I Sold the Agency I Spent 20 Years Building. These 5 Reasons Finally Pushed Me to Exit
Burnout wasn’t what convinced me to sell my agency. The bigger problem was a risk hiding in plain sight.
EXPERT OPINION BY CHRISTINE SLOCUMB, ENTREPRENEUR AND ADVISOR
In 2020, I was leading my agency as president and founder, wondering what the heck I was going to do with the company that I created, sweated in, and loved for 20 years. I didn’t want to work until I died.
If you are a Baby Boomer or Gen X business owner, you’re probably in the same position wondering whether now is the right time to take money off the table and exit. If you’re a younger owner, maybe you feel bored, stuck, or just want to move on.
According to the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility, 6 million small and medium-sized businesses are expected to change hands by 2035, representing up to $5 trillion in enterprise value.
Here are the reasons I eventually sold. Some of them are solid, logical reasons, and some of them are terrible motives to sell that I now advise against as an exit advisor. But I felt it was important to share all of my thoughts at the time I put the company on the market.
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I was tired of having to pull revenue rabbits out of hats
Whenever we lost a big client, I had to scramble to close the next big deal. My agency was increasingly competing against larger holding company agencies that floored their prices just to book a sale.
I got tired of request-for-proposal submissions that took countless evening hours only to find the prospects had invited 20 other agencies (when they told me they invited only three) or they already had their chosen agency, but needed proposals to check off a requirement from their purchasing department.
There was too much resting on my shoulders
Even though in the years before selling I offboarded most of the direct client work to very capable team members, I still handled all the sales and managed the relationships with important vendors, including bookkeepers and lawyers. During the pandemic when I got sick with COVID-19, I realized the singular dependencies on me were putting everyone on our team in jeopardy. And this vulnerability was putting the valuation of my business at risk.
In retrospect, I wish I had acquired a smaller agency with proven business development talent. This could have relieved a lot of the pressure and challenges burning me out.
Source: www.inc.com
