There’s a mythology that business owners have all the answers all the time. Many business owners hold themselves up to this unachievable standard.
Yet, nearly every business owner has moments when they say to themselves, “I have absolutely no idea what to do now.” Many of those business owners would refuse to admit that they have these thoughts.
If you’ve ever felt frustrated, angry, or anxious because the thing that you have poured everything you have into—your business—isn’t doing what you expected it to do, you aren’t alone.
Better yet, there is hope. That hope often lies in the people whose expertise you need but don’t have: your Advisor Team. Here are several ways that working with your Advisor Team could help you find the answers you need to continue to succeed in running your business.
1. Objectivity
Business owners tend to have a lot of faith in their ideas, and they should. But as your business grows, you may find that the things that you once had the capability to handle start to get bigger, more complex, and more time consuming. When this happens, it can be easy to lose the forest for the trees.
Remember: For business owners, the most important element of planning for a successful future is ensuring that when you eventually leave your business, you have achieved financial security. In other words, for many business owners, the idea of working for someone else after founding and running their own business isn’t palatable. One way to potentially avoid this fate is to position yourself for financial security while you’re in the business.
But when things don’t go as you thought they would or a major outside event occurs (e.g., pandemics, market downturns), it can be easy to lose sight of that long-term goal because you have so many short-term fires to put out. An Advisor Team could help inject the important element of objectivity into your planning.
Additionally, you likely have more than just a financial stake in your business. There’s also an emotional stake. The emotional side of running a business can create challenges for business owners without professional guidance.
Advisors tend to understand this emotional side, and they also know when it’s prudent to have someone provide an objective look at a business owner’s company, strategies, and goals.
This objectivity can help you remain focused on what you need to do to achieve financial security despite outside influences and emotions that may derail your focus.
2. Expertise
A business owner who thinks they know it all is a business owner who’s destined to fail.
This is especially true for businesses that are growing. Growth almost always implies more complexity. Growth also injects more responsibilities into a business that may not have existed when the business was founded.
For example: A business owner may hire an area sales manager they trust to sell for the business when it’s founded. However, as the business grows, that manager may not have all the time and requisite knowledge of new markets to ensure that the business continues growing in new markets.
An Advisor Team may be able to support that sales manager by finding other salespeople to take on the complexities that the manager cannot handle on their own. The Advisor Team may also be able to steer that business owner toward other salespeople who have more expertise that the business requires to continue encouraging growth.
3. Networks
Finding the right people at the right time is one of the hardest things a business owner will ever have to do.
Whether it’s employees, vendors, or advisors themselves, working with an Advisor Team could make it less strenuous for business owners to find those right people.
Successful advisors often work with advisors who have expertise outside of their field. In this way, they can put you in touch with advisors that you may not have known existed but who can provide new strategies that position you and your company for more success.
By combining their objectivity and expertise, your Advisor Team can help you find the people you need to establish and execute on your biggest goals as your business grows and you move closer to your inevitable exit from your business.
The Earlier, the Better
The earlier that business owners consult with an Advisor Team, the better. That’s because it gives the Advisor Team more time and resources to help business owners pursue the solutions that they seek. However, even in cases when things seem the most dire and time is short, consulting with an Advisor Team is often a better strategy then simply trying to figure it all out on your own.
You are a successful business owner, and you have many of the answers. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be running your own business.
But just because you have many of the answers doesn’t mean you have to have all of the answers. An Advisor Team could help you fill in some of the most important gaps in your business planning, personal planning, and overarching goals for the future.
Where other people might tell you, “There’s no saving you,” an Advisor Team is more likely to say, “Let’s see if we can find a way.”
And all you have to do is ask.
We strive to help business owners identify and prioritize their objectives with respect to their businesses, their employees, and their families. If you have questions on this topic, we can help with more information or a referral to another experienced professional.
About Altus Exit Strategies
David Jean is the Director of Altus Exit Strategies and a Principal at Albin, Randall & Bennett, where he is also the Practice Leader of the Succession Planning, Business Advisory, and Construction & Real Estate Services Teams. David works with business owners who want to improve their business’s value before they sell through the Seven-Step Exit Planning Preparation™ process. He has worked with companies from $5 million to $50 million in revenue across a range of industries.
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