At 21, I walked alone into the management office of Pacific Werribee shopping centre.
Dad was unresponsive in hospital, Mum terrified at his side.
I asked if they could please pause the $10,000-a-month rental agreement we had for the corner store next to the GP Clinic whilst we figured things out.
They gave us 1 month.
That was a crap year, and a very bad way to begin selling a family business.
22 years later, and it’s happening again, all around me.
- Last Thursday, I was in Adeney Private in Kew with an 82-year-old friend.
- On Tuesday, a 68-year-old colleague was taken to emergency after a heart attack.
- A fortnight before that, a 48-year-old, same thing.
It’s feeling like a weird episode of Oprah “you get a myocardial infarction (MI) – you get a myocardial infarction (MI) – everyone gets a …”.
The standout moment was the week in between, when a 62-year-old looked me straight in the eye and said unflinchingly, ‘succession? I don’t have to worry about that for another 15 years’.
He’s a fit, hardy bastard and his dad lived to over 100, so I believe him, and I’m sitting down next week with a relatively notorious leader of an industry that’s decided at 62 he wants to found a startup and go large on the disruption game.
Health is a spectrum.
So is business value.
And it takes years to prepare and then sell a business well.
And if you own a business worth protecting, and you’re in your 60s or beyond..
HOW DELUSIONAL ARE YOU
That’s my question.
If you have a quick squiz at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Heart Research Institute, you’ll see men are expected to live in full health until 70.
After that, we’re told we will spend half of our remaining life with some level of disability, including 3.5 years where it really sucks as you get towards the end.
And every 9 minutes, an Australian is hospitalised for a heart attack, that’s 57,000 a year, mostly men.
The answer is obvious, and I’m not your wife or your kids, so no need to guilt-trip you; exercise, sleep, cut out the booze and sugar, eat well – you know the drill.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
As you read this, I’ve got friends rolling up conveyancing businesses and insurance brokers at a national scale, and colleagues who run PE and M&A firms gagging to buy accountancies and small legal practices as people keel over and they can roll their data in.
I’ve even known a printer that’s been buying up other small print shops for their rolodexes for a decade and redirecting their phone numbers, so he now manages corporate printing for most of the state.
Those people aren’t paying premiums for businesses like yours.
They are waiting until you have a critical health event and need to do a fire sale.
At which point your life’s work and your legacy aren’t worth that much.
And this is where it’s good to ask the question again in a different context.
HOW DELUSIONAL ARE YOU
.. about your business value?
If your strategy relies on you being immortal, that’s a problem.
And if your business isn’t set up to demonstrate your value to a purchaser, that’s starting behind the 8-ball.
It won’t be sorted in 6 months either.
Build your golden EJECT button.
Start now.
You don’t have to work it out alone.
