Latest / Profit With A Plan / EP338 Founder Dependency - Build a Business That Runs Without You.

Transcript

EP338 Founder Dependency - Build a Business That Runs Without You. · Profit With A Plan

• 0:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: If your business stopped tomorrow, could it run without you, or would everything stall?
• 0:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: In this upcoming episode of Profit with a Plan, I'm joined by Paloma Goggins, a business attorney and M&A advisor, and we're pulling back the curtain on what really makes a company valuable.
• 0:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: We're talking about founder dependency, the growth mistakes that kill leverage, and why contracts and structures matter long before you ever start thinking about selling.
• 0:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, if you want, growth and… that builds, let me see if I can get my mouth to work. If you want growth that builds freedom and not more pressure, this episode of Profit with a Plan is for you.
• 0:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hey entrepreneurs, are you working too hard for too little profit? Well, welcome to Profit with a Plan podcast, where we help you scale smarter, increase profitability, and build a business that's worth more, whether you keep it or sell it.
• 1:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm Marcia Reiner, business growth strategist and the profit booster behind Infinite Profit. I've helped countless entrepreneurs to turn their businesses into highly profitable and sale-ready assets, so they enjoy more income now and a bigger payday later.
• 1:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So join me for practical strategies, expert insights, and proven steps to make your business more profitable, more valuable, and built to last.
• 1:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Today's episode is sponsored by Infinite Profit, where we don't just talk profit, we deliver it.
• 1:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But before we dive in, I've got something special for you. If you're tired of that flat revenue or marketing that just doesn't seem to pay off, the new Profit Booster Growth Map might be for you. In just a few minutes, it shows you exactly how to bring in more qualified clients and plug the profit leaks that are eating away at your cash.
• 1:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So go get your profit or your growth map now at ProfitBooster.biz, and start turning missed revenue into real money.
• 1:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Alright, let's jump into today's episode.
• 2:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Today, I'm joined by Paloma Goggins, a business attorney and M&A consultant, and a transition coach who brings a rare blend of legal strategy and real-world business insight.
• 2:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: She is the founder of Nocturnal Legal, where she helps founders build exit-ready companies from the inside out. And that means aligning contracts, operations, and structure in a way that supports smarter growth today and stronger valuations tomorrow.
• 2:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Palomo works closely with buyers and business owners to prepare for transitions.
• 2:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Scale with intention, and reduce founder dependency so that the company becomes a true asset, not just a job. Paloma, I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. Maybe my mouth will work for the rest of the show.
• 2:53
  Paloma Goggins: Thank you so much for having me on.
• 2:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Excellent! So, I love this topic, and I think it's so important, because I'm just such a firm believer of
• 3:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: starting your exit plan on day one, right? Even from how you name your company.
• 3:09
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Everything is so important so that you have the opportunity to exit sometime in the future. And we both know there's so many different exit arenas that we can go into, but having that opportunity is so important, and if you don't plan first off, then you're… you're going to be behind the eight ball when the time comes later on.
• 3:29
  Paloma Goggins: Absolutely, couldn't have said it better.
• 3:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, so I know, it's just, it's part of my heart, my passion, so I'm so excited to have you on.
• 3:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But, you know, there's so many areas in business exit that business owners today don't even know about. Can you tell us why it's really important for you to be part of the business relationship early on?
• 3:52
  Paloma Goggins: No, absolutely. I think most business owners
• 3:56
  Paloma Goggins: I wouldn't say most, I would say a good majority of business owners that I run across. Yes, it's definitely a lot. They've been very successful operating in a manner that is not as organized, not as
• 4:13
  Paloma Goggins: optimally set up, right? And from the legal perspective.
• 4:17
  Paloma Goggins: I can't tell you how many times I've come into a business that's planning on selling or working to sell their business actively, and they don't have the foundational organizational documents, they have people with ownership that's not on paper.
• 4:32
  Paloma Goggins: They don't have contracts with their key customers, all of these things that when a buyer comes along and they start doing their due diligence, which I always tell people is just a fancy word for digging around in your business to find out whether it's a good buy.
• 4:47
  Paloma Goggins: they look at all of this, and it looks bad, optically. It looks bad optically, and then also, it makes them question about whether the value that they're deciding to essentially place on your business through the purchase price is there or not, right? Because…
• 5:03
  Paloma Goggins: At the end of the day, if you don't have certainty on paper, then what are they buying? And that scares buyers.
• 5:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Ugh, and you know what? That's a place that you don't want to be in, because if I'm… if I'm hearing you correctly, and I love the way that you… you angled it, that it's gotta be on… it's gotta be on paper, right?
• 5:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But I think that… that a buyer has, and I've heard this from somebody else, a buyer has a choice to buy your company.
• 5:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And the seller has a need.
• 5:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, the buyer can come in and go, oh, well…
• 5:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I don't really need this company, I'd like to have it, so I'm gonna start chipping away at the price I'm gonna offer you. And I think that's where buyers or sellers don't realize
• 5:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that they've got to have all their ducks in line so that that number can't be chipped away too much. And is that the whole idea of what you're talking about?
• 6:00
  Paloma Goggins: No, absolutely, and I was gonna say…
• 6:02
  Paloma Goggins: I think that dichotomy between need and want is the difference between a business owner who has done the work
• 6:12
  Paloma Goggins: in advance, and isn't in a place where time, health, money is the reason for why you need to sell your business? Because arguably the most well
• 6:26
  Paloma Goggins: prepared or best planning is when you have optionality. And so, I always tell people that come to me, and they're like, okay, I'm thinking about selling in the next 2-3 years.
• 6:38
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: you know, what should I be doing now? And I'm like… And that's probably the biggest typical timeline that you're getting in. Either I want to sell it this year, or I've got a couple years, but…
• 6:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's not really enough time to do all the planning they need, right?
• 6:51
  Paloma Goggins: I mean, I guess I will put it this way. I will take it at 2-3 years, as opposed to what I traditionally see, which is, we're selling tomorrow, help me get this cleaned up.
• 7:02
  Paloma Goggins: But, I too often see in the market individuals who are not well health-wise. They waited too long, they did not plan.
• 7:13
  Paloma Goggins: And, you know, I've worked with businesses over the last couple of years where, you know, cancer has played a significant role, and there… it's kind of the same scenario where if you are desperate to sell your house.
• 7:27
  Paloma Goggins: you're probably not going to get top dollar, because you're just looking to offload it, because you don't have the need for it, or you need to get rid of it quickly. Same concept in your business. We see it far too often, where the business isn't really in a ready position to sell, but unfortunately, the owner-operator can't continue, whether they like to or not.
• 7:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right. Ugh.
• 7:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So that's where I go back to my story of saying, day one, right?
• 7:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And if you think about it from day one, you're setting systems in place, you're getting your legal structure done properly.
• 8:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: as you mentioned, you're aligning your business for protection of the company with contracts, right? Protection of the relationships that you're having, whether you're bringing on a junior, a partner, a vendor, a significant client.
• 8:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: These things are really important to have in place, and like most of us business owners, when we get going, we're trying to figure it out as we go.
• 8:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And… and I think that if you can take this time in your business life to go.
• 8:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: let's circle the wagons and see if it's… if we're protected, right? Do we have everything in place that we need to have in? And I think that could happen day one, day, you know, five years in, 5 years before you sell, and ideally, you know, earlier rather than later.
• 8:53
  Paloma Goggins: Totally, and to your point, I think…
• 8:56
  Paloma Goggins: this isn't a… I think it's a misnomer. It's not like a one and done. It is, you know, it's no different than going to the gym. You're not going to see results unless you're consistently going.
• 9:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: There's no magic pill?
• 9:10
  Paloma Goggins: I just feel like people approach the need to prepare for an exit as this, like.
• 9:15
  Paloma Goggins: thing that is off in the future, you don't need to worry about it, but then when the beach trip comes, they're like, oh, gotta, you know, slim down for two weeks straight to try and get into this bikini. But, no, really, like, I think the biggest issue, and to your point, starting from day one.
• 9:33
  Paloma Goggins: And even if you've been in business for 10 years, and you're listening to this and saying, well, I didn't start from day one. Well, start now. This is your day one. And really get in there and start planning with your team, and sit down and figure out where are the gaps? Because ultimately, the best question to ask yourself is.
• 9:51
  Paloma Goggins: Can I take a vacation, and will my business continue to run in some capacity without me, and how long is that vacation? Because I know most founders are like.
• 10:02
  Paloma Goggins: A week? Maybe a day? Maybe a weekend? So I think that's a huge, huge question to ask yourself. And then the second question is, you know.
• 10:12
  Paloma Goggins: If you had to put all of your paperwork together, including your financials, and hand it over to someone who's looking at your business to buy, is there a story that they're gonna see there? Is it… is it looking at stuff and saying, oh, wow, look at this profit and loss statement, this is, you know, guaranteed revenue over and over, or are they looking at it and saying, like.
• 10:32
  Paloma Goggins: there's too many, you know, big whale clients in here, and if we lose two of them, the business is pretty much gone. So, that's a big question, is like, what am I… what's the story I'm showing on paper for my business?
• 10:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it. Well, before we go forward on that, let's take a step back and talk about that week away, or that weekend, or that day off, right, where you don't have the phone plastered.
• 10:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to your… to your ear, right? And your fingers aren't going, you can actually relax and enjoy knowing that you've got things going. Describe what owner dependency or, you know, where the owner's too much involved in the company. How can they start to get out of that?
• 11:11
  Paloma Goggins: I think the best place to start is…
• 11:14
  Paloma Goggins: small, because it's overwhelming. I totally understand, as a business owner myself, is when everything runs through you, I think there's kind of 3 buckets.
• 11:24
  Paloma Goggins: One bucket is the stuff that truly requires your attention, and you probably shouldn't offload to other individuals or automated systems. There's another bucket that, like, you're holding onto for dear life, and you really should be offloading it. And then there are, like, the third bucket is
• 11:40
  Paloma Goggins: things that you know you shouldn't be doing, but you're doing them because you haven't created the right systems or delegation to take them over, and it's… it's zapping your time. And so I think part of it is…
• 11:51
  Paloma Goggins: you know, operations, for sure, but also sitting there and thinking to yourself, okay, if I was to take a break or take a pause, what are… let's do the worst things first, right? Because
• 12:03
  Paloma Goggins: I feel like if you really sat down and created a giant list of all the things that are required in your business that you play a role in, right? I was talking to,
• 12:14
  Paloma Goggins: a business coach of mine, and, you know, she told me to draw a graph and, you know, put the things that you love to do that you're great at in one corner, and I'm sure there's, like, a name for this graph, it's all over the internet if you Google it, but it's, like, things you love that you're great at, things you don't love but you're great at.
• 12:31
  Paloma Goggins: Yeah, things you're not great at, and you don't want to do, and there's, like, each quadrant kind of guides you in what you should be delegating, and what you should be kind of offloading, and in today's world, with how much technology is at our fingertips, there's not as much excuse.
• 12:47
  Paloma Goggins: For why you can't optimize even without a big team.
• 12:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, and I think that's really important. You know, I like to do the same thing with them and come in and say, let's do an org chart, right? You know, who's doing what, right? Where are we coming in? Because we all know that the founder and operator, they're wearing 57 hats, right? They're doing too many things that they shouldn't be doing. But I think, beyond that, though.
• 13:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Where I see a big challenge, and correct me if I'm wrong.
• 13:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: the owner becomes the bottleneck because they're not letting go of everything. So when a decision needs to be made, maybe it's, hey, can we offer this big client a discount? It has to go through the owner, right? You're not giving
• 13:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Authority or decision-making
• 13:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: levels or opportunities to the team, so then everything has to come back through the owner, and I think that's where things get stopped.
• 13:52
  Paloma Goggins: I couldn't agree more. I think there's also a complementary side of failure to provide authority to your team members, which is that when your team members aren't following through on instruction, if you just go in and do it, because
• 14:07
  Paloma Goggins: You're like, I'll just get it done. Then your team members never step into that authority, or they never learn how to essentially execute that authority correctly, and I'm just as guilty of it as any other business owner, where, you know, you're like,
• 14:22
  Paloma Goggins: I could spend 10 minutes explaining this now, or I can just do it in the 2 minutes, because I know how to do it. And that fallacy is what prevents you from being able to never do that task ever again, because someone else, after the 10 minutes of explanation and maybe
• 14:36
  Paloma Goggins: 15 minutes of re-guidance when something goes wrong is what prevents them from doing it for you in the future in perpetuity.
• 14:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And the value of this.
• 14:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: is…
• 14:49
  Paloma Goggins: Your ability to sell your business in the future.
• 14:53
  Paloma Goggins: 100%, and too, I mean, think about it this way. Going back to that comment about the story that your business
• 15:00
  Paloma Goggins: tells the buyer. If you have founder dependency, and someone is looking at your business as a potential acquisition, and you are the glue that holds everything together, what's going to happen when they try and step in and operate the business?
• 15:16
  Paloma Goggins: And I will tell you the number one turnoff for most buyers, buying a glorified job.
• 15:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I was just gonna say that. Isn't that the funniest thing? They don't want your headache. They don't want your job. Maybe they want to be leader, and if you have those systems and key employees that are doing work that…
• 15:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You can relax and trust that you've trained and guided them in a way, that they're making decisions. This is a goldmine of value
• 15:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that it adds to your price when you go out. Let me… let me kind of clarify one thing, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, because you're the expert. I just know enough to cause, you know, questions.
• 15:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But when, when you've got the exit, and it's here, and the price is here, reality says that it's 1, 2, 3 times
• 16:09
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: the annual revenue is what you're gonna get when you exit, not… unless you're a unicorn, right?
• 16:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if they're chipping away at 1, 2, 3 times your revenue, that's really not the exit that you were hoping to get, right?
• 16:26
  Paloma Goggins: So if you can…
• 16:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: increase the value of the exit, so you're getting the 3 times or even 4 times the revenue because you have all these things in place, that means you're significantly making more money when you sell.
• 16:41
  Paloma Goggins: I was gonna say that, to add insult to injury, is businesses that are below their one times, because they're a mess, or they can't see the value in them, and they're like, I gotta come in and optimize, and get you back on track, and you're, you know, you're…
• 16:57
  Paloma Goggins: margin on revenue is really low, so there are individuals I've seen that come into this, and
• 17:04
  Paloma Goggins: You know, I think it's hard as an owner, a founder, an operator, you've…
• 17:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: poured so much of your time, blood, sweat, and tears into this. Nights, weekends.
• 17:14
  Paloma Goggins: Yes.
• 17:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Kids games.
• 17:15
  Paloma Goggins: Holidays, yes, all of them.
• 17:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Holidays!
• 17:18
  Paloma Goggins: You're like, okay, this is the value I put on it because of the sacrifices, personally, I've made, but unfortunately, that does not always align with the value of the business, and a lot of that goes back to that founder dependency and the story your business is telling.
• 17:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love that. Okay.
• 17:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I hope we're making an impact, listeners, to you to say, hey, I need to get my ducks in line, and again, the earlier I have them in line, there's a two-fold. It makes your business really nice to run now and enjoyable, and it also improves the valuation later on.
• 17:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So I've been singing this song forever, and I'm just so excited to hear that someone else in the legal side of it agrees that this is really important that you start early, and not when you've got one foot out the door. It's too late.
• 18:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, so talk to me, a little bit more about contracts and things that are really important, and how you hit on them a little bit on how they add value.
• 18:19
  Paloma Goggins: Sure thing. So, I would say…
• 18:22
  Paloma Goggins: Let's put it this way, if you do not have, and I see this too frequently, especially working with a lot of individuals that are
• 18:30
  Paloma Goggins: in the service-based businesses, trades specifically, everybody loves to do a handshake deal. And there's nothing wrong with it, don't get me wrong, I think it still works for a lot of individuals, but the reality is.
• 18:43
  Paloma Goggins: You're putting your business at risk from a daily operational standpoint, because a lot of times you don't have anything that you can enforce if the relationship sours.
• 18:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mmm.
• 18:53
  Paloma Goggins: And if you're looking into the future, even if it's super far off on the horizon.
• 19:00
  Paloma Goggins: And you think to yourself, okay, all of my big recurring revenue is being driven by these key customers, clients, whatever you want to call them, and you don't have contracts that bind them.
• 19:14
  Paloma Goggins: You are inevitably going to have risk and uncertainty in that eventual transaction, and the buyer will
• 19:22
  Paloma Goggins: structure their offer to mirror that, and a lot of times, in our world, it's called an earn-out, and really what it is, is just a way to say, I'm giving you a smaller portion of purchase price, and the rest of it will depend on how good the business performs after I buy it.
• 19:41
  Paloma Goggins: And if you still have that founder dependency lying in there, talk about a risk for you that maybe, at the end of that one year after closing, you don't get any money additionally. And so you just took a huge pay cut on something that you should have earned far more on. So…
• 19:58
  Paloma Goggins: I think there's definitely two sides to that coin. One is protecting the value that you have in your revenue now, and also reducing liability if something were to go wrong, but also preparing for creating that better story, and aversive risk buyers are going to appreciate that.
• 20:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, and I think that goes across many different areas of why you want to have these relationships put down on paper, right?
• 20:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: what if you train that key employee, right? The one that actually is your key salesperson, right? They're the revenue generator, or they're the one that knows where all the skeletons are in the closet, right?
• 20:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: If you can have a relationship cemented
• 20:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: With those key players in your business, and they are…
• 20:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: going to stay on in that transition later on, especially if you're getting closer to the moves. That adds value to the buyer, because they've already got people that know how to run the business.
• 21:01
  Paloma Goggins: That is… oh, go ahead.
• 21:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I was just gonna say, I think that's really important to have, right?
• 21:06
  Paloma Goggins: I was gonna say, that… that is probably…
• 21:09
  Paloma Goggins: Besides having contracts for your revenue, right, to back up your revenue and say, okay, when things close, are things going to continue on? And even your, like you said, you mentioned relationships with vendors and suppliers, I mean, that can be just as key. But the key… the key employee thing
• 21:27
  Paloma Goggins: can be… a huge pitfall, and I think the more people find key employees that are…
• 21:36
  Paloma Goggins: Not on paper, right?
• 21:39
  Paloma Goggins: The more the concern is, what confidential information have they been given.
• 21:44
  Paloma Goggins: Can they freely compete with the business? They can just up and quit. You know, what ways are you not protecting your business from a daily operational standpoint that ultimately ends up haunting a future buyer?
• 21:56
  Paloma Goggins: And we see that a lot in most service-based businesses, where all of a sudden, people know… personally know your customers, and they can just call them, right? And so there's that poachability that creates even more risk. So, yeah, to your point, the key employee thing is
• 22:14
  Paloma Goggins: super, super important. I want to use just, like, a short story here, because I want to underline something that I've seen personally.
• 22:22
  Paloma Goggins: there was an individual I was helping to purchase a business, it was service-based, professional service-based, and they pretty much, you know, wanted to have a key employee that remained on. We made sure to draft it into the documents.
• 22:36
  Paloma Goggins: One thing that I like to push for is to have those key employees
• 22:42
  Paloma Goggins: Sign a new employment agreement.
• 22:44
  Paloma Goggins: Prior to closing or at closing, right? So there's got to be a little bit of sharing of information, which is always scary to the seller, because at some point, you've got to rip the band-aid off.
• 22:53
  Paloma Goggins: And they ultimately convinced the individual I was helping to buy this business to wait. And…
• 22:59
  Paloma Goggins: That individual was so critically important to the spring
• 23:04
  Paloma Goggins: portion of their revenue that, ultimately, they found out the individual was expecting to adopt a baby, and that was not disclosed, and that individual then ultimately left, and they didn't have anyone to help.
• 23:22
  Paloma Goggins: it was just such a shock, right? Because, I mean, it's not… legally, it's not something you're allowed to ask, they didn't disclose it up front.
• 23:30
  Paloma Goggins: I believe that the individual running the business knew about it, and realistically, there was no issue with them taking maternity leave. It was just the fact that they weren't going to be around for the most important portion of, you know, operating the business, and so I always
• 23:47
  Paloma Goggins: I ask two things of people who are going into a business transaction. One, on the seller side.
• 23:53
  Paloma Goggins: Be upfront, because you're going to have people, if a closing condition is that employees remain on.
• 24:00
  Paloma Goggins: They're going to fight you afterwards if someone doesn't stay on because you knew of something and you didn't disclose it.
• 24:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And that's a bigger legal headache, right? Is litigation, so you never want to be involved in that.
• 24:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Great story, great awareness that, you know, you kind of had this… well, you kind of knew about it, you didn't know about it, you can't ask that, you know, this is key time and importance. So I think having that kind of conversation with the business owner, the founder, that happens closer.
• 24:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to the sale, but I think it could happen anytime, right?
• 24:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: If you're running a business and you've got trade secrets, client relationships, maybe it's intellectual property that, you know, you have, that you use on a regular basis.
• 24:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That even when you're running your company, you want to protect yourself with that, and have that in place now, and it's not just for the sale, it's everyday practices that you want to consider.
• 25:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: you know, to make your business safer and stronger and run better, and… and then, you know, you would… I would expect that if someone's going to adopt a baby at springtime, and that's our large revenue-generating time, that I'm going to plan a backup to have somebody else step in, right? You know, I mean, these are things that make…
• 25:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: again, make your business strong today, right? Then also make your business strong later on when you're going to sell it, whenever that is.
• 25:29
  Paloma Goggins: Oh, for sure, and I was gonna say, too, like, if…
• 25:32
  Paloma Goggins: You have, you know, your purchase price is based on future earning capability, which a lot of…
• 25:39
  Paloma Goggins: is nowadays, because risk… people are risk tolerance, and then your key employee leaves, whether you knew it or not, which I would argue a lot of people know everything about their business.
• 25:47
  Paloma Goggins: I think, you know, you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot in a lot of ways, like, you're leaving
• 25:53
  Paloma Goggins: value on the table, and so, to your point, I think
• 25:56
  Paloma Goggins: For anyone thinking about a future transition, whether that's internal or external to an outside party, you know, honesty and disclosure
• 26:07
  Paloma Goggins: is something that ultimately will benefit you. It is not something that's going to harm you in the long run, and if someone does not want to move forward with your business.
• 26:18
  Paloma Goggins: I always say things happen for a reason, right? You're gonna find the right buyer. Don't get desperate in this process later on, because there's always the right person. It's no different than in relationships. There will be someone for you that fits your profile and is the right buyer for you, and so…
• 26:34
  Paloma Goggins: While you're thinking about the planning and preparation, thinking about your key employees, and how do you diversify in the event not just you become, you know, incapable of running the business for a period of time, but also what happens if some of your key employees become incapable of helping?
• 26:49
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, wow, really, really important conversation that… that… again, the conversation starts earlier rather than later, you know, and the earlier you can do this and strengthen your company. You know, I mean, you… there's many opportunities to exit, right? I think the last opportunity you ever want to be in is because you have to, right?
• 27:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And that planning early on to say, well.
• 27:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: maybe, you know, maybe I don't want to take that opportunity, or maybe I'm not ready for it, or maybe I have a little bit more time to find the right buyer.
• 27:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: For the business and for the practice, and it could be even grooming that key employee, right, to come in and take it over. There's lots of opportunities there as well.
• 27:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But I think you're creating this legacy. When you start a business, you have responsibilities, right? You're creating this entity, you have responsibilities to your customer.
• 27:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You have responsibilities to your employees, and you have responsibilities to you and your family. And I think this business and this entity that you're creating, if you can groom it and build it and structure it in a way that everybody is happy.
• 28:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: and everybody gets what they need out of it, which is safety, security, longevity, money, you know, less stress, whatever that is, I think we have that obligation as founders and owners, operators, to do that.
• 28:18
  Paloma Goggins: I liked what you said earlier, which is that…
• 28:20
  Paloma Goggins: for anyone who would think, okay, this exit idea, great, I'm gonna put this in my back pocket and think about it when I'm closer, I think you said the best and most important thing, which is
• 28:34
  Paloma Goggins: what if doing all the legwork to make an exit-ready company later down the road makes it more enjoyable for you to operate your business today? Because that, ultimately, is the key, in my opinion. You know what? The bonus is that it's good and ready to sell later down the road, but for now, you're living
• 28:52
  Paloma Goggins: Living, breathing, and operating something that you don't regret and despise every single day of your life.
• 28:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Well, I mean, that's hard to… that's hard to promise, but yes, exactly. You can make a business that runs smoother, makes more money, right? Is enjoyable to be in. It's not that headache or that J-O-B that we all dread. It's something that is enjoyable.
• 29:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And I think enjoyable for everybody involved.
• 29:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And… and it's just that double-edged sword that I just… I love so much, and what I… what I design in my practice to help my clients, and I love it that we complement each other, because you do the same thing.
• 29:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, Paloma, this is a great conversation. I know we could talk about this forever and keep going on, and there's so many red flags that business owners need to be aware of.
• 29:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But, you know, I think it's, again, you can take those red flags and make them yellow, make them green by taking an earlier approach at it. So I would love to have listeners find out more about you, and where they can find you, so that they can start to move those red flags away.
• 29:59
  Paloma Goggins: Yeah, absolutely. Anyone that is looking to have just a conversation, we offer a free discovery call. It's on our website at Nocturnalegal.com. We also have launched a founder dependency quiz, which we've been using internally with our clients, and you too can go on and take it and see how
• 30:18
  Paloma Goggins: much founder dependency you have and what steps you can take, and you can find that on our, social media at Nocturnal Legal on Instagram, and it's a link in our bio.
• 30:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it. What an important thing to do, because,
• 30:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, you can, like you said, you can go on and you can do that grid, or you can go out and you can do an org chart, or you can go out and do a lot of things, but I think the problem that a lot of business owners have is that they don't go out and do this.
• 30:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right? They just go, oh, I'll do that, you know, that's a low… that's a low ticket item, right? I'm gonna move that to the when I have time, or maybe next week, or whatever. But I would really encourage you to take a minute
• 30:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: do this and kind of figure out where the challenges might be now, so you can make your business run a lot smoother now, and increase the valuation later on, for whenever you do want to exit. So, I would encourage you to take that step and do it now.
• 31:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: All right, well, thanks for tuning in today. I hope you picked up some valuable insight and actionable ideas that'll help you make your business more profitable. And again, I can't keep, you know, beating on the horse there and telling them, do these things now, it'll make your business better now, and it'll make it more valuable later on.
• 31:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, but before we go, if you're ready to bring more of the right clients and keep more of what you earn, go grab your Profit Booster Growth Map today. It pinpoints 3 moves that'll grow your revenue, stop profit leaks fast.
• 31:49
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: There's no involvement from me, you can do it, you can run the GPT, get the answers, you don't have to book a crazy call, I'm not gonna, you know, hassle you for anything, but go get it right now, try it, figure out where your blocks are, and one of those blocks might include the founder dependency.
• 32:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And you can get that at profitbooster.biz forward slash growth map.
• 32:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And while you're at it, don't forget to subscribe to future shows. You can always find Profit with a Plan on any of your favorite podcast platforms. We're looking forward to more great profitable strategies on next week's show. So until then, make your plans and profit with them. Thank you so much, Paloma, this was fun.
• 32:31
  Paloma Goggins: Same. Thank you so much for having me on.