The Multiplier in Motion: Five Things That Compound When You Plan and Stay

What if a transition strategy started paying you back years before you ever stepped back? 

In this episode, Elizabeth Ledoux continues her conversation with the still-building visionaries, the owners who are still growing their companies and still the reason so much of the business works. Last episode broke the countdown myth, the belief that planning equals leaving. This one is about what happens once you stop believing it. Elizabeth calls it the multiplier effect, and she walks through five specific things that compound the moment you start planning while you’re still fully in the seat. 

She also opens up about her own transition, including what she told her incoming successor about the moment a transition truly succeeds, and tells the story of an early client whose strategic work positioned him to absorb 700% growth in a single year when his biggest competitor sold to private equity. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Your people grow when the strategy is bigger than you. Talking about a multi-generational business removes the “end feeling” for loyal employees and invites them to build judgment and make decisions without you. 
• You’re already doing transition work. Every time you teach someone to do what you used to do, that’s transition. A bigger strategy just gets you a bigger multiplier out of it. 
• A business that depends on one person is fragile. Moving decision making, vision, and energy off of yourself makes the company more valuable to a buyer, a lender, your family, and your employees. 
• Readiness beats prediction. You never know what’s coming around the corner. The strategic work is what lets you pivot when the market shifts. 
• Freedom is a mindset shift, not just free time. The strategy work opens up the question of what you might move toward, whether that’s writing, speaking, or something new entirely. 
• Hard conversations get easier without a crisis. Dig your well before you’re thirsty. Designing from a calm place gives everyone more context and less to defend. 
• Sharp decisions come from a visible roadmap. When you can see five or ten years out, the choices you make today actually get you there, instead of needing to be redone later. 
• Don’t wait for the surprise. Health scares, burnout, and unsolicited private equity offers are arriving more often. Planning early means responding on your terms and your timeline. 

Chapters in this Episode:
01:00 – Welcome back, still-building visionaries 
02:25 – From countdown to multiplier: the mindset shift 
03:15 – Multiplier #1: Your people grow 
05:55 – Multiplier #2: The business gets more valuable 
07:35 – The entrepreneurial flight: nascent, developmental, and beyond you 
08:45 – Client story: ready to pivot, 700% growth in one year 
12:20 – Multiplier #3: Freedom while you stay 
15:00 – Multiplier #4: Hard conversations get easier 
16:25 – Multiplier #5: Your decisions get sharper 
18:30 – Surprise offers, burnout, and planning on your terms 
20:45 – The invitation: start small, pick one thing 

Connect with Elizabeth Ledoux and the Transition Strategists:
Website: https://transitionstrategists.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetransitionstrategists
Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethledoux/
Transition Strategists on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transitionstrategists/
Transition Strategists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transitionstrategists

Subscribe to “The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux” on your favorite podcast player:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MxSYA2
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3IhMMux

Our Sister Show: Your Next Gen Friend
Hosted by Andrea Carpenter, Your Next Gen Friend is for the next generation stepping into leadership in family and private businesses. If you’re a successor figuring out your path, this show is for you.

Website: https://yournextgenfriend.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournextgenfriend/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yournextgenfriend
Andrea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreakcarpenter/
Spotify: https://yournextgenfriend.com/open-spotify
Apple Podcasts: https://yournextgenfriend.com/apple-podcast

Get Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman’s latest book, “It’s A Journey: The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning”: https://amzn.to/3oq2LQv

The Multiplier in Motion: Five Things That Compound When You Plan and Stay Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux:

Hi everybody and welcome back to the Business Transition Roadmap. I’m Elizabeth Ledoux, and this episode is still focused on and still for those who are, quote, still building visionaries. The people that are still in their company, still growing it, still in it, still the reason why a lot of the company works. Last episode, we broke the countdown myth.

The idea that planning equals leaving, that planning means you’re leaving. And today is about what happens once you stop believing that. What actually compounds for you when you start to think about creating a strategy now while you’re still fully in the seat? Not someday, but actually doing it maybe in the next quarter or the next year, and starting to integrate that into the work that you’re doing right now with the business.

So we are going to talk about five things that compound the moment you start planning while you’re still in that seat. We’re going to talk about your people, the business’s value, your freedom, your hardest conversations, and your decisions. The idea is that a multiplier pays you back before you ever step out or step back.

That’s what happens here. What you’re doing right now compounds and grows. So let’s talk about this multiplier effect. Remember that the countdown is once I start planning, the clock turns on. And I have a certain period of time, right? That clock is ticking, whatever that time is, but I’m on a track to leave.

The multiplier effect, that’s a countdown mindset. The multiplier effect says that I’m gonna stay as long as I want, as long as I’m having fun, as long as I’m relevant, as long as I’m making a difference. And the multiplier effect says that while I’m staying and while I’m doing that, I’m gonna continue to multiply. So

This multiplier effect, let’s talk a little bit about the people. Your people. When you start talking about a bigger strategy, something that’s bigger than you, you know, consider, wow, I’m the owner of this business and I’ll be the owner of this business and until I’m not.

people get a little bit concerned about that, especially if they’ve been with you for a long time and they’ve been loyal. That has an end feeling to it. So, you know, someday I’m here and someday I’m not gonna be here, then there’s a finality in that. But when you start to talk about a strategy, a transition where a business will be multi-generational, where it can go on without you.

That is engaging.

And people start to grow when you do that. They start to think about that there isn’t an end. And you shift as well. You start thinking, wow, there isn’t an end. There may be an off ramp where you might kind of get off of the highway someday, or you might start to slow down a little bit because we’re all gonna do that. But there isn’t a finality, a final spot in this. So what happens when you start thinking about building something that’s bigger than?

Yourself that’s gonna go on without you, where people are gonna be fine, and so will you be living the life you want to live as you do it, then people grow. So think of it: you’re already doing some of this transition work because you’ve already grown your company, and as you grow your company, typically what has to happen is you have to teach somebody else to do what you used to do. That’s what happens.

You have to do that. So when you build in decision making into a next layer, when you build in teaming, when you build in judgment of you know, that they can go and make a decision without you, that’s transition. You’re already doing it. I just want you to get a bigger, bigger multiplier effect out of bigger thinking. So

People grow, people gain confidence in you, trust happens, and it’s actually, I think, very exciting. Let’s move on to the second point. The business gets more valuable. This happens every time. When you start thinking about growing something that isn’t dependent on you, that can go on without you, that’s of more value.

Because everybody knows, including you, that you will not be on this planet someday and you are not going to be able to continue in the way that you are right now. So as you build something that’s less dependent on you, all the way down to where you’re not even doing anything, I’ve talked about this before in my podcast. I’m a transitioner right now. I have a successor coming in, and she and I, you can either s hear it in my voice or see me smiling. you know, I told her that the best business transitions happen when the successor is looking around, they’re doing the work, and they’re like, why am I paying you as a transitioner to even be here anymore?

You really aren’t doing anything. That is to me the biggest success that you could ever have. it’s exciting because you know you build something of value that is not dependent on you. It might be financially dependent on you as an investor, but it’s not dependent on you for your decision making, for your vision,

For your energy, all of that has been transitioned to somebody else. So the business gets more valuable.

A company that depends on one person is very, very fragile. It’s a fragile company. We have a model called the entrepreneurial flight. And that there are three basic stages in the entrepreneurial flight. And there’s a nascent stage, a developmental stage, and then there’s one where the business is going to go on without you. And

A business that’s really dependent on one person for most or all of the major decision making plus the investment, that is what a company in a nascent stage, and nascent means fragile. It’s a child, it’s a baby stage, where if something happened to you, the business would go away.

A company that can run without that person is of course more valuable. It’s more valuable to a buyer, it’s more valuable to a family, it’s more valuable to everybody, a lender, really everybody. So if you can get that business there, then it’s easier for people to buy it, including your family or your employees if that’s your choice and what you’re trying to do.

So this is a really good example. I’ll just tell you this story. client of mine, at least 30 years ago, was one of my earlier clients. He and I did some work and we did a transition strategy. the business was very dependent on him. He was the primary investor, if not the only investor, actually. He had a couple of small partners, but he was the primary investor. And

He was tired and the industry, it was tough. it was a kind of a industry that had had some bumps along the way, and he was struggling with it. So we did a transition strategy, and it was super interesting in the prior episode, because this is the multiplier effect. So in the prior episode, you know, I talked about the value of planning and

It was a crazy thing. He was in this state of, you know, potentially transitioning, trying to figure out what he was gonna do. We had a good transition strategy in place. And then guess what happened? he was number two in the market in Colorado. the number one, the number one person in his industry in Colorado sold out.

they sold out to a private equity company. The private equity company came in and within literally like six months clients started leaving. Where do you think they went?

business. They started growing and that year they grew 700%. It was crazy. So what happened is he had done all of the strategy work that he needed to to pivot.

He was ready. And the reason why he was ready is because he had invested a year or so before in new software. he developed a new program that would manage more. He was moving the dependency off of him onto his team and onto others. And what happened is he was able to pivot not because of the plan necessarily, but because he’d done the strategic work, because he was moving and moving that dependency off.

Of

himself, and then when that 700% growth came in, it was rough. Like that kind of growth is hard on a business. However, he was ready because the business was ready. So I like that story just because you never know what’s coming, you never know what’s around the corner. But if you build a strong business that’s not dependent on you and are thinking that you are transitioning to something else over a very long long period of time if you choose to do so that is what’s of value having your team with you and being able to pivot so moving on to the next one this is number three getting freedom while you stay

So many times I hear business owners saying, you know, I am all my time, all my money, everything is in this business, my focus. I get to play with my friends sometimes. Of course, I spend some time with my family, but maybe not as much as I want to. And I’m missing out on some other things. So when you use this multiplier effect, when you engage in transition strategy thinking.

You all of a sudden start freeing up time. And you may not free up like free time, because it that’s a mindset too, like what am I gonna do if I’m not doing this? Well, doing a deeper dive into some fun things. So for instance, for me, I’ve had 30 years of producing and you know, working with clients and helping them to create their transition strategies and you know actually integrating with them.

As I see my future, I could see myself not doing as much client work. I could see myself writing a book or two with my new partner. I could see myself doing more speaking. maybe some new things could come to me because I’m letting go of those other things. So when you have this multiplier effect and you actually begin the process, you open up a new

Opportunity for you to see what might be possible instead of staying in the business, just doing that, staying in that grind, when you go through this strategy work, you open up the opportunity to say, Wow, what’s possible, and what might I move towards? Because remember, you want to move some towards something that’s really going to be fun for you instead of stay where you are, because if

It’s not going to be really fun for you. You’re just going to stay where you are right now, even if it’s a little uncomfortable, that’s where you stay. So when you use this multiplier effect and you engage, you get freedom while you stay, more choices. And one where at some point in time, maybe you don’t even have a job description. Maybe you have a title, and it’s a more fun one than you have today.

The fourth one, moving on to hard conversations. I can tell you that hard conversations get easier. I think the reason why they get easier is because they’re not happening under pressure. and people have more time and more context to actually understand what’s going on. So

In a way you can think of it, I think of the old book, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty. golly read that a long, long time ago. If you remember that one, it will tell you how old I am and how old you are. But

The Hard Conversations, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty was an amazing book that came out many years ago. And the concept is don’t wait until you’re in crisis. If you’re designing from this calm place when you’re not needing it and you’re you’re not in crisis, the people around you and the conversations that you’re having

They are again with more context, with more thoughtfulness, and people aren’t in a place where so much they’re defending. You can do this, and with those conversations, the hard conversations, they do get easier, and you’re able to have them in a very planning

Kind of open conversation instead of that pressure, we have to make a decision now. We don’t have to make a decision now. We can explore options. This could be fun. Let’s see what we could come up with. Very entrepreneurial, very creative, very open conversations. So hard conversations become easier. And now the last one is your decisions get sharper.

when you start to envision and see what the roadmap looks like going forward and how you want to move with it, your decisions get sharper. You start to incorporate, like I said in the last episode, you blend.

This business development and you know the business strategy with your transition strategy so they get blended together because the transition strategy is just movement inside of the business as it moves, it’s just different decisions. When you see those, even if it’s five years or ten years away, you’ll start making decisions today that help you get there.

And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re gonna go somewhere, but your decisions today may not help you get to where you really want to be. And many times I see people, gosh, having to go back and redo some of the decisions that they have already made in the business, including putting people into positions where they go, my gosh, that helped me then.

But it’s not gonna help me get to where I really wanna go. And if I would have known that, I might have not made that choice. So your decisions get sharper, you plan early, you move on your terms and your timeline instead of reacting to something later where something could be a surprise, like you get burned out.

this is a good one. You have a surprise offer. I just had coffee with a friend of mine who’s a great business owner. And she and I were talking, and she said, You know, she said, I’ve had three or four people call me, and you know, they’re telling me that they’re going to give me a great offer and that they want me to merge into this private equity group, and they’re buying up companies like mine in the you know, in the country. And

I don’t know, I’m gonna look into it, but I don’t know what I want to do. And I thought to myself, and y I’ve known her for a while, and we talked about it. I said, you know, doing this strategic work

Would help you to know, you would have known already. So these surprise offers, they come in and they’re starting to come in more often, I think, because private equity has money. So we don’t want to be reacting to a health scare, a surprise offer, burnout, or something like that. And we want your decisions to be very sharp and also going back to the people and the people’s growth, we want them to have confidence in your decisions and them.

To be making more decisions on their own, which again is a part of a transition strategy to keep the business healthy and get you where you want to go.

So as we wrap up our session today, none of this asks you to leave. Your people growing, you’re just shifting out of some of your things that you’re doing, the business getting more valuable, that’s awesome.

You getting more freedom while you’re staying and working sounds pretty good to me. Hard conversations getting easier, that sounds good too, because we need to have them. And your decisions getting sharper in today for building the future that you want. Those are all positives. And all of it is making the business better while you’re actually running it. The owners

And founders who plan earliest are usually not the ones that are closest to the door. They’re the ones who are forward thinking. They’re the ones who want to live the life that they want to live while they’re helping others do the same inside of the business. They’re the ones who want the most runway to keep building and keep growing.

so I would like to invite you to just take a step. Start small. Pick one thing.

That you can do, do some reflection, start to envision and imagine what it looks like to integrate a five or ten year transition strategy into your business strategy that you have today. What is it, what would it look like to include some of the people around you to help them to gain some trust and to help them grow and to help the business become more valuable?

That’s the multiplier in motion. That’s what it means. And I’m excited actually to see you multiply your businesses because if you can do that, our country and our people, they’re going to be healthy and we’re going to do well. Thanks for being here today and I’ll see you next time.

SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION

The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux

How do communities thrive? When businesses experience healthy growth and transition. Join CEO of The Transition Strategists, Elizabeth Ledoux as she and her guests identify what makes a successful business transition roadmap. If you know you want to transition or exit your business “one day”, today is the right day to start planning. This show will give you the roadmap.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you can check out other episodes here: Podcasts – The Transition Strategists