FYE-GI with Terrance McMahon | Sell Your Business

 

Michelle Seiler Tucker

The USA’s Top Closer: 90% of all listings + 99% of all offers Over 20 Years’ Experience – Hundreds of Businesses Bought & Sold Two-time #1 Best-Selling Author, Speaker, TV & Radio Host Venture Capitalist & Business Owner M&AMI Master Intermediary (MASource.org), only 3 women in the US hold this certification.

Check out her book Sell Your Business For More Than It’s Worth and stay tuned for her new book Exit Rich.

Listen to the podcast here


 

Sell Your Business For More Than It’s Worth! – Michelle Seiler Tucker

We have Michelle Seiler Tucker, the author of Sell Your Business for More Than It’s Worth, which is a best-seller. She specializes in helping people fix, grow, and sell their businesses, which is a topic I get a bunch of questions on. I could have used your help a few years ago, so welcome, Michelle.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here, Terrance.

It’s great to have you. The idea of going into business is pretty hot now, and also is the idea of companies going out of business. We are seeing some major brands falling off. What you do when companies are coming in and out of business is pretty important. Tell us how you got into the role of helping people do that and also a little bit about your journey.

It’s a long story, so I’m not going to bore you with the details but I have always been an entrepreneur at heart, even as a child. When other children were playing with toys and dolls, not me. I was walking around with a notebook asking everybody 1,000 questions. My mom thought I was going to be the next Barbara Walters. She knew I was going to be a reporter.

I’ve owned several businesses. I’ve owned publishing companies, magazines, and vent companies. I then got sucked up into Corporate America, working for Xerox. I was there for six months, and they asked me to interview for a regional management position with over 85 salespeople. They said, “You will never get the position but you should do it anyway.” I said, “Why would I interview for something I’m never going to get?” They said, “It’s a great learning experience, and you will learn more doing this than anything else. The reason you are not going to get it is because you have been here a couple of months, and other people that are interviewing for the same position have been here for years.” I said, “I will do it.”

I interviewed for it. It was a very long process. It was a 60 to 90-day process, 3 to 4 months. It’s a grueling process where we have to meet with all these different key-level executives. We had to demonstrate high-volume equipment. We had to do sales presentations in front of the management team. I ended up getting it when I said, “I want it,” so I got it. I love sales. I then got my nickname at Xerox was a closer. They take the closer and move them into management. It’s not a smart idea. I went into management and missed entrepreneurship.

I started looking for a business or a franchise that could buy and operate on the side and hire employees. I stumbled across this franchise that had two locations. My husband knew one of the owners. I said, “I want to buy your franchise,” and they said, “No. We know you and your husband. We know of your reputation,” because they have friends at Xerox that worked with me.

They said, “We don’t want you to buy our franchise. We want you to partner with us, and we will give you a franchise.” I said, “You have two locations, so you are not very successful. Now, I’m making six figures over here with great benefits.  I’m not going to leave six figures with great benefits for a company that’s not successful. Why don’t I do this? I will try it out for six months, and we will see how it works. If I feel we are a good fit, then I will leave Xerox.”

I did that and flew all around the country on the weekends. I did trade shows and hosted my own events. I ended up selling quite a few franchises and making more in six months than I did an entire year at Xerox. I ended up leaving Xerox and partnering with this company. I ended up selling over 400 franchises rather quickly. They kept overpromising and under-delivering and did what most companies do. They grew too fast for the foundation that they were built on. They never built a solid foundation that could hold the growth and the expansion that I was bringing.

These franchisees are my friends. I go to their weddings and hospitals when they have babies and their birthday parties. I stay at their house when I come to town. I said, “I can’t sell any more franchises. I can’t continue to grow the company because if you can’t service what we are selling, then we have to stop. We have to put the brakes on.” They didn’t want to do that. I said, “Buy me out.” They didn’t want to do that. I said, “Fine. You will hear from my attorney.” They ended up buying me out.

When that happened, I ended up transitioning into selling companies. At first, it was smaller companies like restaurants, coffee shops, and things of that nature. Very quickly, I ended up transitioning into selling large businesses. I learned that 8 out of 10 businesses don’t sell. According to Steve Forbes, 8 out of 10 businesses do not sell, and that’s accurate.

According to Steve Forbes, 8 out of 10 businesses don't sell. Click To Tweet

I said, “If I don’t fix and grow these businesses, and if I don’t build them to sell, then I’m going to starve to death.” I then started growing businesses and building businesses. I specialize in buying, selling, fixing, and growing. I will partner with business owners, investing my capital, energy, resources, and core competencies for a build-to-sell plan. Our build-to-sell plan is typically 3 to 5 years.

What is COVID’s impact on people selling and buying businesses?

People would think it’s dead but it’s not. At this level, it depends on the industry you are in. Small businesses are pretty much dead. Hospitality, restaurants, bars, hotels, and anything travel related is not doing too well. Although we do have an offer. One of my brokers has an offer on a bar he’s selling, and they are closing, so nothing is impossible.

FYE-GI with Terrance McMahon | Sell Your Business

Sell Your Business: Since the pandemic, small businesses are pretty much dead. Hospitality, restaurants, bars, hotels, or anything travel related, are not doing too well, but larger tech companies are doing great.

 

What we are seeing a lot of activity is for the larger tech companies. We have so many buyers. We have over 25,000 buyers in our database. We have more buyers for good businesses than we have good businesses to buy. There’s quite a bit of activity at that medium level where you have an EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization over $1 million. There are tons of buyers for those types of businesses.

For some of the smaller businesses, there are too. We have a dental lab that’s under contract for $1.3 million, so there are buyers. Buyers are buying. In the first 3 or 4 months after COVID came out, it was very quiet. Nothing was happening. Buyers weren’t pulling their triggers. Sellers were on the fence but now we see a lot more activity, especially since the election has somewhat been decided. I don’t know about that either but we see a lot more activity coming back.

What about businesses that are in trouble? I don’t know how they would do it in the restaurant business or hospitality but they are seeing big brands like Kmart and RadioShack just bought. A friend of mine, who I also invested in, ended up buying Stein Mart and Pier 1. He bought these major brands and put them online.

That’s very smart. Your friend is brilliant because these brands are going out of business. The business landscape has changed dramatically way before COVID. When I sold my business for more than its worth in 2013 and did the research, I learned that 85% to 95% of all startups will go out of business. Businesses 1 to 5 years are at risk of going out of business. We all know that. That’s common knowledge.

However, I guarantee you that probably nobody knows this. When I wrote Exit Rich, and my next book was coming out in 2019. I did the same research. I learned that not 85% to 95% of startups are going out of business. Only 30% of startups will now go out of business but out of 27.6 million companies, those businesses have been in business for ten years or longer, and 70% of those businesses are going out of business. That is mind-boggling because there are only 30.2 million small businesses in the United States, and employing over half the US workforce. If 70% of those 27 million businesses go out of business, they are going to lose jobs.

Out of 27.6 million companies that have been in business for ten years or longer, 70% are going out of business. Click To Tweet

People are going to stop spending. It’s going to hurt the economy. People don’t know that. They don’t realize that 70% are going out of business. You hear about the big box public stores all the time like Kmart, Stein Mart, and Pier 1, going out of business. Toys“R”Us, who have been in business for many years, went out of business but what you do not hear about are the small private companies on every street corner, town, and state across our great nation. These business owners are dropping like flies, and that was before COVID.

Now, every nine seconds of business is going out of business, I’m being told. These business owners are being forced into selling pennies on the dollar, having to close their doors or, even worse, filing bankruptcy. When you file bankruptcy, you don’t just lose your business assets. You lose your personal assets too. America needs to wake up. We got to wake up and try to help small business owners.

You are seeing these businesses not pivot or not reinvent themselves and recreate their offer and distribution models. Examples of Stein Mart, Pier 1, and Kmart that I invested in indirectly. It’s not big time, just small but these companies are going fully online, so they are partnering. They are taking these big brands that were available. The bricks and mortar stores are closed. DressBarn was another one, and they are going to a fully online model. It’s a big number, 70%.

That’s a huge number. I didn’t believe it. I had my team go back ten times and do the research to make sure it was accurate. The reason why they are going out of business is that they stopped AIM, Always Innovate and Market. These business owners have been in business for ten years or longer. They stopped innovating, marketing, and asking their clients, “What do you need? What do you want? How can I make it easier for you to do business with us?”

The company that makes it easier for the consumer to do business with them that’s the company that’s winning. Amazon is winning because they make it easy to do business with them. It’s so easy. Returns are easy. Everything is easy with Amazon. Look at Toys“R”Us. They have been in business for many years. Tell me one thing that they did to innovate. Nothing.

Going there was a nightmare. I remember moms talking about, “I hate going to Toys“R”Us to get gifts for Christmas,” because it was a zoo. There was nobody there to help you. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Now, Amazon makes shopping so easy that you can practically buy anything on Amazon. You could buy a horse on Amazon. They make it so easy to do business with them. Why would you waste your time to go fight with the parking and the crowds in the store when you could be out enjoying time with your family?

What other mistakes are they making other than a lack of innovation, and what can they be doing?

The lack of innovation and marketing is huge but I also talk about it in my book. One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is not planning their exit. They never think about selling their business until they have to due to an internal, external or catastrophic event. They should be planning an exit from day one of starting or buying a business.

Business owners make big mistakes. I call it the six Ps. When I look at a business to partner with, buy or sell, I go through this process. I explain this in my book, Exit Rich. The number one P that we look at is People because you don’t build a business. You build people, and people build a business. You got to ask yourself, “Do you have the bright people in the right seat?” You then got to ask yourself the who question, “Who opens the doors? Who handles customer service issues? Who handles manufacturing? Who handles distribution? Who handles environmental issues? Who handles accounting?”

FYE-GI with Terrance McMahon | Sell Your Business

Exit Rich: The 6 P Method To Sell Your Business For Huge Profit

The clue is never to put your name next to the who because you want your business to be self-sufficient. You want your business to run without you. You never want to put your name next to who. People are number one. I see a lot of business owners trying to be all to everybody and trying to do everything themselves because they always say, “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” That’s stupid because you can’t do everything. You got to focus on your strengths and hire out your weaknesses.

The second P is Product. Here’s where a lot of businesses fail. You got to ask yourself, “Is your product or industry on the way up or on the way out? Do you have an Amazon or a Blockbuster?” If you have a Blockbuster, you are in big trouble. It’s time to pivot. It’s time to ask yourself this question, “What business am I in? What business should I be in?”

I will give you an example to illustrate that point. Amazon asks themselves that question in the beginning, “What business are we in?” They said, “We are in a book business. We sell books,” and then they asked themselves, “What are we good at? What do we do well? We do fulfillment well. What business should we be in? We should be in a fulfillment business.”

Amazon didn’t start as Amazon. They evolved over time because they asked the right questions. You can tell a genius by the questions that they ask. Business owners get so stuck in transactional that they stop being transformational. They got to ask these types of questions so that they can innovate. The product is huge. You got to ask yourself, “Are you on the way up or way out?” If you are on the way out like Blockbuster was because they saw Netflix, they did nothing. They sat back fat and happy and let Netflix do their thing, and then they were out of business.

This happens time and time again. This is why Amazon is doing retail now. Amazon is killing retail because retail is doing nothing to compete except for Walmart. Walmart is competing with Amazon because Walmart said, “We know what you are doing. We can do it too. Do you want to deliver groceries? We can deliver groceries.” We can have a Walmart club like you have a Prime club. Business owners got to start innovating and competing. Business is a competition.

A lot of people follow that idea into the ground. It’s okay to change your mind and go in a different direction.

It is okay to change your mind and go in a different direction. What you should be doing is aligning yourself with an expert, with an advisor, somebody who has been down your road before because they’ve made your mistakes. A genius learns from other people’s mistakes. With a product, you got to innovate. The third P is Processes. Processes are typically never thought about in the beginning.

A genius learns from other people's mistakes. Click To Tweet

Most business owners don’t think about processes until they have to due to upset customers. “We got to change our process because customers are upset,” or due to inefficiencies or workers’ comp injury. They don’t think about it until out of necessity but processes should always be worked out from the beginning. I will give you an instance. Have you ever watched the movie, The Founder?

Yes.

I love that movie.

Me too.

The McDonald Brothers, not Ray Kroc, started McDonald’s back in the ’40s when they were those sonic drive-ups where they came out with roller skates. The problem with that scenario is that the food was always cold. The order was typically wrong, took forever, and customers weren’t happy. Mcdonalds says, “What is our objective? What is our mission? What is our USP, Unique Selling Proposition? How are we going to be different?” Mcdonald’s said, “We are going to deliver great-tasting food. It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be quality, and you are going to get it in two minutes or less.”

They took their entire workforce out to an empty tennis court and mapped out the processes and practice for hours of who’s going to take the client’s order, take the order, toast the buns, cook the burger, put the pickles on the bun, and give it to the customer. They designed the process with the customer experience in mind. They kept thinking about the customer. “How do we deliver quality, fresh, fast, good-tasting food in two minutes or less?” They didn’t do it backward. Therefore, that’s why you can eat at McDonald’s in Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, New Zealand, and the USA, and the experience is the same because the processes are the same.

The processes have to be productive and efficient, and they have to be well-documented. Employees have to be trained on such. They have to be designed with a customer experience in mind. The reason why we get upset clients is that the process is designed to piss them off. It’s not designed to make them happy.

Documented processes make a company more valuable, from what I’ve read.

Especially the employees are trained on it because what do processes do? It creates happy clients. It helps improve efficiencies and productivity, which helps improve the bottom line and helps get the owner more money. Processes are always overlooked and underthought but they must be at the forefront of every business designed with a customer experience in mind.

FYE-GI with Terrance McMahon | Sell Your Business

Sell Your Business: Processes help improve efficiencies and productivity, which helps improve the bottom line. Processes must be at the forefront of every business designed with customer experience in mind.

 

The fourth P, which is the most valuable P which will get you the highest price for your business, is Proprietary. There are six pillars to proprietary. One is you got to ask yourself how well-branded you are. “How much is your brand worth?” Your brand could be worth a lot of money as long as it’s relevant to clients. Toys“R”Us brand isn’t worth that much money anymore because they are out of business. They have 2 or 4 stores open now. The brand is not worth that much. However, who do you think is the biggest brand in the world?

It’s Apple.

Apple is $389 billion. Let that sink in. That’s what our assets, inventory, real estate, cashflow, and anything, just for the brand. The Coca-Cola brand alone is worth $89 billion. All these brands you named DressBarn, Stein Mart, and Pier 1 still have good brand equity as long as your friend can get the business back by innovating and going online. Branding is huge.

The other thing that’s big is trademarks. Here’s a big mistake that owners make because you asked me what the mistakes owners make are. It’s their company name. Most owners go out and get a city and state trademark. It’s a big problem because they don’t get a Federal trademark. Years could go by, and all of a sudden, you receive a cease-and-desist letter in the mail, and the business owner goes, “I’m not changing my name. I’m going to fight that.” Go ahead and fight it. You are going to lose. You can spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and you will still lose. You then have to change the name of your company.

I’ve seen business owners close their businesses because of this. Go out, spend the money, $1,200 or $1,500, and get a Federal trademark and protect your brand. It’s the same thing with slogans. Exit Rich, I want to get that trademarked. Get a trademark and protect your IP. The same thing to patents. If you have anything unique, get patents because they are huge value drivers. We sold a company for $80 million that had eighteen patents. They weren’t making that much money.

The other big thing that’s valuable in IP is contracts. Vendor contracts, manufacturing contracts, and distribution contracts are all of huge value. The biggest value of contracts is client contracts. We have a landscape company that we are working with that has 354 contracts with their commercial clients. Contracts are big, and buyers love contracts because they know that’s steady income. Here’s the big mistake the business owners make. None of them put that transferability clause in their contracts. You have to have a two centers transferability clause. We are selling a business for $79 million. Their EBITDA is $12 million, and their contracts are transferable.

That lowers the value.

It does lower the value but they are going to go back to their clients and make sure they get that in there because they have good relationships. They don’t have that many contracts. They probably have 30. If a company has 100, 200 to 300, start putting that language in from the beginning. The other value of proprietary is databases. If you have a large database and it can be retargeted and repurposed, then that’s a huge value. Facebook paid $19 billion for WhatsApp. WhatsApp was hemorrhaging money but Facebook didn’t care. Facebook was buying one synergy. That synergy was a database that had a billion users. Facebook knew they could all be online and could monetize on the sale on the purchase of that business.

The other big thing in IP is, and I call this business real estate. Let’s say that you are selling pillows and that you are a marketing genius. You got the number one spot on Wayfair for pillows. When anybody types in pillows, you pop up. Do you know how hard it is to get that spot? People will pay for that. Other eCommerce businesses and home goods products will pay for that company. They will pay more money for that one synergy.

Let’s say that you have a patent on a certain type of vacuum, and it’s extremely unique. It’s a robot vacuum. You’ve cornered the market on Amazon and a patent, then that’s huge. The other thing is, let’s say that you have a skincare product. You have Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or some celebrity radio show host that is selling your product. They can only do one skin care product at a time. That’s prime business real estate that buyers will pay for.

The fifth P is Patrons, and that’s your customer base. The old golden rule is that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. You got to be very careful about customer concentration because if you lose 1, 2 or 3 clients, it could put you out of business. You want customer diversification. If you have been in business for 20, 30 or 40 years, your customers are aging out.

80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. If you lose one, two, or three clients, it could put you out of business. Click To Tweet

You need to look at replacing them and should still ask through customers because this is what Amazon does. “What do you need? What do you want? How can I make it easier for you to do business with me?” The last P and probably the most important P is Profits. Somebody asked me, “Michelle, why do you put profits last?”

If you did 1 through 5, you should be making money is your point. I already assumed that.

I always say profit is never ever the problem. Profits are always a symptom of not running on 1 of the other 5 Ps. If you don’t have the right people in the right seat, you are going to have a profit issue. If you don’t have checks and balances with your people and nobody is checking to make sure nobody is stealing from you, you are going to have a profit issue.

If your product is on the way out, not on the way up like Stein Mart, Kmart, and all the other ones, you are going to have a profit issue. If your processes are not efficient, productive, and designed with the customer experience in mind, you are going to have a profit issue. If you don’t protect your IP, you are going to have a big profit issue. Profits are never the problem. It’s always a symptom.

That is interesting. That’s like a little mini-PhD in business right there. If you are reading this information, read it again. You can go your whole lifetime and wander past who you are going to hire or what you are going to sell, and you are following some clown on the internet that says, “All you got to do is put videos out there and get it done.” You still got to build the framework.

You got to build the framework like the franchisor that I partnered with. They never built the framework. Here’s the deal. You might get lucky and get a lot of clients in the beginning but if you don’t have the foundation built, you are going to crumble. Your whole empire is going to crash around you. Amazon built the foundation. It’s all on Exit Rich.

Tell me more about Exit Rich now that you have got my attention.

Exit Rich is a blueprint or step-by-step guideline to not sell a business. It’s not about selling a business. It is but it’s more about building a sustainable, scalable business so that when you are ready, it’s sellable. As I said that there are more buyers for good businesses than there are good businesses to buy. Most businesses don’t operate on all six cylinders. Most businesses operate on maybe 2 or 3.

If you can build out your business with this foundation and operate on all six Ps, you are going to have a very solid foundation. Your business is going to be sustainable, and then you can scale. You can’t scale unless it’s sustainable or has a solid foundation on the six Ps built. Exit Rich is also about planning your exit from day one is starting or buying a business.

I walk my clients through day one, where I say, “Think about this. When you drive somewhere, you pull out your phone and put your destination.” The GPS already knows where you are starting from. You need to do the same with business. Business is your most valuable asset but nobody ever plans for it. Do you have children?

I do. I have two sons.

Did you and your wife plan where they are going to go to preschool, elementary, junior high, high school, and college? What maybe are they going to be when they grow up? Some parents micromanage that process and want to dictate what their children are going to be, who they are going to marry, and how many grandkids are going to give us. Parents plan out their children’s future. Do they ever plan for the exit of their biggest asset?

Is it more of a compass or is it more of an exact destination? Is it more of a distant shore you might want to visit sometime? No one lives in tomorrow. Usually, a lot of us live in the past but you living in the way tomorrow out, is it an exact place you are going to land? Is it a compass to direct you and guide you, making sure you are equipped for the trip?

I would say it could be a little bit of both. I like to get my clients to determine their endgame or where they want to end up at. Let’s say my clients have been in business for five years, and I ask them, “What do you want to sell your business for? 8 out of 10 businesses don’t sell. The number one reason businesses don’t sell is that they never sell for the price tag that the owner needs to sell.

They can’t get their number.

That’s the number they need to retire on, send their kids to college or buy another business but the buyer doesn’t care what you need. The buyer cares what the value is. I always tell my clients, “Think about building your asset to sell one day. Don’t become so emotional about it. Sellers get so emotionally tied to the business. I say, “I’m going to sell my business, and I want to sell it for $20 million.” What’s the second thing they need to know? That’s their destination. What does a GPS need to know?

How do you build a business that’s worth $20 million someday?

First, you need to know where you are starting from. What’s your current location? What’s your current evaluation? Let’s say you are worth $5 million and want to sell for $20 million. What do you need to know next? It’s a timeframe. Do you want to do this? Can you get from $5 million to $20 million in seven years? You then need to know, “Who are my buyers going to be.” There are five types of buyers. If you have a $20 million manufacturing business, I can guarantee you it’s not going to be a first-time buyer that buys your business so that you can rule them out.

That’s 1 of the 5.

Number 1) First-time buyers, and 90% of buyers are first-time buyers. Number 2) PEGs or Private Equity Groups. They buy two ways. They buy based on the platform and add-on. If they are looking to get into manufacturing and are not in manufacturing now, they will look at manufacturing companies as long as their EBITDA is over $3 million. They won’t look at anything under $3 million in EBITDA for a platform.

Let’s say they are already in the platform and already have a manufacturing business. Let’s say they manufacture spices. They will look for add-ons for that platform for other manufacturing seasonings, salad dressing, hot sauce or stuff like that. You follow me because it’s congruent. That’s an add-on. They will look at add-ons under $1 million. That’s PEGs, Private Equity Groups.

Your third type of buyer is competitors/strategics. Competitors are direct competitors. Strategics are strategic. Let’s say there’s an AC heating company, and we are selling a plumbing company. AC and heating companies are buying up plumbing companies, electrical companies, and flooring companies because they want a one-stop shop, and vice versa, plumbing companies, have been buying up AC companies. That would be considered strategic, not a direct competitor but strategic. Your fourth type of buyer is sophisticated serial entrepreneurs. These buyers are industry agnostic. They are more EBITDA specific.

They are looking to make a good profit.

I have several that I work with. One that I work with pretty much gives him an offer and everything. He’s got a very streamlined and defined way that he purchases businesses. You either say yes or no. He doesn’t wiggle. “You got to do this and this,” and that’s it. That’s his playbook. Either the seller play ball or they don’t play ball. Some do, and some don’t. Serial entrepreneurs are agnostic. They don’t care. This particular gentleman has hospitals, construction, manufacturing, and truck stops. He’s all over the gamut.

The last type of buyer is a turnaround specialist. Turnarounds specialists are busy buying distressed assets because of COVID. Those are your five types of buyers. If you are trying to sell a $20 million manufacturing company, then who’s going to be your buyer? It’s not going to be first-timers, and it’s not going to be turnarounds specialist. It’s going to be a private equity group. Your EBITDA would have to be over $3 million or they wouldn’t even consider you for a platform. They will consider you smaller for an add-on. A $20 million company should have a $2 million to $3 million EBITDA.

FYE-GI with Terrance McMahon | Sell Your Business

Sell Your Business: Who will be your buyer if you’re trying to sell a $20 million manufacturing company? It won’t be first-timers or turnaround specialists. It’s going to be strategic or private equity groups.

 

PEGs or Private Equity Groups and strategics will buy you. Competitors will look at you, and even sophisticated entrepreneurs. Those are three types of buyers that will look at you. You have to ask yourself, “What are your buying criteria? What do they require as far as financials, gross revenues, profit margin, and EBITDA, which is the biggest? What’s the requirement as far as people in place, non-competes, and a management team? What’s in place as far as products? Does this business run on all six Ps?

Buyers who are buying a $20 million company are not going to buy a company that has no people in place, and you are outsourcing everything. They want a company to operate on all six cylinders if they are going to pay $20 million unless you are a SaaS company. Now, you know who your buyer is, and the determined price is, so reverse engineer it.

You know where you are starting from, your $5 million, your timeframe, your three buyer types could be, and their buying criteria. Now you need to know your why. If you don’t have a powerful why you will never sell your business for $20 million. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. Your why is what keeps you in the game and motivated. It’s what keeps you going. It’s what drowns out all the naysayers.

Why do you want the $20 million, and why do you want to sell the business or why do you want everything?

Why do you want to sell your business for $20 million? There are a lot of obstacles in business. There are a lot of roadblocks. There are a lot of things that we entrepreneurs have to go through to keep our businesses afloat. I’m in Louisiana. We have five hurricanes on top of COVID. There are a lot of storms out there. We got to weather the storms and keep our boat afloat. You better have a powerful why to keep you in the game, otherwise, go work for somebody.

Sell Your Business For More Than It’s Worth! – Michelle Seiler Tucker Click To Tweet

The law of thermodynamics says energy is not created or destroyed. It’s transferred. There’s always going to be something going one way, leaving, and coming.

I believe that wholeheartedly. That’s the Law of Attraction.

People are going out of business, and new businesses are popping up, and the people with money, we know, based upon our financial reports that we are getting, that there’s still money around. You want to position yourself to participate with the Ps. The best thing you do in the recession is not to participate.

You got to participate and pivot. You still got to be passionate about what you do.

You could have gone with nine Ps there. Great job. I’m excited.

I stay with the six Ps because I relate them to a car. You want to keep a car driving on all six cylinders.

Do you have a way for people to get a copy of the book?

They can get a copy. The book is available everywhere. You can go to Barnes & Noble, Hudson, and Amazon but don’t go there. Go to ExitRichBook.com because it is our presale funnel. You can buy that book for $24.79, which includes shipping. Amazon is $27.97 plus shipping. You will receive the digital download immediately. You will receive a lifetime membership into Exit Rich book membership, where there’s video training of me taking you through these different techniques and strategies. You will also receive digital downloads.

If you’ve never seen an employee handbook, organizational chart, due diligence checklist, purchase agreement, LOI or Letter of Intent, and all closing documents, those are all in the Exit Rich book membership available for you to access. You will also get a 30-day membership into Club CEOs, where we do hot seats, masterminds, and Q&As to try to help business owners ask those questions. “What business are you in? What business should you be in?” You get all of that value for $24.79 at ExitRichBook.com.

This show is a mini business PhD.

The book has even more strategies than that because Sharon Lechter, who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad Robert Kiyosaki and has been a New York Times bestselling author several times over. She also wrote several books for the Napoleon Hill Foundation, Thinking and Grow Rich. She has the Mentoring Corner, which is a perspective from a financial literacy expert. She is a CPA and Financial Literacy Expert and has advised President Obama and several other presidents. She’s very good. Her husband is an intellectual property attorney, so he has his two cents too. You get to get the expertise of somebody who’s been in trenches for years, plus the CPA, plus an IP attorney.

Thank you so much for your time. I want to let remind everybody of Michelle Seiler Tucker’s book, ExitRichBook.com. There’s an offer that’s massive. You are going to get downloads on the spot. You are going to get free collateral videos and worksheets. You are also going to get a free month in Club CEOs, where you are going to be listening and hearing from CEOs and hot seats and all kinds of cool stuff. I’m excited about that myself. Thanks for joining us, Michelle.

Thank you for having me, Terrance. It has been a pleasure.

 

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