The Business Exit Nobody Prepares You For | Denise Logan

But is there, in all the speaking you've done and, and meeting different business owners, is there one catalyst that seems to come up that actually moves the nee- like, I wanna say moves the needle, but moves somebody over the fence of actually, like, committing to mentally, "I'm gonna actually take action and go through the process of getting engaged"?

I think there's often a single catalyst, but it is different for each owner.

So if we think about when the last child leaves home, we have a name for that, right? It's empty nest.

We know what a couple is going through when that child leaves home.

For the business owner, the business is the last child leaving home.

We often hear in the industry that the owner treats it like it's their baby.

Heck yeah, they do.

It makes total sense to me that they treat it like it's their baby.

And for many couples, when, whether they are both involved in the business or not, this change that is about to happen, I think is very comparable to what happens when the last child leaves home.

I do, yep.

How old are they?

8 and 10.

I'll bet some of your listeners-

[laughs]

... will be able to relate to where we are.

[laughs]

For sure.

When your child goes off to college and you drop them off and you're happy that they're headed on, but you come home that night and you go to set the dinner table, and you have five plates when you now only need four, ooh, there's an emotional moment that happens, and a little bit of embarrassment.

"Oh, yeah, I, I knew that child was not going to be here." And no one shames that person for that moment.

It's a completely normal and understandable experience.

But for our business owners, as they have a related experience, for example, they might find themselves, they've sold the company and they're headed somewhere, and they wake...

It's almost as if they wake up and they are sitting in the parking lot of their business that they no longer own, and they feel shame and embarrassment in that moment, but it's perfectly normal.

Yeah, I do have one-

How I came to this work-

I'd like you to expand, if the story doesn't-