Exit Stategy

woodmagman

Planning an exit strategy, will it differ from those contractors from the past? Park the truck and never touch the tools again!
Does everyone really have an exit strategy…..what are the options?

Putty Truck

Exit? To what? This must be a carpenter thing because I've never seen a plumber exit except via a coffin.

woodmagman

Selling your business before you end up in a plumbers coffin, would that be a septic tank?

KillerToiletSpider

If I continue to grow my racecar business to full time, I will leave plumbing behind, or do it very part time till my boss either trains his son to replace me or finds a replacement.

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A flush is better than a full house.

thom

One more house to build, this one's for my son so I'll loose money on it, and I'm retired. My retirement income is 16 rental houses. The remaining debt, $80,000 will be paid off by this time next year.

Putty Truck

hurmmmph

If I had a dollar for every plumber that did it, I'd be a carpenter.

woodmagman

Come on guys EXIT STATEGY, The thing we all plan to do when we first started the companies. "yeah right"
Is no one mentoring a individaul to buy out your portion of the company. Or have plans to put the companies affairs in order to attached a new owner..Is everyone just working to survive, not looking to the future.

Putty Truck

Again...this is a new concept to me. Why would I want to "exit"? Where would I go? Why would I go there?

Are you speaking of retirement? If I live too long to be unable to work, I guess I'll think of something else to do. Maybe I would sneak across the Canadian border and pound sand, I mean, nails?

joasis

I posted this before, that what if scenario....

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woodmagman

Lets see, what should you do, Golf-every morning and afternoon, fire the pool boy and hire cleaning gal. You could walk around the yard all day in your hawaiian shirt and bermuda shorts pulling weeds. You could get a life and stop hanging around the contractor forums. You know retire with grace and not be that old dusty fart that sits in his office from sun up till sun gone to bed. You know pass on the torch while the flame is still bright.

GregS

Please add an r

Thanks.

Putty Truck

Golf is gay Swimming pool in Washington State? That's kinda like having a.c. here...totally not needed. A cleaning gal when I have a perfectly good wife? We get services when needed, but not on a weekly basis, so that's out.
Great Gods! I'd rather be digging ditches than stuck in that hell. Better here than in front of the t.v. yelling at some puppet newscaster. Carpenters react waaaay better. There's plenty of time to die after my heart stops beating. My family gets the business when I die and what they do with it, I don't care.

"Retiring with grace" means dying with my boots on. This whole retirement thing is overrated. Before the Industrial Age, everyone hepled out and nature took care of those who couldn't keep up. But in the late 19th century (1875-1900) 85% of 70-year-olds were still working and working good.

One thing I have noticed is that the people who "exit" are those who are doing contracting as opposed to being contractors. Real contractors do it until they are stiff.

aWorkaHolic

There are only four reasons I can think of for a business owner to think of an exit strategy:

1. After making $Millions$=Retirement

2. Your company is an LLC and you or your investor wants out.

3. Your company is not making any money and is ready to shut down the doors.

4. Your burned out

woodmagman

When you plan a trip to funland USA, do you not plan to get home? When you purchase a Bucket of what ever for a customer do you not expect something for time spent and the cost of the bucket.
We all work to work, or work makes us work! Why not work to sell the abilty to work to someone else at a profit so you can buy that boat, or that car collection you always wanted. Then sit in the garage or go to the track and see how many low 9s you can get before you turn a 8.9. Work is just the thing we do so we can do the things that make us happy. Just because you are happy working does not mean you can not turn a profit selling the business.

dougchips

Hopefully I will turn my business over to one of my daughters.

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KillerToiletSpider

I could easily sell my chassis business for a decent profit now, even though it is a part time business for one employee, because of the partnership I have with a much larger chassis business, as well as the design patents I own. The company I am partnered with would buy me out for six times what I have invested just for the patents, and would let me keep all of the equipment.

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A flush is better than a full house.

woodmagman

That is not really and exit stategy, it is just business...

Bob Kovacs

99% of contractors will never turn a profit on the sale of their business, as there's nothing to sell. Unless you build a well-oiled machine that offers a top-notch product that's not tied to "you" being there either to sell the job, produce the product, or baby-sit the client, the business essentially ceases to exist without "you". Therefore, all that's left to sell is a pile of tools and a beat-up truck or two.

KillerToiletSpider

The patents are worth half a mil, I could live on the interest of that for awhile. If I stick with my trade for another five years, I will have a pension from that also.

__________________
A flush is better than a full house.

woodmagman

Amen to that....but knowing the pit falls why is everyone tring to be the next Mr. Chipper LLC or whoever. What should the 99% do to make it as a legitimate businessman in the real world then. There has to be a format everyone can follow to give a contracting buisness the value it requires, to be sold when Bob the Builder drives his last nail.