#128: Planning a Strategic Exit From Your Business

Today’s episode is a change of pace. I recently did an interview with the Quiet Light Podcast and I wanted to share it here. The founder of the Quiet Light Brokerage, Mark Daoust speaks to me about my experience with selling our family business and what I learned from the process.

Specifically, we talk about strategic sales. I have learned a lot about building a good pitch for a buyer and I share that with Mark. If you aren’t familiar with my story and the path that led to Life After Business and GEXP Collaborative, this episode will answer a lot of your questions.

What you will learn:

• My entrepreneur journey and joining my dad in the family business.
• The reasons people leave money on the table during a deal and how to avoid it.
• Why due diligence is so important and will kill any deal if done wrong.
• Strategic sales vs. marketplace sales
• How to think like a buyer and present your best pitch to a potential buyer.
• How to get your financials and value adds in perspective for the buyer.
• Know your market and be proactive in finding potential partners and buyers.
• The pros and cons of strategic sales.
• The circumstances when a strictly financial sale makes more sense.
• Good growth strategy is good exit strategy.
• The importance of having a great team of advisors.

Takeaway:

I really enjoyed my time on the Quiet Light Podcast. Mark and his team are really good at what they do. You can contact them through the Quiet Light Brokerage site which is down in the resources section. You can also reach me through LinkedIn and the resources I gave Mark during our interview. Just check out the resources section below.

Links and Resources:

GEXP Collaborative
Life After Business Podcast
Quiet Light Brokerage
Quiet Light Podcast
Me on LinkedIn

(In case you want to feature Quiet Light Brokerage and/or GEXP Collaborative)

About GEXP Collaborative:

Ryan, Brandon, and Jim met at a National Exit Planning Conference. We hit it off with a shared extreme passion to change the way business owners look at the growth and exit of their company(s).

We come from different backgrounds (Entrepreneur, M&A Attorney and Investment Advisor) but hold the same belief that the advice that business owners receive is fragmented and doesn’t align in a comprehensive plan.

We created the GEXP Collaborative™ to bring together an ecosystem of different skills and perspectives to ensure that each business owner that we work with achieves the successful growth and exit of their businesses.  From experience, we provide our business owner clients with recommendations based upon good judgment to achieve their objectives.

About Quiet Light Brokerage:

Late in 2006, Mark Daoust, received a call from a good friend and fellow entrepreneur who was considering selling his 8-year-old web hosting website. Just 10 months prior Mark had sold his own profitable website and was looking for a new direction.

Quiet Light Brokerage was founded with this phone call.

A lot changed since that first phone call in 2006. Today, entrepreneurs recognize Quiet Light Brokerage as a leading voice and authority in the emerging niche of selling and buying profitable websites.

Today, over 500 websites have been sold and Quiet Light has over $100,000,000 in total transaction value. Even though they are recognized as one of the most successful website brokers in the marketplace, they still take an attitude of continual improvement to their processes.