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Now, we really get into the meat of how to get rich from selling your business. Joining Michelle Seiler Tucker is the amazing Sharon Lechter, her friend and co-author of EXIT Rich, a book that unveils the secret to selling your business for huge profits. Sharon is an internationally-recognized financial literacy expert, keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author, successful entrepreneur, humanitarian and licensed CPA. Her claim to fame is her work with the international bestselling series, Rich Dad Poor Dad and her writing partnership with The Napoleon Hill Foundation. This conversation mainly revolves around the ideas presented in Michelle and Sharon’s book, including property rights protection, the importance of mentoring, working with industry experts and more. Join in and learn why EXIT Rich is a book you shouldn’t miss.

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EXIT Rich: 6 Things You Need To Work On To Profit From Your Exit With Sharon Lechter

I’m excited to have a good friend of mine who authored EXIT Rich with me. Sharon Lechter is internationally recognized as a financial literacy expert and a keynote speaker. She’s a New York Times bestselling author, successful entrepreneur, humanitarian, and has enjoyed a 35-year career as a licensed CPA. Sharon co-authored the international bestsellers, Rich Dad Poor Dad and fourteen other books in the Rich Dad series.

In 2008, when the economy crashed, she was asked by The Napoleon Hill Foundation to help re-energize the teachings of Napoleon Hill for bestselling books with the foundation which include Three Feet from Gold, Outwitting the Devil, Think and Grow Rich for Women and Success and Something Greater. She’s also featured in the movie, Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy and on a national television series, the World’s Greatest Motivators. Welcome to the show, Sharon.

Thank you, Michelle. I’m always delighted to be with you.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to have you here, especially since we wrote EXIT Rich together. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with the Rich Dad Poor Dad series. I know you’ve been a CPA for 35 years. You’ve had a successful career. Share a little bit of your story with our audiences.

I grew up in a lower-middle-class home. I was the first generation to go to college. I lived in a small house between my mom’s beauty shop and my dad’s used car lot. We had rental properties at a scrub out bathrooms between tenants. We had orange groves and we were steeped in entrepreneurship. I swore I would never be an entrepreneur. I wanted to become a sophisticated professional. I went to college, got my degree in Accounting, and started my career in public accounting as a young professional woman, one of the first hired by one of the big accounting firms at the time at Atlanta. I loved it and it was great. At the ripe old age of 25, I was working incredible hours. I said, “If I’m going to work this far, that should be working for myself and not everybody else.” At 25, my parents started looking a whole lot smarter. I had a client invite me to join him in an entrepreneurial endeavor and I’ve never looked back.

I had the opportunity to do multiple different things. I started a woman’s magazine and sold that. I met the inventor of the first talking children’s book and helped build that into a global brand and sold that. That was when we moved to Arizona years ago. Our oldest son went off to college and came home in credit card debt. He had a good time in the first semester. We didn’t even know he had credit cards. He was welcomed at the university and there was this table, free pizza, free money and free t-shirt. When he came home at Christmas time, he was asking us to bail him out, probably one of the few good parenting decisions we made because we wouldn’t bail him out. That was December of 1992 and that’s when I dedicated the rest of my career to financial literacy, financial education and entrepreneurial support.

Fast forward a few years, I’ve been working with the school districts. My husband, Mike, who’s an intellectual property attorney called me, and he had this guy come in with this idea for a board game. I met Robert Kiyosaki and he had a beta test for the game, which I helped him formalize. In that process, he asked me to be his partner. I said, “If you’re going to charge $200 for boarding game and we’re checking in 1996, that’s pricey. Maybe we should write a brochure that explains the philosophy of the board game.” That brochure was Rich Dad Poor Dad. They don’t realize that we never expected Rich Dad Poor Dad to take a life of its own.

I never heard it put that way because I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I’ve read it several times. I recommend everyone to read that book, but I had no idea that it started as a brochure for the board game. I thought the board game came after the book.

No, the board game was first. The name of our company was Cashflow Technologies, but the world said, “No, your brand is Rich Dad.” That started a ten-year partnership where we were partners in the company and we wrote fifteen books together. It ended up going around the world and 100 different countries with over 50 languages. It took the world by storm. That was even before Amazon so it was quite the ride. The right message at the right time. In 2007, we were no longer aligned. I decided to leave because I didn’t agree with some of the decisions he was making in the business. Sometimes you have to close one door for other doors of opportunity to open. I share that with people because I challenge people reading to take stock in your life or the doors you need to close because I didn’t know what was ahead of me.

Sometimes you have to close one door for other doors of opportunity to open.

I thought Rich Dad was my legacy, but there was more for me to do. A few months later, as you mentioned the economy in 2008 or 2009, I got a call from President Bush. I had the pleasure of serving on a financial advisor, the president’s advisory council for financial literacy for both President Bush and President Obama. During that time is when I also got the call from The Napoleon Hill Foundation, asking me to step in to help reinvigorate the teachings of Napoleon Hill. I’d read Think and Grow Rich when I was nineteen. I generalized the impact it had on me until I was in my 30s.

I did not realize you were nineteen when you wrote that.

I was absolutely blown away. I wouldn’t have gotten the call from the President. I wouldn’t have gotten the call from Napoleon Hill had I still been at Rich Dad. It is important to make sure you closed doors that need to be closed that you have new opportunities available to you.

That’s what the show is about, finding your exit. You can find your exits in many different ways. It’s not always transitioning or selling a business. It’s leaving your corporate job as you had as a CPA and then you sold two businesses and you left Rich Dad, then went to The Napoleon Hill Foundation. It’s all about finding your exit no matter what way you find it, but when one door closes another one opens.

One of the reasons we wrote the book is if people could think about preparing the best value in your business before you exit, not waiting until you want to sell or try and clean everything up, but build it along the way.

The most important thing, because there are 30.2 million businesses in the United States and at any given time, 40% are up for sale, but 90% of them will never sell. The business landscape has changed dramatically to where it used to be 80%, 95% of startups will go out of business in the first five years. Now it’s 70% of businesses will go out of business after being in business for ten years. I think EXIT Rich is perfect timing right now rather than trying to sell a business or not. It’s all about growing a scalable business that is sellable when you’re ready.

That’s exactly how I explained that, Michelle. The EXIT Rich part is also the ability to have a business that is scalable and can generate generational wealth. That’s something that people love. Many people still work too much in their business. They’re not creating the systems or bringing in the people to run a for them. Extra Rich can also be freeing up your time, still owning the business, and let it run on its own but you end up having the opportunity to have more free time. I think that’s the glory of having a successful business.

I call entrepreneurs firefighters because they’re busy putting out fires every day in our business. They get caught working into the business versus that rather than working on it. EXIT Rich is packed with great strategies, techniques and tools to help business owners create a business that works for them rather than them working for it.

I think it’s also important to mention that. The fact that the two of us working together gives the audience insights into every aspect because you’ve helped hundreds of businesses prepare and sell successfully. From a mentoring perspective, I’m helping mentor businesses to grow as an investor. The process that I go through and determining companies I’m going to invest in. The book has such a depth of experience from your perspective, as well as experience for mine that I’m proud of what we created together.

I’m fortunate to have you writing EXIT Rich with me. Why don’t you share with the audience about the Mentors Corner and how valuable your advice is there?

When we originally started talking about this, I said, “How can we best do that?” At the end of each chapter, we have a section from the mentor’s perspective. That’s the part that I have written as well as supporting some of the content along the way. Looking at the importance of the technical side, which you talk about the depth of content, then looking at as to why it’s important both from a mentor’s perspective, as well as from a potential investor or buyer’s perspective. So much that’s related to money and business is mindset. People have been busy and they love their baby. They can’t get away from the fact that they love the baby and it’s important to have them step outside and see it through someone else’s eyes. From yours, from a broker’s perspective, as well as me as a potential buyer, investor, and mentor helps people open their understanding of how important it is to follow the advice in the book.

That brings me to my favorite quote that I came up with a long time ago, “You can’t read the label from the inside of a bottle. You need an outsider’s perspective to alert and keep you out of the danger zone.” When you’re in your fog, it’s foggy.

You don’t know what you don’t know. There was a quote that I heard that I love. It says, “Smart people learn from their mistakes. Geniuses learn from other people’s mistakes.” From a business owner’s perspective, the proof is in. When you have a mentor, you’re more profitable and you make more money with them rather than if you don’t have a mentor. That’s because you’re bringing in the expertise of someone who’s been there, done that. They can help steer you around the pitfalls and also speed your way to success, their introductions and associations. That’s what EXIT Rich does. It has you go through the process of examining where you are and cleaning those things up and adding value and being able to position yourself. It’s all about positioning. If you want to sell your business, you want to make sure you positioned yourself in the best light possible.

You’d be surprised how many business owners don’t do that. They never even think about their exit until they want to sell, because an internal or external catastrophic event has occurred and then the business is turning downward and now all of a sudden, they want to sell the business for $10 million because that’s what they need to live on for the rest of their life. The business is not worth $10 million. EXIT Rich is a step-by-step blueprint to walk you through that process and help you plan your exit for your desired price tag on your timeframe and your terms.

I’m sure you’ve seen this as well, even more than I have. When I’m mentoring clients or if I’m in my own company, when you’re positioning yourself and you’re ready to sell, there’s much cleanup that you have to do because you haven’t done it correctly along the way. The agreements may not be executed. The agreements may not have the right types of agreements with independent contractors. That’s the thing that EXIT Rich walks you through. You can handle it along the way and make sure. You can’t have a strong house without a foundation that goes deep. That’s the same thing with a business. You got to make sure the foundation is there so that you attract the highest price.

You’d be surprised because a lot of people think that it’s small business that hasn’t built a solid foundation, but that’s not true. We’re working with $50 million, $60 million, $70 million companies right now and they have independent contractors working in warehouses. You have independent contractors doing manual labor. They don’t have workers comp on them. You have one injury, it can put you out of business. You have a catastrophic event occur without 1099, that could put you out of business.

The flip side of that is if it’s an independent contractor and they’re doing something in their area of expertise, you don’t own it unless you have a work for hire agreement with them. This is a perfect example of what we did right now. Two different perspectives on the same issue and workman’s comp as well as understanding that what you think you own is what you pay for. It’s not the case unless you have those written agreements that are based on work for hire.

What’s good about EXIT Rich too is that as you bought some of Michael’s perspective, who is an intellectual attorney. I always say the more IP you have, that’s a value driver. The higher multiple and more buyers, your business will attract. That’s some good insight there about Michael and his core competencies.

Talk to IP attorneys. They are the ones who will help you find ways to protect your intellectual property and expand your tangible assets.

The intellectual property side of it is intangible and it’s something that you have to pay attention to. For instance, our Fortune 500 companies, 35 years ago, 85% of their value wasn’t in bricks and mortar, 15% intangible. Now, that’s more than flipped. Now, Fortune 500 companies are pulling 87% intangible and maybe 13% tangible. That’s a huge change. It levels the playing field from a competition perspective, but those intangible assets are not on the books. When you’re going to sell, you need to gather all of your intellectual property. You need to identify it. You need to protect it. Then it allows you to leverage it, which means multiple streams of income. That’s an important area in the world today and most business owners don’t think about their intellectual property. They’re missing out on double, tripling, quadrupling their valuation, or possibly setting up competitors because they haven’t protected it properly.

That’s why I always say they need to align themselves with a specialist without mergers and acquisitions specialist to help walk them through that process because a good M&A advisor also has buyers looking to purchase those synergies. You have to make sure your patents are protected. You’ve got to make sure your contracts are transferable. You’ve got to make sure you protect your IP, trademark your name. I came to begin to tell you how many times companies have lost tremendous money because they’re own court fighting that intellectual property law about their trade name.

People say, “Protecting my intellectual property is expensive. I can’t afford an attorney.” You can’t afford not to because it’s going to cost you 10 to 100 times more later when you’re trying to fight to get it back.

It can put you on business. Some companies don’t have the working capital to be able to weather that financial storm in court. You can’t afford not to and that’s what we say. It’s not what you know that’s going to get you in trouble, it’s what you don’t know.

One of the other things that you stress in the book, and I agree is the importance of your people. Knowing that you’ve got to make sure if you’re trying to sell your business, understanding the people that are essential to the business, making sure what they’re doing is documented through business systems. Then make sure a lot of owners are concerned about taking care of them. We can take care of them in the sales process, by making sure the provisions are there to protect them.

That’s one of the first Ps out of the six Ps is People and you call it systems. I call it Processes for the second P. That’s one of the biggest issues in transitioning a business to the new owner is making sure that you have those appointment contracts that you have those non-competes. A lot of buyers will require a non-compete from their higher up team, from their management team. I closed on an $18 million transaction and during due diligence, I learned that the onsite CPA was embezzling money from the company. When we found out and fired the CPA, guess what the CPA did? She took all the employee records. Here I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off the day of closing, trying to get all the employee handbook signed, all the non-compete signed, all the employee contracts signed that day because she took them. Always have a backup too.

That’s true and that is one of those internal controls that accountants like to talk about, but everybody else tends to nod off. They truly are important because those internal controls make sure the cash are handled appropriately, make sure the records are handled appropriately so someone can’t do what that CPA did and it happens all the time.

I have sold over 500 businesses myself, but my team a company has sold way over 1,000. I can’t begin to tell you how many embezzlements we have witnessed and what we’ve seen and some we’ve caught ourselves. You have to put internal controls and not nod off.

Most people feel like that’s an extra expense that they can cut out and it is not. Human nature if it’s loose, you’re going to end up having a problem. If you make the procedures, your processes, my systems, outlined so that those internal controls are part of the processes and systems, it becomes a habit. That cross verification and double checking prevent a lot of problems.

I always say the devil’s in the details. That’s the biggest thing. You got to create a solid foundation and run it on all six Ps. It’s like trademarking and protecting your proprietary, your IP. You can’t afford to. We can’t afford to align yourself with a great CPA, with a great attorney. It will save your company a tremendous amount of money. It will save you from going out of business.

I want to talk about my husband, our intellectual property attorneys. They’re the attorneys that build value in your company. They are the ones that help you find ways to protect your intellectual property and expand your tangible assets. They’re the good guys, attorneys.

That’s who you need to align with, the good guys. The ones that build your business, not the ones who tear your business apart or charge you high fees without doing anything to help you grow.

It’s better to set it up you have the good guy attorneys helping you build your business rather than waiting until you get in trouble. Then you’re paying ungodly amounts of money for trying to clean up messes that could have been prevented.

We say the same thing during closing. We work with the good guys. We work with a team of CPAs and attorneys. They’ve licensed attorneys and CPAs. We’ve been working with them for years. They’ve probably been in business for about 60 years. It’s the same thing. I always tell my clients, “If you don’t have the right team, number one, the deal is not going to close. Number two, you’re not going to be protected.” You want to find attorneys that are deal makers, not deal-breakers.

It’s the same thing when I talk to people about real estate. They go, “I’m going to try and get the commission down.” I said, “If you’re an investor and you want to buy good deals, do you think that they’re going to bring you the good deals if you’re trying to cut them down?” No, I’m okay with paying both brokers what they’re supposed to. That means they’re going to call me first when a good deal comes. It’s important to make sure you’ve got the right people on your team and you understand the value that they’re adding because more than likely, in most cases, whatever you’re paying them is you’re going to get back double or more from the purchase price. We’re going to mean good shape.

Tell us a little bit more about you and all the things that you’ve accomplished in your life. You’ve lived quite the life and you’ve got a bunch of stuff ahead of you. Tell us a little bit more about what you’ve accomplished and what’s on your plate? What’s next for Sharon Lechter?

I’m doing a lot of speaking. A lot of it’s virtual. I’m looking forward to the book. We haven’t mentioned yet that Inc. Magazine picked it up under their imprint, which is exciting. We’re looking forward to the release date of that. Steve Forbes gave us some wonderful endorsements. He’s a wonderful man. We’ll be in Inc. Magazine promoting that as well. We have many incredible people that endorsed the book for us. That’ll be a lot of energy and time getting this book out there and promoting it. I have my online courses that I’m doing a lot of work on right now that talk about money mastery. The Play Big Movement, playing a bigger game. Too many people play too small. They need to play a bigger game so I support that. I do a lot of one-on-one mentoring.

In the book, Three Feet from Gold, we released the Success Equation. If you go to PersonalSuccessEquation.com, you can see the download that I have for helping people determine their own success pattern, combining your passion and your talent which is what school teaches us, our experience. Most of us stop there because we have to do it on our own. What you and I have talked about is the next element is times association, that power of association. This book is strong because you and I came together to use both of our experience and expertise to give a more impact than if one of us had written it on our own. Taking the right action and then having faith in yourself. In today’s world, I think that power of association and that faith are the two areas that I find need the most work when I’m checking on new clients.

Selling your business is not about the sales process. It is fundamentally about building the strength and foundation of your business.

In addition to selling businesses, I buy businesses and I flip them. I also partner with business owners and especially if it’s an industry that has a niche and I’m passionate about it and the owners are still fired up about the business and they’re still passionate. That’s the seventh P, Passion. If they’re passionate about it, I’ll partner with business owners. I find that the hardest thing when I do that is growing the business past the owner. You cannot grow the business past the owner. You have to grow the owner in which to grow the business. That’s the biggest challenge and that’s why I’m picking out who I partner with sometimes.

This is probably true for you in those cases. You see a bigger vision for the company than they do. You have to get them to expand their vision for what’s possible and that happens many times because people don’t play big enough. They don’t have a big enough goal. They’ve gotten to a point where they’re comfortable. Being comfortable is not a good place to be because when you’re comfortable, you get complacent. We ended up having a crisis and we’d get thrown into chaos. You have to get curious again. It’s when you get curious that you start becoming creative and expanding and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

I always tell people to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think one of the bigger problems I see is yes, they have a big vision, but they’re still stuck and doing things the small business way. The way that you did business at a million-dollar company is not the same way you’re going to do business at a $10 million company. You can’t do things the same way. You have to hire people with greater competencies and smarter than you in those areas that are not your strengths. You have to hire your weaknesses. A lot of times these entrepreneurs are stuck in doing things the old way. They don’t want to let go of control. You’ll have to let go of control in order to grow. That’s why I keep trying to grow my owners. I’ve even taken them to a Tony Robbins conference and given them books to read. I figure the business is not going to grow beyond what they will grow.

A lot of it is that feeling of pride and micromanagement that happens when somebody starts something from zero and grows it to a large company. They do have a hard time letting go of the reins. Many times, they’ve had mentors. Many times after they realize that the mentor who got them to where they are today may not be the right mentor to get them to the next level. We have to make sure you have the right people on your team. Make sure you have mentors who have experience in that bigger pond. You’re jumping into a bigger lake and you need to make sure you’ve got mentors who know that lake.

I always tell my clients, “If you’re going to hire mentors, make sure you’re hiring mentors and that will house or that core competency that you’re looking for, that you need to expand.” For instance, if you need to expand in creating educational products and memberships and marketing, don’t get a mentor that’s never done that before. Get somebody that does that every single day. Sharon, you’ve been wildly successful. I can’t help but know what you were like as a little girl.

I used to ask my parents, “What did you do? I’d like to bottle whatever you did with me.” I’ve always been driven. I’ve always been one that worked hard. I didn’t need to be prodded, almost to an insane level. I’ve had to learn how to have fun. I think as a little girl, I had red hair and freckles. I always felt different and never quite good enough. I had to work hard and in order to get past that, I excelled in school because I felt bad about my appearance. It’s something that has stuck with me. I recognize in other people, that feeling of, “I’m not quite pretty enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not an expert.” I’ve seen that such a barrier for people to get past their own limiting beliefs to create success in their lives. I’ve dedicated my life not just on the financial side, but also on that self-confidence side.

Growing up, my dad would ask me every night, “Sharon, have you added value to someone’s life today?” I get asked all the time, “Why are you still doing this?” It’s because of that. I thought about retiring a few years ago. I got a lot of pushback and it was like, “There’s more for me to do.” I can’t imagine sitting and watching TV and retiring. I made the decision to re-fire and that’s when I launched the Play Big Movement, which is a Facebook group. It was sharing the things that I’m doing now to play a bigger game as well so other people can learn what I’m doing and what others in the group are doing. It’s been a lot of fun. Once I made that decision to play big again, all kinds of opportunities came my way. A lot of times, we put our blinders on in life and when you decide to get rid of the blinders, it’s amazing the opportunities that are right there in front of you.

I love that advice because I have a nine-year-old daughter and I think I’m going to start asking her, “What value did you do or did you add to someone’s life?” What a great question as a parent.

I still ask myself that at night. My dad’s been gone for fourteen years, but have you added value to someone’s life today? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everybody concentrated on helping others?

It absolutely would be. I’m going to start asking her that question every night. You had some great role models growing up. Now you’ve had some exits along the way tell us about that. Did you plan your exit? Did somebody come to you and make you an offer? I think you said you have two businesses that you sold.

I’ve had several. The woman’s magazine, I started with two friends and we ended up selling that to one of the partners. Then she went ahead and sold it to Working Woman Magazine that was in Wisconsin. That was something that we planned to get it up and running, or at least I did. I planned to help that foundational development growth and then sell it. Shortly thereafter is when I met a dear friend of mine who started the talking book industry. I helped him grow that and finance it internally. That’s when I learned how the importance of licensing intellectual property. We had new technology, first-time kids who had anything electronic in their hands. How could we get parents to trust us?

We aligned with Disney, Warner Brothers, Sesame Street, Marvel Comics, and it exploded from $1 million to $9 million to $23 million to $50 million in sales. Halfway through the $50 million year, we realized we were going to have to find some big financing to help us take us to the next level. It had been a privately held company. At that point in time, we have 5 or 6 of the major toy companies coming to us. We went through due diligence with all of them. It was incredibly stressful, but we had a bidding war on the company. It was an incredibly fantastic experience on understanding the process of due diligence and working with each and seeing how it wasn’t the same. Each company was looking at different things. The company itself had been in the music business. We had to divide the company into two companies before we went through the due diligence process.

It was tremendous learning and experience that we ended up selling that company. That’s when we moved back down here to Arizona. Building the Rich Dad organization, when I decided to leave Rich Dad, it was an interesting process. It was amicable until the valuation of the company came in. We ended up in litigation for a year. That process of the due diligence was a little more stressful, a little more in-depth. That’s the process from a personal perspective. I’ve also mentored dozens of clients on the process of getting their business ready for sale, increasing their valuations, and identifying those potential buyers, helping them get through that due diligence process. As well as the multiple companies that my husband and I have investments where we do that due diligence on our behalf.

That brings us back to EXIT Rich because you mentioned bidding war and I go through a lot of bidding wars. Every buyer has a different set of criteria, a different set of due diligence, a different set of synergies that they’re buying. It depends upon what that one buyer is buying. I would assume you had a good team on your side helping you through that process.

Depending on the industry, I will find somebody or an expert in the industry to come in to provide consulting to make sure we’re not forgetting something. Sometimes it’s worse to have a little bit of knowledge of an industry than none because you make assumptions. When I’m working with a client, I always make sure we bring in somebody that I would consider an industry expert to review what we’re doing and give us insights that maybe we haven’t thought of.

You’re not selling the business. You’re providing the mentorship for the owner in that process.

You’re the broker.

The M&A advisor. I was happy when I was awarded the title of Mergers & Acquisitions Master Intermediary because that’s something that you can’t go and take a test or a class for. You can only get that title by doing deals over $10 million in a certain period of time. I think you have to do six deals or something over $2 million, which is good. That separates the good, the doers, from somebody who haven’t done it.

Instead of exchanging time for money, invest your time to build a foundation of your business so that it becomes an economic engine for you.

It establishes your level of expertise.

Due diligence, I say the devil is in the details and to deal with this is where most deals fall apart, which is why we always have backup buyers. We never stop marketing.

I think that’s the importance of what we outline in the book because we talk about the steps to prepare yourself for selling your business. It’s not the sales process. This is fundamentally how to build the strength and the foundation of your business. Even if there’s a business owner out there that’s not looking to sell, this book will help you make sure that you’ve fundamentally built your business to not be successful, but to be sustainable and scalable. It’s an excellent tool for you to go through and say, “Check. I better do this.” It was a great roadmap to creating sustainability and scalability.

Also, profitability. I always say lack of profits is never a problem. It’s always a symptom of not operating on one of the other five Ps. For instance, if you don’t have the right people in place, you can lose profits. If your process is not efficient and productive and well-documented, you can lose profits. If you’re in court fighting for your trademark, you can lose profits. We have a plastics manufacturing company we’re selling and they’ve been in business for decades. The problem is their employees have been there as long as they have been and they keep raising them and raising them. They’re in a competitive industry that sells plastic, tight margins. Those margins do not support that overhead. Therefore, they have a lack of profits. The book walks you through all of those steps of how to grow your business rather you want to sell it or not so it’s scalable and profitable. I can’t wait for the launch. I’m excited, Sharon.

We keep saying the six Ps. Maybe we should tell everybody what they are. People, Product, Process, Proprietary, which means intellectual property is part of that, Patrons and Profits. All of those come together. You need to make sure that they work together to create maximum valuation and sustainability.

It’s wonderful to see how Sharon and I talk about people. I talk about it and my experience, me being in the trenches. Sharon has her case studies and expertise. It’s great to get both sides, both of our perspectives.

Our perspectives are coming from different mindsets but they rhyme.

The book is coming out. We should go ahead and talk about the special that we are offering, Sharon. It’s because of COVID that we had to push our book launch back a couple of times. The book is now going to launch on January 26, 2021. Our audience can take advantage of this book right now. They can go to EXITRichBook.com, purchase a book for $24.79, receive a digital download immediately, plus obtain all the bonuses which are videos, downloads. We have examples, Sharon, of employee handbooks, operational manuals, organizational charts, due diligence checklist, LOIs, example PAs, example data rooms, and how you manage a data room of a $50 million company. They get all of that. Plus, they get a 30-day membership and two Club CEOs. Club CEOs are going to be a hot seat and Q&As. We’ll bring in other expertise to help grow your business in Club CEOs. They get all of this for $24.79.

I want to point out how unusual this is. It’s something because we know that it’s been delayed because to COVID. The copy of the book will still be sent to you in January 2021 but because you commit to EXITRichBook.com now, then you will also receive a digital copy now. You have an advanced copy of what’s going to be released in January 2021. You have a head start over everyone else who’s going to get it through Amazon or a bookstore. That’s from making that commitment. Now you have access to this information immediately, and that’s unusual in publishing. We wanted to make sure we didn’t hold the information back any longer. We wanted to get it to you.

Like many of our business owners, we have to pivot with what’s going on with COVID. You can’t keep doing things the same way. There’s a tremendous amount of wealth of information, not only in the book, EXIT Rich, but also in all the golden nuggets that are provided in our book membership and also Club CEOs. Go to EXITRichBook.com because if you buy more than two books, we have all kinds of value that we’re also giving away like Sharon’s mastermind and my build to sell a platform. We have built an educational platform that they will also get. Also, an evaluation from me which is a $10,000 value so there are all kinds of bonuses if you buy more than two books. Maybe you buy them for your friends, for other business owners, you donate them as well. I think there’s even a retreat at Sharon’s ranch.

There is. For those people who invest in it to share it with their clients and their friends, we wanted to make sure that we show our appreciation. Michelle has her business valuation and I’m offering a retreat for our ranch. You can check it out at CherryCreekLodge.com. It’s completely off the grid. We have solar power, well water, fishing, horseback riding, shooting and all kinds of fun things. We do have satellite Wi-Fi.

I think it’s good to sometimes unplug though and get away from the phone and the digital world.

It’s completely remote in the middle of the Tonto National Forest. It’s three hours outside Phoenix. It’s a little piece of heaven.

I think it’s great to do some soul searching and what I call transformational thinking because we’re always transactional. Sometimes you need to stay quiet and do that transformational thinking. That can catapult your business to the next level. Sharon, what’s the number one tip that you have for our audience, for business owners, for entrepreneurs? What’s the biggest piece of advice you can give to them?

One of my comments is that you are the CEO of your own life. Do you want to continue working in your business, driving yourself crazy, not having time to take off, not enjoying life? Or do you want to be in charge of your life and your business and making sure you build the foundational level of your business so that you can bring in other people’s money, other people’s time, other people’s resources to run your business that eventually will allow you to free up your time? The decision is yours. You either work on your business and build the systems and the people to run it for you or you have a lifetime of working in your business and exchanging time for money. Instead of exchanging time for money, invest your time to build a foundation of your business so that it can become an economic engine for you.

Any tips from a personal standpoint like how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you keep yourself going? What personal tip do you have for our audience?

I think it comes back to what your definiteness of purpose is, your burning desire, whether it be in your business or your personal life. When you remind yourself of that, successful businesses do 1 of 2 things. They solve a problem or serve a need. In the morning when I wake up and I feel like I want to pull the covers over my head and roll over, I remind myself of what problem I’m serving and what need I’m serving and it takes outside of me. It gives me that motivation to get out of bed because I know that I am adding value to someone’s life. Remind yourself every morning, what problem are you solving? What need are you serving? At the end of the day, be grateful for what you’ve accomplished that day and have it had a little time and gratitude for where you are in life. Ask yourself, have you added value to someone’s life? That’s my recommendation. It’s worked for me.

Every night before I put my nine-year-old to bed and we say our prayers, I tell her to thank God. What are you thankful for? What did God do for you today? Now I’m going to say, “What did you do for others?” I think that is wonderful advice. Anything that you would like to share with our audiences?

Please reach out to me, @SharonLechter on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. My website is SharonLechter.com. Everything’s easy. If you have any questions you want to reach out to me, my email is Info@SharonLechter.com. I have my podcast, which is the Play Big Moment with Sharon Lechter and as well as the Facebook group, The Play Big Movement. You can find me a lot of places and I love to have you join me. If you want the personal success, download it at PersonalSuccessEquation.com.

I always say the more successful someone is, the more they give, the more time they have to give to others and help others be successful. Thank you for sharing all your wonderful words of wisdom and thanks to our audience for joining us on another episode of Find Your Exit. Make sure you go out there to FindYourExit.com and go to EXITRichBook.com and get your copy of EXIT Rich. All the information about Sharon will be at FindYourExit.com. Thank you so much.

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