One of our clients was recently offered a lot of money to sell his business, but they wanted him to stay on for five years after the sale. Why? His business heavily depends on him for day-to-day operations, so they must have figured it would take five years to ensure a smooth transition.
Confident he could earn just as much over those five years without giving up ownership, he declined the offer. But the experience sparked an important question: “How can I prepare my business so it can thrive and be sold without needing me for so long afterward?”
If you’re thinking about selling your business, this might be a good question to ask yourself. How long could it succeed without your direct involvement? Do you have the right people and processes in place so it can thrive without you?
The Less You Do, the More It’s Worth
Think of it from a potential buyer’s perspective. They don’t want your job. They want your products, services, customer base, team, and infrastructure, but they don’t want the headaches of managing them. If the business depends too heavily on you, it’s a risk to them, and that risk lowers its value. That’s why, ironically, it might pay to start being a little lazier.
I know it sounds counterintuitive. But the less you’re needed in the day-to-day, the more attractive your business becomes to a buyer. It shows the company is sustainable and scalable without you at the helm.
Many people underestimate how much their business depends on them. While discussing this topic with one of my clients, he insisted that his business didn’t need him at all. Throughout the remainder of our meeting he answered his phone several times to discuss urgent matters with his team. After the third call, I simply smiled. He laughed and admitted, “Okay, maybe it still depends on me more than I thought.”
How to Test Its Dependence on You
How can you test how dependent your business is on you? If you haven’t taken a vacation for a while, prepare your team for your departure as well as you can, then take a few days off. Don’t check your email. Don’t reply to texts. Don’t return voicemails. Fully unplug and see what happens.
When you return, ask your team what broke down while you were gone, if anything. Where did things fall through the cracks? What issues came up that only you could solve? This will reveal your pressure points and opportunities for better training, more robust processes, or even additional hires.
Over time, try expanding your departures to a week at a time, then two weeks, and so on, without checking in. As your team grows in confidence and capability, you’ll start seeing where the gaps close and where they persist.
Be Ready for an Emotional Shift
A word of caution: becoming less essential to your business may be harder emotionally than it is operationally. Maybe your business is not as dependent on you as you thought, which can be a humbling realization. Feeling unneeded can be deflating, but if your business doesn’t need you, that’s a good thing.
Ask yourself, is your business here to serve your ego or your life? If your goal is freedom, flexibility, and financial independence, then building a business that can run without you is a smart move.
One of our clients has done this masterfully. His team is so empowered that he now works only a couple of days a month. His business is more valuable than ever, but now he’s wrestling with a new question: Why sell at all when you’re making millions and barely working?
Start Now, Even If You Don’t Plan to Sell Soon
Even if selling your business is years away, or not in the cards at all, working now toward making it independent from your involvement will pay off. You’ll reduce your personal stress, improve team engagement, and significantly boost your business’s value. Most importantly, you’ll be free to enjoy more of the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
