Much of the advice I give is in keeping focused on your end game, what I call the Big Picture Goal (BPG). It’s this focus, I believe, that will keep you busy doing the right things, those things that lead you to business success. It’s classic ‘Begin with the end in mind” strategy a la Covey, Collins, and Kiyosaki. But what happens when you finally get there?

Here’s what:

1. Set a new Big Picture Goal. Maybe your BPG was to get to $1,000,000 in sales and you made it. Now, you might set a new BPG of $10,000,000 or a second location doing the $1M. Alternatively, your BPG might have been more short term in order to ensure survival, and now you’re ready to look even bigger!
2. Sell the Business. An admirable end for any business is to sell it and retire financially independent. If that is what you have in mind, then start researching how a business in your industry is valued (multiple of sales, multiple of profits, value of assets, etc.) Then, you can start planning for the Big Sale!
3. The Succession Plan. You might want to step aside and have a new leader manage your business. Just as Bill Gates stepped aside and allowed a ‘real’ CEO to run his company, you might want to set up a plan of succession for a manager/CEO to take over the day-to-day operations of the business. That new manager can SMS text you the good news while you’re fishing!
4. Close the Doors. Sometimes, the owner is the talent of a micro-business, a talent that just can’t be passed on or sold. If this is the case, then a plan of creating investment savings from profits might be the end game. Yo u still want to leave this with financial security. However, I would still recommend you look for ways to replicate yourself (licensing, website, write a book, etc.).

So, what’s your end game?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 7:01 am and is filed under small business owner, small business, Business Consulting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.