With Pamela Dennis, Author of Exit Signs: The Expressway to Selling Your Company with Pride and Profit
Pamela has worked with amazing leaders and their organizations for over 35 years: from emerging companies and small, closely held partnerships to global Fortune 100 firms. She knows the challenges of diverse industries in growth times and in downturns. Pamela also built and led an international consulting business that received recognition for its own growth and impact. She sold that business after nearly 20 years and the firm continues today -- profitably, with new and legacy organizations in the US and internationally. That experience is the basis for her book, Exit Signs.
In the next five to ten years, millions of small and mid-size business owners – aging baby boomers - will try to sell a small business. But an astonishing 87% of them don't have an exit plan. If you've been waiting to make a plan to transfer ownership of your business, then this is the book you've been waiting for. Exit Signs is about both the tactics of selling and the transitions of leaving. It gives you a step-by-step map to sell a small business in a way that produces the profit you've dreamed about. These steps bring you confidence and pride knowing your company will be in solid hands and they give you greater serenity about the next chapter in your life. For any type of owner and any type of business now is the time to let Exit Signs help you onto the expressway towards a great sale.
As she puts it, there are 22 million small businesses and less than 50% have an exit strategy – partly because they are all consumed with growing their baby, partly because they don’t think this is the right time and partly because they’ve never thought about going to sell a small business. And with small businesses making up a large percentage of American payrolls, a disastrous sale potentially impacts millions of jobs.
She also talks about steps such as financials, customer retention, bench strength, operational efficiency if the owner leaves and other steps to make sure the company succeeds even after the owner leaves.