Finding Brave 183: Part 2: How to Let Go of Your Business The Right Way When It's Time to Sell

Hello everyone, this is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts and the entrepreneurial world and they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful and meaningful life, business and career. Speaking of that, I'm thrilled to share that my new digital course, the Most Powerful youl is available now. This transformative eight module training course is based on my top selling book, the Most Powerful you and is designed to help you close what my research has revealed are the seven most damaging power gaps that keep 98% of professional women from thriving at the highest level and reaching their most thrilling, rewarding potential. In the course, you'll be taught transformative action strategies and mindsets from me and from more than 30 of the nation's top experts that will help you experience dramatically more power, confidence, communication skill, leadership growth and authority over what transpires in your work. And you'll be guided on how to take the seven brave pathways to career bliss, which are Brave Sight, Brave Speak Brave Ask Brave Connection, Brave Challenge, Brave Service and Brave Healing. If you're finally ready to close your power gaps and rock your career, visit mostpowerfulyou.com and join the course today. And if you'd like to learn more about these seven gaps and how to close them, take my free webinar 7 Ways to Rapidly elevate your career. You can find that@mostpowerful you.com elevateyourcareer thank you and I hope to see you there.

And so that question, the what do you do? Question. On an unconscious level, a business owner is aware that they are going to be asked that question. They may even be asked it now. How do you answer that question when you have just sold your business?

I get it. So can I answer it? What's running through my mind? And it's exactly tied to and I don't want you all to think I'm considering selling my business, but I don't want you to stop listening to the podcast. I'm not. But I want to say this. I hear from venture capital people and they say they give me numbers in the millions of what they're looking for companies that are worth and they think that's my business. I'M like, okay, that's interesting. But I have thought, if I weren't to do this work, and I don't think of it as the business, I think of it as the work. Career coach, speaker, writer, trainer, podcaster. What the heck would I do?

Oh, you are so good. You're, like, setting this up in such a fun way.

So that's how I see it. Less about.

I'm, hello, I'm a business owner.

I say I'm a career coach, writer, speaker, trainer, dedicated to the advancement of women in business. And I'm guessing I would still be that somehow after I sell my business. But, yes, thinking that there's nothing there to sink my teeth into, I think it's a terrifying thought.

For many, it's a terrifying thought. And so what happens is. Right. I personally challenge folks to ask a different question. Because when someone asks me, what do you do? My answer is about what you are a lawyer.

You know, wow. I'd be like, oh, Lord. Okay, I'm going to go walk over here, lady.

Because it shifts the conversation. Usually the person will then say, well, no. What do you do for a living? To which my answer is, wait, you want to know how I earn my money?

Oh, you're tough. Do you really do that?

I do.

If I met you and sat at the pool or, you know, walking my dog and said, what do you do? I'm interested.

You would do that. And then usually the person will say, well, I just want to. I just want to get to know you and relate to you. Relating to me through my profession is a very narrow, limiting perspective. So my suggestion is, what if you asked a different question? What if you asked, what are you fired up about right now? Or what's the book on your nightstand? What was the best place you went? What did you have for dinner last night?

Would you ask a stranger that, though?

So why do we ask them, how do you earn your money?

I'm going to challenge you, Denise, and then we can let it go. You know what? That the therapist in me, and I don't mean to give you therapy, says to me that there's emotion tied up in what you do for a living. There's emotion tied up for me. And when someone says, what do you do for a living? I'm proud of what I do. It doesn't say anything about how much money I make.

Yeah.

So I get to say, career coach, writer, speaker, trainer. And to me, that fires me up. So I'm not immediately thinking they're trying to peg me. And if. And I'm going to say the truth. If you're trying to peg me F off, I don't need you to peg me. I don't care about your assessment about where I am socially.

Yeah.

Like, my boundary is I'm going to go with the interpretation of the question that allows me to talk about what fires me up.

So come back. Right. If we come back to what happens if. Now the answer is not going to be that what we see business owners default to is they say what they used to do.

Oh, no, that's because.

But because that's where their sense of identity and purpose and connection has been. So now here's what I what I want business owners to be thinking about. Right. You and I have had such fun around the what do you do? Question because we've got your audience thinking, huh? Why do I ask that question? What do I think? How do I want to answer it? So here's what's important. When you're thinking about selling your business or even if you're just thinking about changing jobs.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

What does work provide for you other than the money?

Oh, I love it.

So other than the money, what, 10, 12, 13, 15 things does work provide for you other than money and financial security? Take those out of the equation. Put them over here. So what does work provide for you?

You know why? Just to really support what you're saying.

Yeah.

When I had my breakdown after 18 years in corporate life and I was laid off in a brutal way that ended everything for me, corporate wise, I would have answered that question. My work gives me nothing but money and benefits. And that's why I want to poke my eye out with a stick. And I'm sick and depressed. But also, when that was stripped away, I felt the way your business owners that you work with felt. Am I. I mean, for the next week, I would put on my suit and go drive. It's so disturbed. But I didn't know who I was. So thank gosh, we both emerged out of this path that makes us real. But I can't support enough what you're saying that first of all, I think if I push this a little farther, what we want is that our identity is above and beyond the title of.

Our work and also to realize that work provides us with a lot of things. So, you know, we can just list some of them to give listeners an opportunity to riff on this for themselves. It's a place to go. Right During COVID everyone was like, I gotta get out of this house and away from my spouse and Kids, I want to go to work. It's a place to go.

It's a place to go.

It's structure. Yeah. It is friendship for lots of our business owners. Their employees and customers and vendors are their friends.

Wow.

Who are your. I call them. Who are your Saturday friends? Because when you sell your business, who will you hang out with? And we see owners struggle with these things. Right. It is power at work. You say, I want this done. Generally it gets done. Not so much at home.

I live that too.

Right.

Being a high level professional. Then I come home and I'm talking to my husband like he's an employee. And I treated my employees well. But wait a minute. The power dynamic is not the same as you as a vice president.

Right. Take.

Get that out of the room.

Yeah. It is our place in the community. If. If you through your business have been a charitable or a philanthropist, where does that come from? There are lots of things we should be able to get 10, 12, 15 distinct answers other than money. The truth, Kathy, is that just because an owner gets a big sack of cash when they sell their business, these needs that work is meeting do not go away. Wow, Denise, this is amazing. They don't go away. And if all we focus on is the economics, what happens is an owner gets very close to the exit and suddenly these needs start coming up and they have nowhere to place them because generally all of the advisors around them and typically even their friends and family. Can I tell you the story of an owner to put it into context? And you know, the numbers don't really matter. The same things are happening for business owners, whether they have a $50,000 hair salon or a $500 million manufacturing. Manufacturing company. This fellow Michael was in his late 30s. He owned a software company. He was set to net $16 million on the other side of the sale. And one day he realized, who am I going to hang out with? All my buddies have jobs at my place or somewhere else. Right. His buddies were like, they all worked somewhere. And he realized, who am I going to hang out with? So he was shooting pool with a buddy and he said that. To which his friend responded, boo hoo, dude, I wish I had your sad little $16 million problem. You and I both know that problem did not go away. It went underground and started acting out like mushrooms in the deal. Suddenly he. Other things were annoying to him. He didn't want to go through with the deal when we were able to actually deal with what's happening. Oh, of course. It makes total sense that he would struggle with that. And advisors too often stay focused on the economics and miss what's happening for their owners. And so when an owner raises something like that, if they haven't had someone to support them, the advisors will say, don't worry, you'll figure it out, man. You're going to have plenty of cash. It doesn't solve the problem.

Can I say something about this?

Yeah.

What you just shared is an epidemic of a problem in our country. And I think around the world there is so little empathy for people's challenges. Who are rich? Well, you know, his wife has cancer. Well, he has 20 million. He'll get over it. He'll figure it out. Or he'll have the best care for her. I've heard it a million times that if you're rich, people can't feel compassion and empathy for you. Boo hoo, you $16 million. Everyone is so jealous and feels so separate from wealthy people. Is this a theme in your work that you see?

It is. But I also think, you know, this is happening even for anyone who has a job. Right. If you come onto MSN, you'll see an article that'll be the top 12 things that the top 12 mistakes retirees make. Those 12 things are going to be about running out of money or some other ridiculous thing. It's not. Wait, you retired and you don't know who you are. You have no relationships to support you. So can I put this in the context of another story, please?

And then you got to tell us what to do. How do we address these things? Tell us. Oh, keeping you long here.

So Marty had an $85 million business. Eight weeks from close, he suddenly announced he would not take a penny less than nine times EBITDA, never mind a letter of intent at 6.2.

How much more was that than 85?

How much more?

I mean, was it going to be triple that?

You know, here's the piece. Not about the money. It is not about the money.

No, I get that. But I mean, but here's what was.

Going on under the surface.

Yeah.

So Marty's banker called me and said, I think my seller went crazy. I'm like, yeah, sounds like it. Figure out what scared him and what hidey hole he's in. So Marty's original plan was to sell the business, buy a sailboat and sail around the globe. You know, you can get a pretty good boat for 85 million. You don't really need a lot more for a better boat. So it was not about the money. What we learned was that two weeks before he asked for this unicorn. His wife had said, I'm not doing that. I do not want to be stuck in a boat with you, far away from my grandkids. Hell no, that's not happening. Can we agree he is not coming back to the deal team to say the deal is off because his wife won't let him do what he wants to do. Instead, he asked for more money. It's never about the money. About the money and what they were experiencing, you know, this was relational grief. They realized, wait. What we thought life would be like when we sell the business is not what it's going to be like. We prepare our children to launch. We don't wait until the day they turn 18 and say, so, what are you going to do with yourself now? But we don't prepare business owners to launch. We assume that getting them the money is sufficient and it is not. Just like anyone who is preparing to leave their job and go to a new job or retire, it is not about, have you saved enough money? That's a small piece of what life is like, and that's where death comes in. It is the piece. Why I think mortality is an element that is underlying this. It's because if who I am is what I do and I no longer do, do I not exist?

It's like if the tree falls and it doesn't make a sound. If I exist, but I don't do anything that I can wrap my head around, do I even exist?

I hear owners say, I'm not just going to sit around at home and do nothing. I'm like, awesome, poor critter. Who told you that's what it would be like? One of the things I taught a session for a bank for their clients, and it was called, is retirement a dirty word? Because we will hear people say, well, I'm never going to retire. That's because retirement for us will not be like retirement for our parents and grandparents. We are not going to be happy playing golf and waiting for Wheel of Fortune to come on and feel like we have had a satisfying life.

So the more our parents. Can I just say, my sweet dad, who was with GE 30 years, seven patents. It was his life. He loved it. Met Jack Welch a few times. You know, he was given a. What do you call it? Silver. What do you call it? Silver handcuffs. And I was. He was 62, I think, so he was 40 years older than I, so I didn't recognize it. He was depressed afterwards. He didn't have these resources to understand. And he was an avid golfer. And had an enormous life of golf. But that was a weekend thing. He wasn't Tuesday nights and scratch league and Saturday. I watched him be depressed and, you know, he finally got his groove after a few years. But I don't think he ever truly, when I think about it, was that vibrant person again that he was contributing at General Electricity.

And, you know, I don't want listeners to feel all bummed out, like, oh my gosh, if I retire, that's what life is about. No, we're saying, right? The answer is it doesn't have to be that way. And what has happened is far too many owners or even just as adults. We've watched people retire and their lives look miserable or dull. And so it behooves you to prepare long in advance for what will your life be other than this work? Which is why identifying so closely with your answer to the question what do you do? Is a trap. I'm like, let's broaden it. Let's find more things. Where will that vibrancy that you get? And Kathy, we see it in your face when you get to say what you do, where will that be met? So we come back to the list of what does work provide for me. Where will those needs get met outside of your work and beginning long before the sale of the business to get those needs met, Partly because it ensures a much more satisfying life on the other side. But also, we do not always get to choose when we leave. That's a myth. That is also as if we know the day we will die, as if we know the day that we will leave our company. We don't know that. And often it is not within our control. You know, only one third of the businesses that are that go to market successfully sell. That is a tragedy.

Holy crap.

Almost all of, almost all business owners expect to fund their retirement with the proceeds from the sale of their business. That is how most business owners, I shouldn't say most a lot. If you don't sell the business, you don't get those proceeds.

And are they mucking it up, they're sabotaging it or it's not worth what they thought or a lot of reasons.

A lot of reasons. So it might be right. The wealth manager has done a really great Monte Carlo simulation of how much money you need when the time comes for you to retire. And it's great. But if you don't get the money, all of that was for naught. So what I say to advisors, bankers, lawyers, wealth managers, accountants, your clients, they're called trusted advisors. Be a trusted advisor. Help them navigate these most difficult aspects of preparing to let go of their business. The transactional pieces, for sure. But this is a transition. This is the single largest transition in our professional adult lives. When we leave our work, whether we are retiring, whether we are selling a business, whether we no longer can work because of an illness or caring for a family member, we will all leave our work. So how are we preparing for this very same transition? Just like we prepare our children to transition into their careers, we need to prepare to transition out and to. I say my, I say owners are what's nexters. What's next? Because if we haven't prepared them, they will sell their business or they'll just stay in it and die and leave it to a spouse, which is a horrible idea, by the way. Or. Or they will leave their business and be so bored out of their minds, they will take all that money and pour it into another business, which is an equally dopey idea that happens to avoid the emotion of what we're talking about.

I have two things I want to ask and then I'm aware of our time and I'm going to ask you for the most important takeaway. We need listener. I mean, I think I got it. But two things I want to ask quickly. Number one, you're a seller whisperer. We've talked about that. Oh, there's a million things. Quickly. I'd love to know. You know, when I hear someone come with a career challenge, there literally is nothing I've never heard in 16 years. And it falls into a bucket of issues. And in about five minutes, I can see what that bucket is. Is that what your seller whisperer gift is? I mean, we've heard it all over and over and over and they. Each of the challenges has its own hallmark. Even if it's way underground, it emerges and bubbles up in characteristic ways. Would you agree with that in your work?

Yeah, I think so. And it is also about preparing the advisors around them to be able to stop diverting to talk about the transaction when the person is terrified about something else.

But I want to talk about this, too. I'm going to say this right out loud. Of all the advisors I've ever met with on my business and all the advisors of the entrepreneurs, they're not equipped to have these conversations.

Part of why they're not equipped to have the conversation.

They're scared, they're vulnerable. They don't want to go there.

They haven't done this work for themselves.

No, I'm good at the Number. And I'm good at the numbers. What do you mean? What you're talking about is therapy. I can't do it.

It's so interesting.

Is that what they say or do? They really listen and try. But I'm sorry, I don't think they're going to be that good at it.

Most of this is about choosing right. This is as a business owner, it is about choosing well. The advisor, right, the advisor who shepherds you through this transition and doesn't pretend.

This isn't the most important issue underlying all of it.

Of course they need to be technically proficient in what they're doing. But are they also dialed in and attuned to what you are going through that makes an ideal advisor to help you at this time. And that's important in making our choice as well. I did a training for a group of advisors recently where I took them through their own transition and asked them some very powerful questions. Questions. And then we toggled back and forth between. This is what you're feeling in thinking about leaving your business. Oh, this is what your client is also feeling.

Beautiful.

This is what you are feeling. This is what your client is feeling to help dial up that empathy. Because for an advisor who has never gone through this process with their own business or has not even thought about it for their own, when their clients client diverts to a tactical element, they will get pulled along. They'll be like, oh yeah, let's go over here. And you need more money. It's not about that. But if they have done that deeper work to connect with it for themselves, they will know how to address it, how to stay present with their client to help spot. That's why deals die and they don't have to. Oh, I love it so much.

All right, one more thing.

I'm having fun. Great conversation.

I love it. It's so rich and deep and I'm, you know, my pistons are firing. You said something else that I really want to highlight as a former marriage and family therapist. The wife says I'm no way in. Am I going on a boat with you? What I want to point out to everyone, whether you're leaving a corporate career and want, you know, it's transition. It's not necessarily selling as we know, your. Your business, sometimes you grow apart. And what you. Your spouse and what you value and what matters to me, to you, me. Interesting Freudian slip. And what you see as an ideal life is not any longer what your partner sees. And I would say, I would guess 60% of the time There's a relational issue. And I would see a marriage and family therapist when these things come up. What do you think?

Absolutely. And what happens, just like families struggle when the last child launches from the.

Nest about how they're going to cope. Right. About.

But we have language about that, right? We call it empty nest syndrome. We know what it is. When all of a sudden it's like, oh, my gosh, the kids are gone and who are you? I don't.

What am I doing?

I don't even know if I want to know you.

Right.

The business, in many ways, is like the last child. And so what will happen for lots of owners and their spouses is when that relational grief comes up, when we realize, oh, no, everything we've been putting off and saving for and want, like, when we retire, life will be like this. And we get a glimpse of it and we realize it's not going to be that one or both of those spouses will try to keep the business in place as a way to avoid dealing with or looking at the issue. So I have something that I call the oh, my syndrome. One more year. When I hear an owner say, just like one more year, what I know is there's a bigger issue going on under there that they don't know how to solve for. And it might sound like, I just need to do one more thing in the business. Nope, there's an emotional issue under that. And a wise advisor will hear it and catch it and they don't have to solve it themselves. I'm not suggesting that bankers and lawyers and wealth managers become therapists, although that'd be great, but help your client get the support that they need. No one would say, oh, well, let's not look at the finances. We'll just pretend that's not a problem. Oh, no. We'd say, you need to get someone here and deal with the finances. If your client is struggling with these things, be a trusted advisor. Be the person who is courageous and brave enough to bring it to the forefront and help them do what they need to do to be able to transition. Because it is not about the transaction. And if we keep coming back to that, it looks like owners are erratic and unpredictable and blow up their deals for no reason. And that's not true, because advisors have not focused on this piece of it. When they think owners are unpredictable, they start to chase more deals. They're like, I'll just run a whole bunch of deals and hope that some of them close. That's not the answer. The answer is not to Run more deals in the hopes that a small percentage close. The answer is to come back to, what is my client truly struggling with and how do I show up as the caring professional who will help shepherd them across this dangerous shore and put them safely on the other side, having exited their business? That's what you are doing with your clients. You are helping them cross the shore to something better. So when someone is unhappy in their career, unhappy in their business, and they're like, I'm just going to go to another company and do the same thing because I'll pay me more. Oh, please. It's not about the money. It is about will you get what your needs are met on the other side? And if not, how do we prepare you to know what those needs are so they get met?

Oh, Denise, I absolutely love it. And gosh, there's so many parallels in terms of, like, anybody who's in any situation can get something from what we just discussed and what you shared. I mean, any transition, I want this job to be over. I want this employer to flush down the toilet. I want a new career. I want to start a bed and breakfast. What do you really want? What do you really need? I mean, it's so. And I think that you're so good at it that you make it sound pretty streamlined and you can assess pretty quickly. I think when you work with any human being, it's such a confluence of even their money relationship and they're like, woo, from the childhood. But we won't go there. We're going to end here.

Where?

Because, my gosh, that's another two hours. Where do we learn about you? Where do we get your book? Where do people hire you to come speak at their events? Where do we go, Denise?

So the website is simple. It's deniselogan.com the book is called the Seller's Journey and it's written as a business fable. It's the story of an owner. One year after he sells his business, he goes on a trip across Glacier national park with his banker, his lawyer, his wealth manager, and the private equity buyer who bought his firm.

What a story.

I always say they all come back alive. Don't be scared. But as they cross the glacier, they're relating the physical obstacles they're facing to the emotional obstacles he faced in letting go of his business. It's a he or she tool. Yes, I love that book is available on the website. It's on Kindle and on Audible.

Thank you for joining so much to. You know, I know when I've had an amazing input of information to think about. I sometimes need to go take a nap, and that's what I feel like right now. Thank you. Wow. Anyone who works with you is so gifted and blessed to have your expertise. Denise, thank you for sharing so much of it with us.

So much. My pleasure. I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you. All right, everybody. Wow. I hope that no matter what situation or state you're in, whether you have a business, whether you're thinking about a business where you're thinking about leaving your career or job, that you will find something here that will move you forward. We'd love to hear what you got out of this show, as you know that we'd love to hear from you. And just wherever you see this, whether that's LinkedIn, all of our social platforms in newsletters, please let us know what your situation is and what really spoke to you today. We'd love to hear. All right, everybody. Thanks again, Denise. Have a wonderful week, and we will see you next time. Thanks so much for joining us today. And please don't Forget to check out4findingbrave.org for more programs, resources, and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of finding brave.