That title line isn’t about your eyesight. It doesn’t ask whether you have 20-20 vision. It asks whether you have A Vision for the year 2020; five years from now.
While predicting the future is always tough, even three years out, how can one predict ten years from now? It is difficult, I agree, especially when it comes to political, economic and technology issues and how they will affect your business or career. However, there are some questions we do need to ask ourselves.
For example, do you want to be doing the same thing in 2020 that you are doing now? If not, how would you like it to change? Do you want to grow your business? Shrink it? Sell it to someone else? It seems unlikely that many of us will be doing the same work for the same company and that the company will be the same size in 2020 as it was in 2015.
If you want to sell or otherwise transition your business to new ownership, how will you do that? Getting a business ready for sale takes at least two years and more often five years. Do you have an idea what your business is worth? Most business owners have an idea but it is far more than the business is actually worth in the marketplace.
If you own your own business, are you mentally ready to sell it? Many owners can’t walk away despite what they say. And, if you’re mentally ready, are you financially ready? Will you have sufficient assets to support your desired lifestyle?
Another big issue with entrepreneurs is separating the business from the owner. Are you so essential to the business that the business cannot be separated from you? If so, you don’t have anything you can sell. At least until you can extricate yourself from the business.
If you’ve done everything else right to prepare the business for sale, you need to time the sale of your business at the right point in the macro-business cycle to get the best price. Usually, there are only about three years in each decade that are the optimum window in which to sell a closely held business. Miss that window and you may need to wait for years in order to have another opportunity. That is a big deal because most of a business owner’s net worth is tied up in their business. If they can’t “harvest” the value of their business, their net worth is much smaller than they thought.
All of this means you need to do some long-term thinking about yourself and your business and what are the ultimate goals. Looking out ten years is a good way to do that. But it takes the discipline to not let the urgent, day-to-day issues crowd out the long-term, important matters. So often the urgent drives out the important.
Generally, the best solution is to have an outside exit planning professional drive the process and impose a schedule. That external viewpoint and discipline could be the best investment you ever made.
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