As one of the most common exit strategies, there are many reasons why successful business owners sell their companies: to retire, to pursue new opportunities, to avoid burnout – even to dodge tax changes. With a recently booming sales market, if you’ve been thinking about selling, now may be the time to get the most from your exit.

How come business owners never talk about profitability?

Do entrepreneurs really approach business so very differently from the average employee? The short answer is yes. And the most accomplished business owners are often the ones who have mastered the delicate balancing act between entrepreneurial and employee-like attributes.

Small business owners have a knack for starting out with a goal and doing whatever it takes to achieve it. But while many entrepreneurs are great at building businesses, some are less proficient at protecting the wealth they’ve created. Once your business has established a solid cash flow, you should be thinking about how to make your money work as hard for you, as you do for it.

Realtors, spa-owners, restaurateurs – we’re all business owners. But we’re also parents, consumers, and home-owners, and it can sometimes be a struggle to juggle both our business and our personal lives. Taking the time to make organization a habit at home can pay huge dividends at the office, particularly in areas like getting and keeping your business finances under control. Being organized at work is a proven way for the small business owner to save both time and money, and it can also help to reduce stress along the way.

Well-planned entrepreneurship almost qualifies as an oxymoron in the world of business. How do small business owners effectively harness big-picture creativity, and transform it into a small-picture format? All too often, it seems, the answer is they don’t.

Are you, as a small business owner, ready to grow? It seems like a lot of entrepreneurs have the same aspirations, but not all of them are ready for it. Is your company ready?

What Is The Rush?

It may be pressure from external sources, such as investors, or maybe you're a salesperson at heart, and not necessarily a manager. Growth for a salesperson means more sales, but now there's a new skill you must master: implementation of operations to deliver. Working for other companies, this was probably never a issue for you. But now, company sales can't escalate nearly as fast as you'd like.

Whatever the reason, managing growth is just as important as creating it. Large companies have to manage their growth to make sure that current sales and projects can be delivered without compromising quality or their promise. If hiring can't keep up with the delivery of sales, eventually the service or product offered will lose value and growth will become negative.

Make sure that the growth of a company is handled responsibly. Any thriving company can fail just from under-delivering on their promise. Know that you're doing the right thing and that stagnant revenue is perfect for some entrepreneurs. Just listen to yourself.

Ready to Hire?

Is there enough cash in the bank to make sure that your new hire is going to get paid? Monday is a quiet, lonely place for a small business owner who was not able to make payroll.

However, there are a lot of benefits to hiring. Delegating tasks frees you up to make sure you can accomplish what the business demands or allows you to network and create more sales. 

Are you ready to give up a little bit of your control of the operations?

The American dream! That ideal story lived by many of our grandparents growing up that included military service, hard work, and making it just by dedicating yourself to working normal jobs in one place for a long time.

Are you familiar with the old saying, “Jack-of-all-Trades, Master of None?” When it comes to running a small business, the adage might be better stated as, “Jack-of-all-Trades, Focused-on-One.”

Do you think that the number one problem that startups face is lack of money? I think you could also make a case that the biggest problem for startups is lack of time. Startups often have a great idea and a top notch team, but will hit the common roadblocks of finding time and money.