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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n
When I sold my first business \u2014 a wine bar and brokerage \u2014 I hated the thing. I was working retail hours, coordinating with customers on three different continents and the stress was unrelenting. On the day the deal closed, you would have expected me to be celebrating my escape.<\/p>\n
Instead, I entered a period of grief I hadn\u2019t planned for and couldn\u2019t have predicted. That business had defined my days, my identity and my sense of purpose for years. And the moment it was gone, so was all of that.<\/p>\n
That surprise is one of the most common \u2014 and least discussed \u2014 parts of a business exit. According to widely cited research from the Exit Planning Institute<\/a> and PricewaterhouseCoopers, roughly 75% of business owners report feeling profound regret within a year of selling their company. And the Exit Planning Institute\u2019s 2023 State of Owner Readiness Report<\/a> found that only 44% of owners felt they had planned enough \u2014 not for financial reasons, but for emotional ones.<\/p>\n Life after exiting a business <\/a>is like many other new chapters. Whether you\u2019re facing an empty nest, a wide-open future after college or your new status as a former owner, grief is a real possibility. But the grief that follows a business sale has a specific shape. If you\u2019ve owned your company for five years or 40, part of your identity has been running it and being close to your employees and customers. After you sell, many of those relationships change or disappear. Which is why, as you build the financial structure of your exit, you have to build for the emotional upheaval too.<\/p>\n How, then, should an owner plan for life after the sale?<\/p>\n At Exit Factor, this is one of the first things we ask a client, because it\u2019s different for every entrepreneur.<\/p>\n For some owners, it\u2019s the money \u2014 getting as much profit<\/a> out of the deal as possible. That\u2019s an important goal, and for many owners it\u2019s the critical one. For others, it\u2019s making sure the employees they leave behind are taken care of. For others, it\u2019s simply the joy of living without the mental fatigue of owning a business. Whatever your version of a successful ending is, if you achieve it, I count that as a successful exit.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t begin with a clear picture of success, you may end up with something else entirely.<\/p>\n Legacy is a real metric for many business owners, especially founders still at the helm or successors who worked hard to preserve what came before them. They want to know the buyer will maintain the character and culture they built and operate according to the values they established.<\/p>\n A recent, high-profile example: Mark Cuban, the celebrity entrepreneur and Shark Tank veteran, former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban was famously hands-on with the talent side of the team \u2014 close to the players, involved in recruitment and trades. But after he sold his majority stake, the new owners decided not to renew a contract with one of Cuban\u2019s favorite players. He was publicly upset, and there was nothing he could do about it. He hadn\u2019t carved out a role in player contract decisions before the sale, and he couldn\u2019t renegotiate the deal after \u2014 just as he probably wouldn\u2019t let a Shark Tank contestant back out of a handshake (at least not on camera).<\/p>\n If legacy, culture or specific decisions matter to you, negotiate for them before the papers are signed. Once the deal closes, those levers are gone.<\/p>\n Free time sounds great. But when you\u2019ve been working 40, 60 or 80 hours a week for the last 30 years, it isn\u2019t an easy transition.<\/p>\n I remember a client who called us a few months after his exit and said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what the heck to do with my time. All my buddies are working, my wife and kids are busy and I\u2019ve got nothing to do.\u201d That call was the whole reason we now ask clients to design what we call an inspiring future \u2014 before the exit, not after.<\/p>\n What do you want your life to look like for the next six to twelve months once the sale closes? A trip you\u2019ve put off? Deeper involvement in parenthood, or caring for aging parents? Writing a book, starting a charity, learning something new? The specifics matter less than the fact that they exist. An empty calendar after a sale is a much harder problem than most owners expect.<\/p>\n When you exit your company, you are exiting a phase of your life. You lose relationships. You lose a community. You may lose a whole sense of who you are. But something is waiting for you in the next chapter \u2014 and the sooner you start designing it, the better that next chapter will be. Start now. What comes next could be the most exciting stage yet.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n When I sold my first business \u2014 a wine bar and brokerage \u2014 I hated the thing. I was working retail hours, coordinating with customers on three different continents and the stress was unrelenting. On the day the deal closed, you would have expected me to be celebrating my escape.<\/p>\n Instead, I entered a period of grief I hadn\u2019t planned for and couldn\u2019t have predicted. That business had defined my days, my identity and my sense of purpose for years. And the moment it was gone, so was all of that.<\/p>\n That surprise is one of the most common \u2014 and least discussed \u2014 parts of a business exit. According to widely cited research from the Exit Planning Institute<\/a> and PricewaterhouseCoopers, roughly 75% of business owners report feeling profound regret within a year of selling their company. And the Exit Planning Institute\u2019s 2023 State of Owner Readiness Report<\/a> found that only 44% of owners felt they had planned enough \u2014 not for financial reasons, but for emotional ones.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nDecide what success looks like<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Decide what your company should look like<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Get inspired about your future<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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