Intro to The Business Transition Roadmap

Episode Description:

It is never too early to be thinking about the next steps for your business. Whether you’re planning to sell or pass on the business to someone else, how do you set your successor, your company, and yourself up for success? In this introductory episode, meet your host, Elizabeth Ledoux, and find out how the Business Transition Roadmap can help you navigate your journey through business transition or succession. Tap or click the play button below to listen to: Intro to The Business Transition Roadmap.

Intro to The Business Transition Roadmap Transcript

[00:00:00] Elizabeth Ledoux: Hi, I’m Elizabeth Ledoux and I am so happy to be here telling you a little bit about myself and a little bit about this podcast called the business transition roadmap. I’m a Colorado native grew up in Colorado. And I lived here most of my life. I, when I was younger, ended up going to Colorado school of mines and I got to be a petroleum engineer and drilled oil Wells in the United States for a few years before having my first son.

[00:00:32] And I thought that that would be interesting for you to hear. Just because I am an entrepreneur at heart and have always enjoyed small business and private business. So what I did 34 years ago is I switched my career from petroleum engineering to consulting, and I started working with small businesses internationally.

[00:00:55] And. I’ve done everything from strategy to transition, work to organizational structure and design I’ve really. And, you know, even building financial statements and putting in computer systems. So over the 43 or 34 years, I’ve had lots of experience with small business and all the different aspects that that business owners have when they are going through and, you know, growing and building their companies.

[00:01:24] as I got through that time, one of the things that I found is that business owners really struggle when it comes to business transition. They have a lot of resources and a lot of support in how to build and how to grow their companies. And there aren’t a lot out there that helped them to transition and not just transition, but transition.

[00:01:47] Well, you know, statistics show that most businesses. Less than 50% of the businesses that get transitioned actually do well in that next generation’s hands. And that’s an old statistic, but I think it’s still true. Many of the businesses fail. And I don’t think that they fail because the business success.

[00:02:13] Is incapable of running the business. One of my beliefs is that they don’t do well or they don’t thrive forward. Well, because the successors aren’t ready. So years ago I created a process and we call it the business transition roadmap process. Of course, where, what we do is we help business owners figure out their direction Which direction do you wanna go? And then once they know a direction, we help them figure out how to build a timeline, because you’ll find out that I believe that transition needs to be a timeline. It needs to be a journey and not an event successors don’t learn very much. In an event it’s very short successors can learn a lot and they can learn to run the company really well if it’s made into a journey.

[00:03:06] So when we, when you come in to listen to this podcast, you’re gonna have the opportunity to hear us talk about starting with the four Ws, your why, who your, when and your what? And there are many wins. Sometimes there are many. Things your what to transition, not just the equity in the company, but knowledge and wisdom and how to do things and finance, and taxes and all of the other things that go into working with and, and running a business forward.

[00:03:41] So, You’ll learn about those four Ws and you’ll also then get into the how and how much, because we believe that a lot of business owners start with how and how much, how am I gonna do it? And how much am I gonna get? Or how are, am I gonna do it and get it to maybe a successor who is an internal successor, like an employee.

[00:04:02] Or a family member or someone that, you know, and trust because maybe they don’t have enough money and you’re not really sure how that financial transaction’s actually gonna work. So we’ll get to the how and the, how much, um, after we get to the four Ws, cuz the four Ws, once you have those, that’s what really gives you your direction and then how and how much really falls into place.

[00:04:27] So. Over the years. What I’ve learned is that small business is truly the backbone of our communities. Um, the small businesses serve so many people. If you think about it, they serve not only are the employees, but provide for. The employees, families as well, they provide for the vendors to be in business.

[00:04:50] They provide for the customers and the clients to do well and to get what they need and want when they need it and want it. Um, they also, business owners tend to be very generous, so they’re not only giving back of their time in the community, but typically they’re giving. Money as well. So they’re supporting universities, they’re supporting kids soccer, they’re supporting all kinds of things that help those communities, including, um, sometimes even the churches they’re doing that as well.

[00:05:21] So one of my passions is to help owners transition their businesses well, and just do it with success so that they are able to move on to their next adventure. With confidence and, um, and you know, financially sound and with what they need to go enjoy that next adventure, not retirement, but the next adventure cuz they’re entrepreneurs.

[00:05:45] And then to allow those successors and the businesses to thrive forward really well. So the communities continue to grow and flourish. Some people say that it’s not always roses and that is so true. So. But what I found is that business owners typically will look at their transition and they’ll delay it because they don’t know what to do.

[00:06:12] They’re not sure how they’re gonna handle it. And they’re trying to figure out a lot of times, they’re trying to figure out how to handle the people, um, and what people are gonna think, how that’s gonna work. So. a, an owner will delay and delay and delay until what happens is the transition becomes an event for some reason, could be that they hit a certain age, could be that there’s an illness in the family could be even that there’s death in the family.

[00:06:43] If the business, if that’s an, if that event happens and the business suddenly transitions it, doesn’t put the odds in the favor of the successors to run it well. So. in this podcast. What we’re gonna talk about is we’re gonna talk about making business transition a journey where you can start today and these journeys can be.

[00:07:07] Oh, gosh, we build timelines of one year sometimes, which is pretty short. And sometimes it’s five years. Sometimes it’s 10 years. It can even be 15 years long where you start your journey. You start to figure out what you want. You figure out how you’re gonna talk to the people, um, how you’re gonna position it, who you’re gonna talk to and then create this beautiful journey that you’ll embark on.

[00:07:34] Sometimes the journey is real easy. And always though we know that we’re gonna run into roadblocks and we’re gonna run into challenges. The goal is to be able to understand where you’re going face the challenges with confidence and figure out how to get around them so that you can continue to create the business transition that you want.

[00:08:01] This business transition, many owners will say, gosh, I don’t even wanna think about it. It’s just too complicated. It’s gonna be so hard. I just, uh, I just can’t even think about how I would do it. And in this podcast, you’re gonna learn how to face those things and also how to make it a fun and rewarding journey.

[00:08:22] Foundationally. My belief is. Businesses will transition. We already know that. And foundationally, my belief is that engaging in this transition is going to be one of the most important things you ever do in your entire career. If you do this well, and you can transition the business so that you are financially sound and know your next adventure and are happy doing it and being fulfilled.

[00:08:50] if you can do that and also leave successor a successor or successors in place that are thriving forward with a community that’s doing very well. Then what more success could you ask for than that? So I’d like to invite you to come and listen and be a part of the business transition roadmap podcast.

[00:09:13] I’m looking forward to helping you to learn and grow and also to helping you. Learn from others because we’re gonna have a lot of guests on this podcast that are gonna be not only business owners who have done this, but also successors who are working on this. And we’ll also have some advisors who can give you some great advice, uh, in putting people first in making your transition.

[00:09:37] Amazing.