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Sometimes you need to be guided through a conversation to get to the truth of what do you really want it to be. This is your Badass Journey Podcast. I am Karene Walsh, serial entrepreneur, growth strategist, executive leadership coach, and bestselling author. Each week, I will bring you a guest or a thought that will help you align what you love with what you do in order to build that badass life and business you dream of. Hey there, listeners. Welcome to another episode on your Badass Journey podcast. I want to talk about exit strategies today. In our previous episode, we talked about the identity crisis that comes when we start to uplevel. And I shared with you some key questions to ask in assessing where you are right now against where you're trying to go. And what I also realize when I go through that exercise is that it helps me identify who I'm trying to be. But then when I look at what I'm actually responsible for or the roles that I said yes to in the past, the businesses that I own, the relationships I have, maybe the programs I even launched and started, , even the way I spend my time on my health, I find that I am highly aligned when I think about what's the appropriate exit before I even start it. And I know that sounds awkward, but it might be because I have an operational mind. Like I'm one of those people who basically goes into any room and I try to figure out, okay, where are the exits? just for safety. Like that is something that I learned at a young age being a female in major cities. I always wanted to make sure I knew how to get out of a situation if I had to. It just made me feel safer. And when it comes to our roles in our careers and building our businesses, I found that when I started to coach entrepreneurs and share some of my methods, exit strategy methods are the ones that really created eye-opening opportunities for them to explore what do they really want and how do they move through it all? How do they actually put their launch plan together with an exit in mind? And entrepreneurs are asked this all the time, especially if you have investors, coming into your business, they want to know how the return will be for them to exit their investment in your company. But when it comes to starting something and you fast forward to how you want to exit that thing, it really then puts a perspective on how do you need to run it in the meantime? How do you need to own it, run it, and prep for that exit? with ease. So today I wanted to talk about exit strategies because as I'm going through my own identity up leveling and I am determined to launch this new business that's going to require a lot of my time and dedication. It's going to require me to potentially exit from some roles I have played in the past or how to actually like just stand in it all with the identity I want to have from all my learnings. I felt that, you know, we should talk about these strategies because I know that you'll benefit from it too. A lot of times we think we have to carry forward everything we have become and everything that we own. But if we're just carrying it forward and not thinking either how it integrates to what we want next or manage it along with all the new role and responsibilities of what we want to really put out into the world. We get bogged down. We are half-assing a lot of things, right? Because then you're stretched across too many things. And it's really important to get clear on who you need to be in that new role you want to play in order to launch it at its best versus sitting in it all, feeling the weight of it and not even enjoying the journey. what you know I'm all about. So how do we, how do we define what an exit strategy is? There's so many different ways to exit something, but in this context for this conversation, I really want to talk about the exit strategies for your career moves. And when I talk about career moves, it's not only those who are working for other people's companies, it is for you. If you're owning your own company, you are building your career. It's all part of career management. It's just the construct at which you're managing your career, whether you own it or part owner of it as an entrepreneur, or whether you're in a company trying to climb and become a top leader in that organization, it's all still part of your career management. So when we think about exit strategies from the employed standpoint, right, where you're in somebody else's structure of the company, and you could even be a C-suite leader in that company, but sometimes you don't have all the control of how you Exit, meaning there have been times where I've had in my career being part of a C-suite and the layoff could happen because that company is being acquired and they're coming in with their own team and all the experience that I brought to the table to make that company successful for what I was originally brought in to do might not align with where the company is going next. So they make their financial decisions and role and responsibility decisions based on who they want to work with. that could easily result in a layoff. They are in control of my exit. And let me tell you, I am always happy to receive a layoff. You want to pay me to take some time to go figure out what I want to do next, I'll take it. I've never had a fear around that. But most of the companies that I've exited was other than one was my choice because I was managing my career. deciding what I wanted to learn from the experience and the impact I wanted to have within the experience. And then when it was expired, the goal of what I was doing as a job, when it actually expired, meaning I achieved everything I could, I didn't want to grow into what was next. I tend to resign and move on to the what's next. Obviously it landed me in an entrepreneurial spirit because I do like change and I have no fear of exiting things. in order to make room for what's next. So from a career management standpoint, we do this mindset when we're working in other people's companies. But when it comes to our own company as an entrepreneur, there's this level of responsibility and a fear sometimes of abandonment when you're feeling in your gut that it's time to move on from what you've built so far or from a company construct you've built, but your desire now is moving into new realms because you've learned everything possible. that you wanted to want to go into some new endeavor. So what do you do in order to plan for the appropriate exit of what you've built so far in order to step into the what's next? And when we look at it from that perspective, sometimes you need to be guided through a conversation to get to the truth of what do you really want it to be. And when we're launching something new and thinking about exit strategy at start of a launch, for example, I hosted one of my BGM groups and we brought up exit strategies for their business. They never thought about it before because a lot of people trip up into entrepreneurship trying to sell what they know so far, like based on the experiences they had in other people's companies. And now they're trying to maximize it as their own entity for themselves, or they learned a new skill and they want to go sell that as a service. to others and expand upon that and scale that, but never really think about an exit because they're used to working, they're used to trading their time for money in other people's companies that they're not necessarily thinking holistically as the business and the role they choose to play in it. So are you going into business to scale it to as large as it can be to sell it? That's one exit strategy. Are you going into this business and want to do it for the rest of your life until you retire? And when you retire this business, shuts down and retires with you because you are the business. Are you looking at being acquired by another brand that can leverage from having access to your client base and basically pays you to continue to service, but you're not doing sales and marketing and all the things like the exit of your role is really important to think about. But you want to think about all the different ways to exit because when you do that, you actually set up your operations completely different and you start to also detach yourself upfront from you being the business unless that is the business you want to be in. And I think it's really important if you haven't thought about your exit strategies, whether it's an exit from career. So the way I did it in the career life was always looked at what was ahead of me or how I could get to the next level of my career or the skill set I wanted to learn or the role I wanted to play. And when it was no longer available to me, I created an exit strategy from that role in that company to go into the next company and do that. That's exit strategy management because it's helping you up level into whatever you want next for your career. But when you're in your own business, it's really hard to take that step away. if you are, if you started your business as you doing it all, which most entrepreneurs try to do versus being invested in to be your best and then hiring the other best people to expand your business to how you, however you want to scale it. That's another discussion on how to scale your business. You want to think about what exit looks like. So right now, if you were to describe to exit from the business you're running or the role you're playing in your business right now in order to get to the exit criteria you're looking for. For example, I'd like to give you guys examples so that you're with me on what the hell I'm talking about. But basically, for example, for me, when I first started my business, it was self-employed basically. I was just selling my time for more money. and was in control of my cash flow. When I had learned that that system works better for me in order to do the same exact work, the only additional things I had to do was sell myself into finding that work. But I was getting paid twice as much cash flow wise. And then from a tax standpoint, I had better benefits from that. I could then decide where I wanted to put my money and invest in myself or take time off, whatever it was. It was all about me. That business, when I first started it, was all about me. and that was okay because that's what I wanted. That was how I leveraged my career life where it was about me being an individual leader in other people's companies. Now, as a consultant, I could go into companies and get in and get out. It's what I wanted, maximize my cashflow. My husband knows this, I always say minimal effort, maximum reward. That was the phase when I learned that and it was great. Then I kind of got burnt out doing all the consulting work, the implementations, the project management, the things that I was really a master at, I had outgrown. So I started to think about, well, how do I exit this and start to explore the other areas that interest me? But I'm really good at this side of business and my clients rely on me for this business. How can I expand past myself and exit from my role? That's when I started to hire other people to do the implementation work where I became more strategic. And I love the strategy side and that's how it helped me up level. into my identity of where I wanted to play, but also provide opportunities for other people who wanted to work with really great clients and then expand on where I'm spending my time while leveraging other people's time. That was a scaled model of me exiting from that role, moving into where I am today, where I have a successful consulting and coaching practice. I only get involved when I am strategic in the what's next for that business or how I can help coach them, the leaders of that business in order to be more aligned in who they are and attract what they want from their business and for their clients. And then I periodically check in on that. And I'll tell you that right now I'm sitting in a, I really want to launch this new business. It's a business around that integrative performance management that I started to briefly talk about. And as I'm looking at the current business I have, I have to reassess, well, what's my exit strategy from the role I'm playing today right now in the business that I have so that I can make the room for the business I want to launch next. Now that I have so many options, I could put this business together in a really nice package and sell it. and just completely remove myself from the business that I've built over the years. It's one option. I don't think I'm leaning that way, but it's an option. I could look at shutting it down, being like, okay, after all these contracts end this year, the seven figure business, I can decide to just be like, nope, I'm done. I'm going to just shut it down and let my clients go, which again, doesn't feel good in my gut as an exit strategy, but you have to think about all the options. I could easily look at an acquisition where someone else comes in and we are under a new business name. I am the strategic advisor and bring in my clients to that. But this acquiring company could run all the operations for me and even generate leads so that I maybe don't have to do the sales as much, but I could be on that front line to continue to build the business as needed and also make sure my clients are supported. that's another option. Or I could keep it running and just decide, okay, for this business, since it can potentially run itself, maybe I just need to hire myself in the business, replace myself for certain roles in it and still be the face and the name, but someone else is running it so that the revenue is driving through. And I continue to service my clients with a team of experts in what they need, and they have access to me when needed. and keep it going as is without all the effort that I currently have so that I can make room for what I want to launch next. So these are different types of exit strategies, but it all stems from, especially when you're an entrepreneur, the identity of self of what you're trying to grow into to make room for what you want next. You have to face how to gracefully exit from where you are today. So I wanted to bring that topic up to you because I'm sitting in it myself as I'm assessing all these things and going through my identity up leveling and figuring out, you know, the timing of when I launched this new business and the role I want to play in that one and how do I continue to serve my clients? Like all these things come back down to a very simple framework around how do I want to exit in order to make room for what's next. So I hope you found that helpful today. And I encourage you to ask yourself, what's the best exit option for whatever you're doing today to allow you to up level into that identity we talked about in a previous episode. And if you haven't listened to that episode, go check it out because it will help guide you to get a little clearer on who you want to become and then figure out the strategies on how you move forward in a graceful way. So thanks for joining me today. I love being part of your badass journey and I will see you in the next episode. Wasn't that such a great episode? I know you got amazing takeaways from that. What I would love for you to do for me, if you can help me extend my reach is go ahead and subscribe to the show so you get the latest notification and listen before anyone else. Also, if you could go ahead and post your review, your five star review will help me get other people interested in this conversation and extend my reach of impact. Most of all, I would love for you to share this with your community. It means so much to me to have you as a listener. and I would love to connect with you. So if you have any questions you would like me to answer on this show, go ahead and email hello@carrieneWalsh.com and my team will make sure that I get your questions so we can get them answered on the show for you. Thank you so much for listening today and I'll see you on the next episode.