This week, in episode 94, Shawn Busse, Paul Downs, and Jay Goltz talk about their evolving succession plans. There are lots of options—selling the business, turning it over to a family member, selling it to an employee stock ownership plan, holding a going-out-of-business sale, just walking away—and they all come with advantages and disadvantages. Shawn, Paul, and Jay take us through their current thinking and also tell us whether their businesses are prepared for the possibility that they
...See More could be incapacitated. Plus: Would any of them consider instituting a four-day work week? And we can report that this podcast now has its first B Corp. Who knows what a B Corp is?
Great episoide. I want to encourage Paul that there is a much more efficient way to double his customer base than trying to grow organically 14% per year for 5 years. May I suggest Paul seriously consider scaling through acquisition - buying other furniture companies. There are multiple benefits to this type of growth and often, these acquisitions can be made without a huge cash expenditure out of pocket (there are many ways to structure the deal to accomplish this).
Not only could Paul instantly double his customer base, he would also be instantly gaining the talent and manufacturing capacity to handle the growth. Post-acquisition consolidation could reduce overhead and costs. Also, he could potentially cross-sell to this new customer base and vice versa, significantly increasing the lifetime value of each customer. There are too many other potential benefits to list here.
So if his exit strategy is to grow large enough to be attractive to a strategic buyer, why not BECOME the strategic buyer. With this strategy he could even grow large enough to become attractive to a private equity firm in less than 5 years and sell at a MUCH higher multiple if he wanted to. Frankly, this strategy is viable for all your guests, including Jay :smile:
