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American Business Brokers & Advisors Founder & President MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS SUCCESSION & BUSINESS ADVISORY BUSINESS VALUATIONS
APRIL 2022
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Buying Is Easy; Selling Is Tough
this happens because I have several friends in the storage business, and they told me about having to open a storage unit after a tenant, who had paid rent for years, quit paying. They found a bunch of old clothes and a couch and some junk nobody would ever want to use. Deciding to sell your business is a big deal. Just the thought of selling a business can make a person sick to their stomach and cause depression or excessive stress. I share this so you’ll know that you are not alone in having these feelings. After putting all the facts and figures together, it seems like it should be easy to determine whether selling the business is the right thing to do, but that doesn’t make it easy. To begin with, you must get yourself into the proper mental mindset before you begin the process of selling your business. Lay out all the facts. Ask yourself why you want to sell the company. In Chapter 2 of my book “Hidden Wealth: The Secret to Getting Top Dollar for Your Business,” I list 16 different reasons why people sell their companies. After you
After many years of working with hundreds of competent business owners, I believe I have identified the problem. It is easier to buy than it is to sell.
have looked at the facts and have determined that selling your business is what you want to do, you are halfway there. Having the mental stamina to begin and stay with the process of selling your business is tough, but it can be very profitable and satisfying once your business is sold. And to this day after selling hundreds of businesses, I have never had one of my sellers come back and tell me they regretted selling their business. I have however had many business sellers tell me they wished they would have done it sooner. To learn about the 16 different reasons why business owners sell their businesses, send me an email at Terry@TerryMonroe.com. Please include your mailing address in the email, and I will give you a free copy of my book “Hidden Wealth: The Secret to Getting Top Dollar for Your Business,” which is affiliated with FORBESBOOKS! Deciding to sell a business can be a tough choice, but I’m here to help. –Terry Monroe
Sounds too simple, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s because it really is simple.
You see, anybody can buy something. You don’t have to be smart to spend funds; all you need is either the money or the available credit. You can negotiate a better price, but you won’t know if you got a good deal until later (when you see if it’s profitable or when you sell it). So, even if you overpay, you can still buy something — since it’s easy to be a buyer. But it can be hard to be a seller. This involves many different emotions. I am guilty of being a bad seller. I don’t like to sell my stuff, and I bet that you and most other people are the same way. There is something about our “stuff” that makes parting with it difficult. Sometimes it gets so bad that people rent storage buildings for their belongings, knowing they will never get it out of storage, but they are too weak to sell it or give it away. So instead, they continue to pay monthly storage fees — for years. I know
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The Problem With Women Retiring Earlier
WORKING LONGER MAY BE A GOOD IDEA In 1992, counselor and author John Gray published his widely discussed book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” The relationship book focused on the ways in which men and women communicate differently, offering insight to struggling heterosexual couples.
All of this adds up to a major problem: Women are having to rely on that reduced retirement income for a longer period of time.
However, in the world of retirement, that same title could apply. Women aren’t approaching retirement like men — and that’s not advantageous.
Granted, spouses often share retirement
According to studies, women tend to retire earlier than their male counterparts. In particular, white, married women without a higher education degree tend to retire at least 2–3 years earlier than men. In 2018, The New York Times explored this phenomenon and cited a main cause. Women tend to marry men who are older than them, and many couples retire together. Therefore, women are younger than men when they retire. That same New York Times report found that women live — on average — four years longer than men. In retirement savings-speak, this means women need more retirement income than men. Furthermore, women typically earn less than men, which means their contributions to retirement are often less than men. (In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported women earned 84% of what men made in 2020.) Have you ever met people who seem to think they are very intelligent and smart? I am not confusing this with someone who has good self-confidence because there is a difference. The person who thinks they are intelligent or smart is generally basing their actions on a past accomplishment or financial gain. And How Do You Know if You’re Smart? WHAT’S THE DEFINITION OF INTELLIGENCE
income, which could protect women who choose to retire when their husbands do or earlier than is the norm. However, it may be beneficial for women to work until the same age as their husband’s age of retirement — or longer — to pad their savings. Another New York Times article suggests that working until 70 can provide added income that savings strategies alone cannot meet. There are many social, cognitive, and emotional benefits to working longer, too. However, retirement is your oyster! Retire when you feel it’s best for you and your retirement savings plan is ready to use. But if this article raises questions, consult with your trusted financial expert. people began to treat me like I was smart — especially people who had money and bankers. Mind you, I knew I wasn’t any smarter than I was 18 months earlier. What I did know is I’d gotten lucky and happened to be in the right place at the right time and recognized it, but my IQ or intelligence factor had not increased. Yet the general public had a different perspective. I share this story with you because I recently listened to a podcast by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the bestselling book “Rich Dad Poor Dad.” (This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it already.) In the podcast, he tells people he can see who is highly intelligent because they agree with him on his beliefs and subject
matter. In other words, he only hangs around with people who have the same beliefs and opinions regarding politics and world affairs. Isn’t this something we are all guilty of? Don’t we avoid those people who do not agree with us and have different opinions? Don’t we do so within our own family where we avoid the relatives and in-laws we don’t agree with or think we don’t have anything in common with? I know I do and have in the past, but the ones who agree with me, well, I somehow think they’re okay and probably smart.
I know this for a fact because I had it happen to me over 35 years ago. I was just a regular guy working in a printing factory, making a good wage for the times. I managed to work myself into a position where I could help small-business owners and entrepreneurs invest in oil wells when oil prices were booming as they are today. The company I worked with drilled over 34 successful oil wells, and the price of oil was the equivalent to $100 a barrel in today’s dollars.
Since I was on commission only, and retained a portion of the oil interest, in less than 18 months, I had increased my income by 10 times. This newfound income enabled me to quit my job and devote full-time hours to the oil production business. Now here comes the funny part. I was just as dumb after I quit my job, and the only difference was that I had made some money and miraculously
I see the same situation play out in family businesses especially in multi-generational businesses where the children of the owner came back into the business after the business had been operating successfully for a number of years, and within a short time, the children think they are capable operators of the
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Take a Break! Are you planning on selling your business in the next 1–2 years? If so, you need to start planning
Get the Wisdom of Other Business Owners’ Mistakes FROM TERRY MONROE’S ‘HIDDEN WEALTH’
now. But where do you even start? Selling a business is a massive undertaking. With so many things to consider, some confusion is understandable, but if you don’t get the right kind of help, you could end up selling your business for far less than top dollar and leave tens of thousands of dollars on the negotiating table. These are the kinds of cautionary tales that market maker and four-time author Terry Monroe shares in “Hidden Wealth: The Secret to Getting Top Dollar for Your Business.” While we’d like to hope we’re accomplished and savvy enough to sell
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our business without any help, the uncomfortable truth is that tons of successful business owners have lost out on millions of dollars in selling their businesses — all because they didn’t know exactly what they were doing. Sometimes, contemplating the financial implications of selling your business and dealing with the strain and grief that comes with doing so are worse than actually selling the business. So, what then? Well, in Terry Monroe’s “Hidden Wealth,” you’ll also learn how to realistically assess your situation, deal wisely with the business that you’ve built over the years, and maximize the money you’ll receive when you decide to sell. It has been said that we learn from our failures, not our successes, but the true sign of a successful individual is to learn from someone else’s failures and not your own. “Hidden Wealth” seeks to do just that: give every business owner access to the lessons learned from the mistakes of other business owners so they can avoid the setbacks and reap all the rewards. Find out how you can get a copy today by emailing Terry@terrymonroe.com .
BLOOM CLEANING EARTH EASTER
FLOWERS FOOL PRANK RAMADAN
RECYCLE SPRING TEACHER VENUS
SUDOKU (SOLUTION ON PG. 4)
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business and more intelligent than they really are because the parents have told them so and encouraged them to think this way.
I am not being judgmental about this kind of situation; I am just viewing it from the outside looking in after understanding more about different people’s beliefs when it comes to money and intelligence. So, the next time you have a banner year in your business, make a great deal on a sale, or have a great acquisition, do yourself a favor. Stand back and take a good look at what just happened and ask yourself: Am I really as smart as I think I am or am I just one lucky person who happened to be in the right place at the right time and recognized it? Being able to recognize the difference between something that’s fortuitous — rather than deceiving oneself of being highly intelligent — will open more opportunities as you go forward in life.
–Terry Monroe
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INSIDE 7824 Estero Blvd., 3rd Floor Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931 1 2 Buying Is Easy; Selling Is Tough Women Retire Before Men — Why That’s a Problem How Do You Know if You Are Smart?
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The Secret to Getting Top Dollar
‘Chatter’: Your Guide to Thriving Under Pressure
With Tips From ‘Chatter’ TAKE YOUR INTERNAL PEP TALKS UP A NOTCH
You probably know about the benefits of positive self-talk, but have you mastered it? If not — or if you’ve never heard that phrase — “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It” by Ethan Kross may be the most important book you read in 2022. Positive self-talk is something most of us engage in daily. It’s the “you can do this” nudge you give yourself to combat dark thoughts like “I don’t know what I’m doing” and “no one will take me seriously” before a big presentation. But few resources give you precise strategies for how to engage in positive self-talk effectively so you can make those negative impulses go away. “Chatter” is an exception to the rule, perhaps because it was written by an actual psychologist! Leaning heavily on scientific research and engaging case studies, Kross offers concrete tips for reducing negative thoughts (what he calls “chatter”) and giving your self-confidence a boost. One of his biggest tips, which drives a big chunk of the book, is the importance of creating “mental distance” during your internal pep talks. Mental distance is exactly what it sounds like — stepping back mentally from your worries and problems so you can gain a new perspective. Kross goes over several ways to do this, including trying to “look back” at your current situation from one, five, or 10 years later; comparing this hurdle to tougher ones in your life; and shifting your internal monologue to third person so you can try talking to yourself as if you were your own friend. With these strategies, we can transform our thoughts, rather than avoid them. Of course, those suggestions just scratch the surface of what’s offered in the book. Kross also goes over how to help your friends, colleagues, and employees eliminate chatter, and how mastering your inner voice will help you thrive under pressure. The magazine Inc. named “Chatter” one of the “4 Business Books That Will Accelerate Your Success In 2022” — don’t miss it.
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