Can Anyone Make Their Business Sustainable? – business succession
In the book, “Sustainable: A Fable about Creating a Personally and Economically Sustainable Business”, Josh Patrick winds a fine tale of a business owner who will sound remarkably familiar to a lot of business owners.
Josh is fine story-teller, and I have been following his blog for years. In this story, John is the owner of Aardvark’s, a small specialty manufacturer, who is wildly frustrated with the business, and his life. When John complains to his lawyer/friend again about things, the lawyer all but insists that John hire Aaron, a curmudgeonly consultant who also built and sold a successful business years before (Aaron will sound strikingly familiar to those who know Josh). After some push-back, John agrees to hire Aaron, and it changed his life.
Aaron’s biggest challenge is to help John see that the main problem or bottleneck to making his business sustainable (i.e. one that is transferable and much easier to manage), is the man John sees in the mirror each day. Once John gets over that, Aaron’s advice starts to hit home with the management team (or most of them anyway).
Any business owner, or advisor to business owners, will appreciate the short, simple stories and advice listed in the chapters such as “Walking The Truth”, “Big Rocks and the $5,000/hour Job”, “Values Matter”, “Core Values Analysis”, “Identifying the Best Customer” and “Alignment Across the Board”.
I highly recommend this short read, as motivation to every business owner who wants a business that runs great, is fun (again), and that they can transfer to new owners, on his/her timetable, for a profit.
If you are a late-career business owner (or connected to one) and want to think more deeply about your business, you should download the free “What’s Next? For Your Future” guide:
