Latest / The Deciding Factor by Edward Jones / Legacy and Letting Go: The Human Side of Selling a Family Business with Professor Peter Boumgarden
Transcript
- speaker-0: Small businesses and family businesses in particular, I think are a lot about the individuals involved. The more people and the more personalities and the more egos you have involved, you know, potentially the more complicated it becomes, the more drama gets involved. And maybe the harder it is to sell when you're in a situation where it's really the right thing. speaker-1: Selling a business is hard enough, but when it's a family business, letting go is a whole different story. Welcome to the Deciding Factor, where we look at life's pivotal moments and how we make decisions when there's a lot on the line. I'm behavioral scientist Zerat Khan. On this episode, we're talking about how founders and their families can exit their businesses without letting family drama get in the way. I'm first joined by Elliot and Scott Young, a father and son who built, scaled, and ultimately sold Perception Research Services, a market research firm Elliot started back in 1972. Elliot is a true consumer research pioneer who developed the use of eye tracking technology to see what catches a shopper's eye on a crowded store shelf. Later, we'll be joined by Family Business Expert Professor Peter Baumgarten. Who will guide us through the complex dynamics of letting go? Elliot Scott, thank you guys so much for joining me. speaker-0: Thank you. Really pleasure to be here. speaker-1: So first I'm just kind of curious to s learn, Elliot, how did you first meet Scott? How did I Very young. ⁓ speaker-2: Very sure. speaker-1: But ⁓ sixty years ago. And you looked at this little potato and thought, I've found our future CEO no. No, I I encourage the business at all. ⁓ really? Yeah, my feeling was that ⁓ I was doing what I loved. Yeah. And he had the opportunity to do what he loved. But speaker-0: Actually I never encouraged him to come into the speaker-2: If he ⁓ speaker-0: Ever did want to come into the business? speaker-1: Obviously it was there. Yeah. And express that. speaker-0: He didn't really explain until he had finished graduate school. And ⁓ the one thing I felt pretty strongly about was that I didn't want to go there immediately after college. So I worked elsewhere for about three years, then decided to go to business school. And when I did, it was with the family business in the back of my mind at least as a possibility. speaker-1: Okay. Did you have sort of a notion of what being involved or what your role would be in the business when you were sort of imagining either wanting or not wanting to do it? speaker-0: I think when we started to talk about it, you had made it pretty clear that it was about growing the business. ⁓ speaker-1: I handled Fathers would do it. I put his office on the other side of the office. Hm. speaker-0: Yeah. Number one. Number two, never went too. speaker-1: I never to a meeting with him with a client to a client meeting. My feeling was that if I did that I undercut. speaker-0: that I his position. Yeah. He had the to develop his own his speaker-1: So the opportunity style his own clients. I think, you know, certainly in popular media, the way that it's depicted is often as a sort of problematic relationship. Yeah, I think of like the show Succession and you took a very different different approach to it. I'm curious your thinking around the moment of transition to Scott's leadership. How did you Think about that and how did you approach that? Well, number one gradual. Mm-hmm. And it it had to be gradual both in our relationship and it had to be gradual's relationship. Because speaker-2: Great. speaker-0: to be gradual and the employee. Once they respond him speaker-1: Expected they didn't need me. speaker-0: Number one. Number two had a hand up because speaker-1: Number two, I never and I'll say it straight out, yeah. He's a hell of a lot than I am. speaker-0: And I knew it. speaker-1: So if you're comfortable enough to realize that you're in a changing environment, you have to have faith well, I had faith in my son that he knew what he was doing. Yeah. Scott, tell me about your experience stepping into the leadership role. speaker-0: you're in a change. Well, you know, as Elliot mentioned, it it wasn't as though, you know, January first of a certain year a a light bulb, you know, went on and that was that. And and that was really a nice thing in the sense that it didn't feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders at a given moment or anything along those lines. The good news is things went well. Yeah. And you know, when we were we were clearly growing, ⁓ a l a lot of growth was kind of speaker-1: That was really a Lot of the speaker-0: developing these global offices and and winning global relationships with some of our big clients, the Procter and Gambles and Unilevers of the World. speaker-1: And then what's the timeline from that moment to when you start thinking about the sale of the business? speaker-0: I think a couple of things started kind of converging. One was I did see the industry changing in ways that I wasn't thrilled about and I wasn't so sure that we're gonna be as profitable and as successful ten years from now a as we are now. Yeah. So there's that going on. ⁓ and then again there was kind of a personal level of Hm, you know, I've been doing this fifteen plus years. Maybe it's time to at least think about whether, you know, is this an inflection point or should I just keep doing this another fifteen and twenty years and then retire? Yeah. speaker-1: Well tell me about the process itself. speaker-0: Definitely had a conversation with Elliot about it. You know, I wasn't going to even start looking and investing energy unless I knew he was comfortable with the idea and the concept of it. Second process for us at least was bringing in an outside financial advisor to help us with the valuation. Both both valuation, essentially, what should you get? From this. Sure. And also pr potentially what things could you do in the next year or two that might help with that valuation. There were some obvious huge players in our industry who would clearly have the money. And I went to two or three of those, and I have to say, absolute strong visceral negative vibe. We had a competitor, happened to be French. speaker-2: Just speaker-0: And and frankly, they were kind of the only competitor in our immediate field that we really respected. And you know, we started to have a conversation. And and, you know, the idea was to merge and that and then I ended up working for them for five years, merging the companies as an employee essentially of of of the people who purchased. speaker-1: So are you like popping champagne the day that these papers are signed, or does it sort of feel to you like I'm just going back into the office with sort of a slightly different role for the next couple of years, or maybe some kind of combination of the two? Yeah, and speaker-0: I'd say there was an element of champagne and an element of, you know, I'm going back to work tomorrow. Yeah. But I think I felt a g ⁓ a big sense of accomplishment and relief in the sense that we heavily front loaded the deal and and you know, we were willing to s compromise perhaps on total value in order to have, you know, essentially s security. speaker-1: So in your case, you know, it's a family business, a small business. And my intuition is that there are dynamics at play there that are going to be different and relevant for the eventual sale or the growth of the business. Was that the case for you? And if so, what are the things that somebody should be thinking about there? speaker-0: Well, I think family businesses in particular are just a lot about the individuals involved. The more people and the more personalities and the more egos you have involved, you know, potentially the more complicated it becomes, the more drama gets involved. And maybe the harder it is to sell when you're in a situation where it's really the right thing. So, you know, I think for us we felt that it was the right thing, and and frankly, there were really only You know, two of us and our immediate partners and family that that were really involved i in that decision. And and I can envision that if it had been a larger family and more people, it could have been more difficult and maybe we we would have held on speaker-1: you know, in this situation. I'm curious something that you mentioned a moment ago around, you know, the structuring your time piece wasn't that big of a deal up until a little bit more recently as you've kind of thought about how do you want to plan out your days and things that you want to pursue. For some people, that's something that they have to confront, you know, at the moment of of sale. So what's the advice that the two of you would kind of offer somebody as they're navigating that first step? speaker-0: We shouldn't have held on. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: I'd say speaker-0: It's certainly a positive if possible to have a path in your mind. I had an immediate role in the future company and I I knew that. Yeah. And that was probably gonna be the case no matter what, no matter who purchased. But you know, so again it wasn't you wake up one morning and suddenly you have your identity gone and your business gone and all that. Exactly. And ⁓ you know, again, i I realize that selling a business that someone has been involved with day in and day out is a lot mentally and emotionally. But to the degree that you you know where you're gonna go the next morning, whether it's with that same company or at least you have another area of interest, I think that's important, particularly if you have, you know, if you're in your fifties as I was. speaker-1: Yeah. A lot of owner ⁓ owners who sell their business ⁓ end up kind of looking back and regretting it in some way. ⁓ I don't get the sense from you guys that you regret this decision, but I kinda wanna give you that question just to see how you respond. speaker-0: Yeah, certainly don't second guess the fundamental decision to do it. I think again, ⁓ kind of all the arrows are pointing in that same direction at the time. Yeah. ⁓ but again, even looking at the last ten years and and how the industry has changed and played out, I I don't I feel like it was the right decision to make. Are there some things we might have done differently with respect to managing it or managing the merger that happened afterwards and things of that nature? Sure. But I don't spend a lot of time second guessing the fundamental decision to sell, nor the path that we chose in doing it. I don't regret it at all. I think we did our thing. speaker-1: did I think we had a terrific company. I think we were innovators. I take staff that we had and how many people stayed for how long. It's just time for the next generation. speaker-0: Great pride in the speaker-1: Joining me now is my friend Peter Baumgarten. Peter is the Koch Professor of Practice in Family Enterprise at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to teaching and conducting research, he advises companies, including family businesses, on how to foster innovation, build strategies that set their organizations apart, and make decisions that reflect their values. Peter's the perfect person to help me understand the challenges of selling a family business. Peter, thanks for joining me. Yeah, it's great to be here. So, you know, you hear in Elliot and Scott's story, ⁓ a bunch of different dynamics there. You know, the person founding the company, making the decision to pass this on to his son, his son building and expanding that, you know, successfully, and then looking forward into the future and making a decision that now is the point to to make the sale. What jumps out to you from that story? Yeah. speaker-2: The first piece that stands out to me is really tied towards that first handoff from father to son. ⁓ one of the things that I hear in that story is the fact that the son took this business and grew it into something pretty incredible. And that can be in unhealthy relationships, ⁓ probably hopefully not in this one, ⁓ a source of of tension. ⁓ so there's some interesting research that actually shows that controlling founders. Become actually more controlling when they're next gen shows high promise. ⁓ because in some ways you're gonna take this and make it something that I could never could have. Yeah. And that's a certain kind of threat. Yeah. So I can imagine there's a psychological threat, exactly. I I think there's a piece of that which is to say it takes a certain kind of maturity as a parent to look at something you built and to realize I could take this from zero to X, which is a certain skill set. Yeah. But the next generation could actually take it from X to whatever it was later on. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: ⁓ and that requires again navigating the emotional dynamics of that relationship. speaker-1: For a lot of families, it goes awry somewhere along the way or they face some difficulties or challenges. ⁓ I'm curious, like, what is it about the process that's much more complicated than a typical sale? speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ I think a big piece that makes it complex is that you have people that relate to the business in very different ways. And so let me kind of walk you through an example. ⁓ imagine you've got the the person who started the business. So the father or the mother, they started this thing, they spent a lot of time building this thing out there. ⁓ and we'll just say father for the sake of the story. The father in this case ⁓ desires to keep this perhaps ⁓ inside the family, may want to. pass it on to the next generation. Yeah. At the very least, when the sale comes, ⁓ wants to maintain something of what they've built. Let's say a partner or a spouse ⁓ is looking at this and saying, well, this sounds great. And I know you want to hold on to this forever, but gosh, like this is our retirement. Yeah. And so I know that you want to take the lower offer because it's coming from person next who you know. But man, that higher offer might enable us to have a certain kind of retirement that we couldn't have otherwise. Yeah. And then if it's a family business, imagine you've got the kids that are sitting there below and they might be interested in business ownership. Yeah. ⁓ and we can think of all the cool reasons why they might want to do this, but there's a lot of reasons where either geographically they're not that interested. Yeah. So three people, one company means very different things to each party and therefore makes it hard to know what to do. speaker-1: What what are the things that you've seen where people do this successfully versus sort of unsuccessfully? speaker-2: Yeah. I mean, I think a big thing that matters in this space is you wanna be able to enable enable a level of optionality ⁓ when it comes to the choice. Yeah. And so if you've got a failing business in a non attractive market that's being disrupted by AI, ⁓ you don't have a lot of optionality. Yeah. Right. Something like eighty to ninety percent of businesses just close. Right. So most businesses don't sell, most businesses don't pass on to someone new, most end up essentially folding. Yeah. So one piece of it is to say we have to make sure that we have a kind of entity that is attractive enough to sell. So ⁓ even before you get to the point of sale, I think there's this question of what does it mean for us to be a good owner of this entity? Yeah. So that we have something that's attractive. Then the second piece of it to me is then saying, given this, given the optionality that's in front of us, what are the ways that these different pathways might enable what we desire? Yeah. And that's a mix of financial desire. ⁓ it's a mix of these socioemotional factors, these things that are non financial that drive the decision. Yeah. There's things that are tied towards the relationship or members ⁓ or ways that you engage members of the community. Yeah. ⁓ all of those things become things that are possible to engage in based on that factor. speaker-1: So as you start to move into that assessment period and you're thinking about these different factors, what's the process that you might engage with and what are the options that might emerge from that? speaker-2: Yeah. So I think I think that's important to note is you want to pay attention even before you get to this point about what I might regret. Mm-hmm. ⁓ and so there's some interesting work out there by Eric Reese, who wrote a book called Incorruptible that just came out pretty recently that was looking at something like seventy five percent of owners regretting the sale afterwards. Yeah. And I think it's important to first say, all right, if I were to do this, will I be happy with the outcome at the end? and if it changes if they shut down the operation, if they lay off employees, ⁓ would I regret that ultimately? I think the next step then is to say at the core, you really want to determine what it is that you desire out of the business. Yeah. And so obviously financial value is going to be one piece of it. But you could imagine like, is it important that the culture of this firm stays the same? You know, I built something that's around the employee experience. Is it important that that stays the same? we do things philanthropically in our community. Is it important that that stays the same? And so as you start to almost prioritize or rank order those factors, you can start to see whether or not certain buyers might be better fit than others. speaker-1: How do you either coach people or from your observation or conversations that you've had observed, the folks who navigate this well and the folks who tend to struggle on these two different, I'll give you say kind of say broad categories of understanding the options available and then understanding themselves. speaker-2: So I think one of the challenges is that people oftentimes see whatever the model was before them as being the viable option moving forward. Yeah. So imagine that model was my mom was an owner operator. She owned the business, she ran the business, that was her entity. And so therefore, if I'm going to be involved in this moving forward, I need to be an owner operator. Yeah. Well, one piece of it is to even just split apart owning and operating. So for many family businesses, and the research is pretty clear on this, there can be a benefit of actually splitting these two apart. If you get to the point where this entity is pretty significantly complex and large and it's just ⁓ requires a specific skill set to know how to operate it moving forward. Yeah. Just because you have the same last name as your mom or dad does not mean that you have the relevant expertise to do that well. Yeah. ⁓ and then I think a piece of it too is to extend beyond that is just to realize that there are a lot of different options available and you have to become a bit of a student of them. So obviously family ownership would be one. ⁓ employee ownership would be a second. So you have to start to become a student of that second game. Yep. And then imagine another one is to sell, this isn't all of them, but to sell to a competitor or to sell to a private equity fund or private investor. Yeah. Even within that camp, there's gonna be variance that that factors in. The second piece though is an important one, which is this level of introspection. I think there's a piece that is actually tied towards Surrounding yourself with advisors, mentors, therapists at time, people that give you a sense on what it is that motivates you. ⁓ I'll give you one challenge that I think comes up quite a bit. ⁓ it's people that say they're going to be able to walk away. And I'm 55. This is fine. I don't need to kind of be a part of this. I'm really excited about my my son or my daughter being involved in this business. Yeah. And then 55 seems really young. And then all of a sudden it's fifty seven and then fifty nine and then sixty two and then sixty five and sixty seven. And meanwhile your child here has been waiting for ten years to actually step forward in that. You know, for that person to have the self awareness to say, Hey, maybe this is actually a little bit harder than you realize to step away, if they have that kind of awareness, then maybe what they can start to do is to say, How do I shape and find identity in different spheres of life? How do I ⁓ you know, reinvest in my community? How do I develop hobbies? Yeah. And I think these things are difficult for someone who's been so singularly focused ⁓ in terms of their time on running a business and in terms of their identity on being a business. speaker-1: Owner. To go back to your example from earlier of, you know, we've got three people kind of in this decision. ⁓ when you add more people in, you add, you know, the opportunity for additional conflict to potentially arise. So I think you kind of have one of those examples, but another could be what if somebody in the family just doesn't want to sell that business? You know, there's a lot at stake. There's not just the financial outcomes, there's also those family relationships as well. Yeah. And so what's your practical advice for working through that conflict and finding a way forward? speaker-2: This is some work by my colleague Josh Barron out Harvard. And imagine you've got this triangle. And in this triangle, you basically have growth, liquidity, and control. And his argument, which I think is right, is you can't have all three at once. So very practically, I could imagine an approach which takes those three and runs them by all the different owners. Yeah. And says, rank order these three. And you can start with something like that and very quickly determine if there is different coalitions involved. ⁓ those are gonna likely map on to the central distinction of whether or not someone's actively involved in the business, in which case it's likely to be more of their identity, or whether or not it's an investment just like an investment in the S P 500 is tied towards that. ⁓ so I think I I would spend some time thinking about that and then I would forward project it a little bit. So when you're saying this is what it looks like now, but what if Jimmy and Sally, who right now are in middle school, they end up being 25 or 30. And they're amazing. We love them. ⁓ you know, how are they gonna think about the business? ⁓ and so you start to play this out a little bit, this kind of projected family tree idea, and it starts to it starts to show why it gets really complex. Yeah. And so this is for me not an argument that everyone should sell. Because I think there's some really amazing things about people that stay private forever and hold on to the business. Yeah. But if you're gonna do that, you really have to be very intentional about engaging. ⁓ engaging those owners and things they're around this mix of the triangle and the different motivations that are involved. speaker-1: You may not be the best facilitator of the process, right? And so at what point do you bring in some independent facilitation? You kind of have referenced having third party help in various aspects of that. How should an owner think about that as part of this process? speaker-2: Yeah, I mean, so if you end up selling a business, this is gonna be one of the biggest decisions that you do in your life. It's clearly gonna be one of the biggest financial decisions that you make in your life. And so I think being able to have some level of objectivity and independence apart of these choices, apart from these choices, to me feels key. So I ideally, this is again one of those things where for companies of a significant size, My encouragement on all of these things is to be very proactive in the choice. ⁓ what ends up happening instead is something like Zarok ⁓ comes in and makes a pitch to buy my business because he's doing a search fund and this is his opportunity. And I haven't thought about this at all. And then all of a sudden I come to the dinner table and say, We've got 30 days to make a call on this. Right. Versus in contrast, some of the more ⁓ robust and professional family organizations. ⁓ I see them actually do this with some regularity. We're imagining a yearly cadence, either through an external facilitation or through an internal process. They consistently reassess are we still the best owner of this company? And so there's an example that I think of quite a bit. ⁓ it was the owners, Katie Ford of Ford modeling. And ⁓ she inherited, took over this business from her parents. ⁓ and then was leading it for years, but starting to see on the very front end that the modeling agency was changing. And so in that sense, it means it's going to change in terms of technology requirements, the consumer, the demands, and even whether or not this industry was going to be as large as it was in the past. And so they had to go about this process of saying, what are the return expectations for this industry moving forward? Do we have the capabilities to grow it? And if not, maybe now is the right time to sell. And then through going through that process they decided that they wanted to go forward in the process of selling. speaker-1: I think this kind of ties back to a point you were making earlier around the research on regret. And it feels like a rushed process, feels like a one of the potential ingredients to feeling regret afterwards. ⁓ I'm curious what the other aspects are of this, where you see people navigating it well and minimizing that regret, or whether it's feeling rushed or some other aspect of this coming out the other side and realizing, ⁓ I wish I had done something differently. speaker-2: Think in general the process is one where ⁓ maybe it's less about minimizing regret, but using regret, thinking of kind of Dan Pink's work on this, regret, anticipated regret as a way to inform the things that you actually value. And if you end up kind of scenario planning this a bit, right? What if the employees are let go? What if we change our thesis? What if they shut this down? What if they grow into something far beyond what I could have done? Yeah. ⁓ What could I feel in that space? And given that, how do I then design from that level of introspection? I do a little bit of work with this organization called the Tugboat Institute. And folks in there are broadly committed to staying private. A bunch of organizations here in St. Louis that are a part of that. For them, I think the thing that ends up being a best practice for those groups is they're starting to say, given this end goal in mind. What are the things that are required to move in this direction? And so for them, that oftentimes requires proactively thinking about options. It might require, in some ways, doing some intentional leadership development either within the family or outside of the family. It's making sure that the company is attractive enough and has different verticals that people can get involved in, that the kids want to be involved in it or or beyond. And so I think That to me is an example of again real forward looking that says, let's make this an entity that we think is attractive to enable the optionality that we want. And those firms could stay private within family. They could move to employee ownership. speaker-1: And let's say that you're in this scenario, you as a let's say it's a family business, you as a family have decided we do want to kind of pursue this sale. What are the steps that you should be taking at this point to best position you? You're not leaving money on the table kind of thing. Yeah. speaker-2: ⁓ so I think the the first piece of it is making sure that the entity is well positioned both financially and bookkeeping and all those things there, right? Having a good accountant and place that the the financials are in good standing. ⁓ I think it's having a clear sense of where the company could go. I think it's for many firms starting to be proactive in cultivating the relationship with the kind of buyer that you want. So I think those things like actually Proactively dating versus waiting for the opportunities to come your way. And then there are some tactical things, which is increasingly these things go through business brokers. Yeah. ⁓ and so to be able to identify a network of brokers who might be the people that are bringing this to the market of potential sellers. Yeah. So that you have two or three folks that are looking to potentially buy this, that could be a potential part of the speaker-1: Well you kind of referenced having your name on the banner at the grocery store. And that seems to be a theme that's pretty consistent here is that especially when you've invested so much of your time and effort into an enterprise, a lot of your identity ends up being kind of tied up or invested in that as well. ⁓ do you see family members struggle with that navigate navigation of this identity shift? And are there things that they do well or that they should be doing to prepare for that transition? speaker-2: Yeah. So I th ⁓ in general, yes, a lot of people struggle with that. ⁓ and I think it's it's multifaceted. So one thing is I sell a business and then all of a sudden they change the name. ⁓ Anheiser Bush becomes A B Imbev, yeah, for example. And I'm known as being the family behind that entity. I think another piece of it that actually becomes really central too is just like meaningful, purposeful work. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time on something that I deemed important, worth doing. It took up a lot of my time and identity. And now all of a sudden I'm golfing and I'm not that good at golf. ⁓ I'm doing some board work, but that's like six times a year. And then maybe the final piece of it is just the social environment. So for a lot of business owners, their social world for years is shaped by being in the office, working with these employees, having those people like see you in the office and the like. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you sell this thing and you're at home. And home is great. Yeah. Right. ⁓ and at the same point, we are social creatures. I I think we're social creatures. I think we're creatures of meaning. And so going through those shifts, I think can be disproportionately hard on people afterwards if they haven't started to think about building that out in their new world. So if I'm not leaving something into something I'm excited about, if I'm not losing social connection without finding a way to build social connection, I mean those are things that actually have like literal physical repercussions on your body and cognition. And so the business is serving a need, owning this business is serving a need. That need is partly financial, it's partly meaningfulness of work. It's partly relational. And once you start to split this apart, those needs are still there. Yeah. And so to be able to think proactively about whether this is the only way to serve that need. And if you do end up saying making the decision to sell a company, how do you proactively ensure that those needs are met in other ways? Yeah. speaker-1: And if you could just give one piece of advice to a family considering selling a business, what would that be? speaker-2: Yeah, I think a big piece of it is to realize that a family is never singular. And so even when we're like a family selling a company, well, a family is like four people and parents and kids and future kids and all these things along the way. And so usually people reduce that complexity by going to the decision maker. Right. I, as the mother in this family, have decision rights here. And so Let's ignore all that complexity. I have decision rights. This is what I want. Yeah. ⁓ I think a better move is, even though it's harder, a better move is to say there's a lot that this entity means to us, a mix of financial and non-financial things. It's going to mean different things to different people. And it's my goal as the matriarch or patriarch the family or the controlling entity to stewer those perspectives, to listen, to hear, and ultimately at the end of the day, to make a decision, even if it's something that. varies from what other people want. Yeah. And so to see that a part as a part of the process and then centrally to see that as a recurring part of the process. This isn't something that should happen once. It's something that should actually happen ⁓ quite often and quite regularly to be on top of those pieces. speaker-1: Yeah, I appreciate it. Peter, thank you for joining us. speaker-2: Yeah, thank you so much. speaker-1: Selling a family business can bring up strong emotions that might cloud our judgment. As a behavioral scientist, here are the three things that I would keep in mind. The first, be realistic about your business's market value. Family history, hard work, and memories can all make the business feel more valuable to its owners than it does to a buyer. And there are two behavioral science concepts that come into play here, and they're related to each other. The first is what we call the IKEA effect. So think of the furniture store. Which finds that people tend to value things more highly when they have a hand in building them, like the furniture that you self-assemble. The second is what behavioral scientists call the endowment effect, where we tend to value something more highly just because we already own it. These two phenomena conspire against you. And that's why it's important to gain an objective estimate of your business's value. The second is to prepare for life after the sale. You might think that the business is ready to sell, but have you thought through what comes next for you? Your day-to-day life, identity, and even relationship with family members might change. Before you sell, think about the purpose that the business served for you beyond finances. What comes up for you? Feelings, relationships, structures, et cetera. These are all things that you'll still need to meet. You'll just have to meet them in some other way. And finally, find the support that you need to adjust to new wealth. Sudden wealth from a sale can feel destabilizing. In fact, moving into a new social class has been compared to immigrating to a new country. You aren't sure how to fit in, you're not sure what traditions and values from your old life to keep. It can feel isolating, and many people don't feel that they can ask for help and understanding. Like you're rich, you don't have anything to worry about, and you may not even give yourself that grace. So slow down, give yourself time to adjust, and seek out people who you trust to help you navigate this new life chapter. I'm Zarak Khan. Thanks for tuning into The Deciding Fact.