Consider Your Happiness When Choosing an Exit Plan

One of the most important things to plan for as a business owner is retirement or ongoing involvement in the company. You almost don’t even want to think about it, but as you age, you’ll find that retirement may or may not be the best process for you. Simple things like pride and prestige may make retirement problematic. Many of us, as business owners, value ourselves based on our company, company relationships, as well as the outside relationships that involve the business.

If there were a way for you to be working only a few days a week, five to ten years from now, making more money than you are making now and doing only what you enjoy in the business, would you want to retire?

I know many business owners who have retired to beautiful locations after selling very successful companies for millions of dollars, but are unhappy. They have a lot of money, but they no longer have a purpose in their daily life. One reason they feel emotionally lost is that they have severed their business relationships of many years. They also miss the pride and prestige of their position in the community as owner of a major company.

So, one of the things you want to look at when you are creating your vision is—do you want to retire or do you want to live a certain lifestyle and still be the CEO of a company, under the right circumstances?

Before making a drastic decision about retirement, you need to consider what makes you happy and what you really want to be doing with your time. There may be a number of creative options for you to be partially involved in a business--while enjoying the perks of retirement.