Successful entrepreneurs work for years to build their businesses to achieve revenues and profits and to become a reflection of all of their hard work. It’s a shame when they get to the point of late-middle age and find that the business that they’ve built isn’t sustainable without them and wonder if they still like doing what they’re doing. If they have no children in the business or clear successors to their reign, the value that they’d hoped to achieve from transitioning the business can be a chimera. This is the point at which some sort of family business planning or small business strategic planning becomes essential.

In many ways, building a business is like raising a child. It’s in the entrepreneurs interest to prepare it for life on its own – without the comforting direction of the owner / developer. That’s a very hard thing for many owners to do. After all, it’s been their life to create the business that is so intertwined with their own life. And, owners can, like parents, hover over their children making decisions that preclude their businesses from growing up and being able to function on their own.

What to do if you’re in this place?

First, you must come to grips with what you want out of the business and the rest of your life – to make the equivalent of a personal strategic plan. Once a clear picture is formulated in your own mind of how you want to interact with the business and live your life – in work commitment, financial rewards, involvement – it’s time to work through a successful strategic planning mechanism for the business.

Waking up in late middle age wondering what one is going to do with one’s life and one’s business isn’t a very good place to be. Building the business was just too much work to face that. But, if that’s where you find yourself, you should give me a call. You need help I can provide.