and what that would look like, and our families and all that. So in 2020, you know, a lot of people did kind of go through that mental exercise of thinking, okay, well what happened? What would happen if I got sick or if someone I love got sick or if I died? And I think it's a very important exercise that business owners think about that. Like, what would happen to your business? What would happen to your family if you became sick, incapacitated, or if you died? Like, how do you protect your business if that unthinkable scenario happens? And because most of us just prefer not to think about it, we don't do anything about it. And it's crazy, like how many clients I have that have complex estate type situations. They have business, maybe they have multiple houses or blended families. I mean, these are all. And they have nothing in place, no will, nothing. And I think a lot of it is just because it's way too uncomfortable to think about what would happen if something happens to me. So. But the problem with that for business owners specifically is that especially for a small business, you have a lot of business critical information that lives inside of your head. And if something happens to you, especially suddenly, it can really plunge your business into chaos. Like you may have employees or your spouse that doesn't even know where the company bank accounts are held and wouldn't even know where to begin to even just like keep payroll going and all of that stuff. And so what I've been working with clients with this year is or and last year in 2022 is putting together your business continuity instructions, which is basically just a set of instructions that has some key pieces of data. Like who is that you mentioned? Your trusted advisory board, you know, like, who's your CPA, your attorney, your exit planning advisor, who's your banker, etc. What is their contact information? And then so you create this list of first actions, trusted advisors. So like, who should be contacted first and how. How do you want your customers to be informed if something happens to you? How do you want your employees to be informed? Like, do you just want all your employees to get a text and say, oh, hey, Dave kicked the bucket, sorry, you know, go find another job.

Like, to be fair, they might be celebrating, but you never know.

But you, you probably have a good idea of how you want to control that flow of information if something happens to you. So you have to instruct people because they can't read your mind. And then like if you wear multiple hats in the business, like if you're the main salesperson or you handle the operations or you're doing all the financial stuff, you know, whatever hats you're wearing, you need to designate who should take over those functions until permanent replacement can be found for you. And then the other thing is existing arrangements. So if you have a buy sell, if you have insurance policies, where can a copy of all these agreements be found? And you know what exists versus what doesn't. And so all of these things, it's kind of like, it's sort of like a little will for your business. But you don't have to go to a attorney, you don't have to, you know, it's not an official legal document. It's just a set of instructions that you would create and then update periodically. Usually we'll update it like once a year and just see if anything's changed. And then you give a copy to, you know, your, your spouse, if you're married, you give it to your trusted advisors and, and you let people know that this exists. You don't have to let them know the details of it, but you just have to say, hey, you know, this set of instructions exists and this is where you can find it if something happens to me. And you tell that to multiple people so that you know, they're, they all kind of are aware of that. And then the last thing is, you know, a lot of business owners are approached over the years about, hey, if you're ever interested in selling your business, let me know. Maybe it's like a friendly competitor that, you know, you see at conferences or things like that. And you know, maybe you've had these casual conversations with them. But until we're ready to sell our business, we always sort of dismiss those. But I would really encourage business owners to not be dismissive of those. If they're, if it's a serious offer, then you're going to want to take note of that so that you can hand that over to the, to whoever is going to be handling the disposition of your business, assuming you want to sell it. Say, here's a short list of people who have previously expressed buying this business and they're a hand picked list by you as the owner and that can really help, help to sell the business quickly and for maximum value too.

And I would, I would even say if, even if no one has, has come to you, build that list anyway, right? Like in your head as a business owner, you can probably say, all right, if I had to sell this thing Today, who would I call to see if they, you know, they wanted what I have.

Right.

And you could build that list and. And, you know, at the very least, it gives. Gives, like you said, those people that are left behind a starting point so that they're not having to figure out how to build that list. So. Yeah, that's great.

That's good. I'm totally stealing that business continent, continuity.

And structure, creating a will for your business.

Yeah, it's brilliant. And whenever you hear me talk about it, which will sure be all the time on the show, you know, I got it from Ashley.

Well, you can steal it from me. That's okay.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Well, you know, we've had. There's a lot of really great information here. We could talk about this stuff all day. I know a lot of our readers, you know, may have questions for you. Ashley, what's the best way for our listeners to reach out and connect with you? And then also, just to learn more.

About True North, I'd point them to the Value My Business page, because all my contact information is there. And then they'll also be able to use that free valuation tool. And I just cannot emphasize that enough. So TrueNorthra.com ValueNameMyBusiness is. You can find all my contact information. There's. And, you know, I make it very easy, even if business owners just have questions like, hey, here's my situation. What should I do next? I make it very easy for anybody who wants to schedule a call to have a quick phone call and just to chat.

Yeah. And I love, you know, because over the years, I've often been approached by companies, hey, we can sell your business and everything. And a lot of them, you know, want something up front, usually, you know, a big chunk of cash. And I love the fact that. That people can contact you and you'll give them information and you have this Value My Business tool up there. That's. That's really a great value. And I would encourage anyone that's listening with these kind of questions to go up there. Ashley, thank you again for coming on the show. I totally learned a lot. I'm looking forward to getting some feedback and, you know, come back and keep in touch and come on the show from time to time and let us know how things are going.

Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

Man. You know, Shannon, when. When we're doing these interviews, I am keeping, like, whenever our guests have a sound bite or something that. Or a concept that they share that I want to revisit in the outro. I, you know, I'm constantly, like, flagging things and scribbling things. And on this one, I thought I had it. I knew what it was. And then right at the end when you said that you were gonna, the know, steal her. Her idea about having a, you know, retirement plan or a will for your.

Business or whatever it was continuation instruction. The bci.

The bc. You're already like, like turning it into a sound bite. But I liked what she said when she said, create a will for your business. But her response to you, where she said, oh, you can steal it. That. For me, that's. That's okay. The way she said that, the way she communicated it, she meant it for sure. But. But she, like, this is why she's successful because she immediately added trust to this conversation. And. But it was, it was just the way she said, oh, you can steal it from me, that's okay. It was like she was totally, it was clear that she is totally willing to just help for the sake of helping. And I have no doubt that she is that way with her clients. And man, if there's something to be learned from this episode. But it's like, go back and listen to that. Her tone there was. I mean, it has to be sincere, otherwise it doesn't work. But, man, like, well, this is why.

I wanted to have her on the show. We get approached by, you know, people every day and lots of people in the business, brokering and all this kind of stuff. And there's just a lot of interesting, and I use that word, characters, characters in that market. And a lot of them, I don't think have that authenticity and trust. And then when she talked about the business valuation tool that's free to use and yeah, you know, they get a lead or whatever, but it's just, she's a good person to have in your network, you know, go. Go find her on. On LinkedIn. And if you want someone that is truly, I think does want to work in your best interest, she would be a good person on that business valuation front and retirement.

The thing that I had before that came up, the thing that I knew would be my lead to the outro here was when she said, don't count on your business to be part of your retirement plan. Yeah, that's something, man. I have only crossed this bridge recently, but I will tell you, my stress level about the future is so much lower after having crossed that bridge. And like, oh, I gotta take. You call them pots of gold, right? I gotta take some pots of gold off the table and stash them away for me for later. Like, that's okay to do. And it's a hard thing to get to.

It is.

But like you said, once you get there, oh, man, life. You start to see, oh, wait a minute, this business could fall apart or whatever. Like, things could change. And I've got this other thing. I'm taking care of Dave separate from taking care of the business. Yeah.

All this kind of stuff. And it's part of the Charmed Life system.

It is.

Sure. It is a difficult thing because as entrepreneurs and founders, we often believe so strongly in our business.

And I'm still not doing it perfectly, by the way, but I at least started the con. Like, I'm. I've grasped the concept and I've done some of it, so.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. No, it's awesome. It's a great show. You know, we'd love to hear from you. We try to keep the show a little shorter and. And, you know, so we would probably have Ashley come back on, talk about 401ks and different methods sometime in the future, later this year, early next year, but. Feedbackusinessshow. Co, we'd love to hear what you think of the show, and thanks for listening.

Yeah, thanks for listening. Make sure to check out uber.comsb to get your 50 voucher credit there and keep living that charm life.

See you next time.