No one likes to think of the end of a good thing. It's a cliche everyone knows. The fate of all things good is to, in fact, end. The end and the good thing are connected. They are linked together. Sometimes people use another familiar phrase, "This too shall pass." But they both communicate the same thing: nothing lasts forever.
Is your business booming? This too shall pass. Is it struggling, and this season wasn't your best? This too shall pass.
What I'm trying to communicate to you, dear reader, is that it is never too soon to start thinking about what you will someday do with what you are building. There's no shortage of people who will try and tell you what you should do, but that's not what I'm here for. I just want you to confront the reality, perhaps for the first time, that someday you either wont be able to do the job anymore...or you won't want to.
What comes next is up to you, but that doesn't mean it's clear, cut, and dry.
Different Paths To Take
These days you hear the phrase "legacy planning" in regards to what happens to a small business when the current owner(s) decide to hang it up. It's definitely a nice sounding, elegant term for what is just essentially "retirement" for those who are running their whole show.
When you retire from someone else's business, for instance, no one talks about legacy planning. Either way, no one can do it forever, and when the time comes there are some options for you in play, including any number of variations on these choices:
- Handing the company down to a family member
- Selling the company to an employee
- Transitioning to an employee ownership group structure (ESOP)
- Selling to an interested competitor
- Selling to outside investment groups
All of these options have their own pros and cons, and the important thing for you to do is to explore each one well in advance of when the day comes. The last thing you want to do is be ready to retire and this important decision be rushed or pressured upon you due to unforeseen circumstances like health, finances, or other outside stressors.
Even if you're still in the early days of your asphalt business, and you know that you have a long ways ahead of you, it would be shrewd to sit down with a lawyer and start asking the hard questions now precisely while you do have time on your side. You might believe that the legacy question for you is already a done deal.
Maybe you have children who've expressed the desire to follow in your footsteps. That's great! However, there are still legal hurdles and challenges to address, and it can only be to your benefit (and theirs) to start getting your ducks in a row now.
See you on the road!
