How to finish big

I've just finished reading 'Finish Big' by Bo Burlingham. 

If you've read Bo's other best seller, 'Small Giants' you'll know that he's a journalist who's passionate about small business and entrepreneurs and loves digging into what makes them both tick.

Bo argues that 'Finishing big' or exiting well from a business is one of the biggest decisions that entrepreneurs make, having profound and far reaching implications on the rest of their lives, but many give little thought to it.

The book is full of absorbing case studies of people who have exited well and those who haven't. The emphasis is on the 'Medium' within the  Small and Medium Enterprise' cohort. So for most business owners these will be quite large enterprises with tens or hundreds of employees and multi million dollar turnovers. For British readers there are some americanisms like ESOPs (Employee share schemes) and venture capital played a bigger part in some exits than it does over the pond.

Although the businesses may differ the issues for the exiting entrepreneurs are very similar wherever they are based and Bo tries to distil the common themes which make for a good exit.

Four stood out for me:

1. Start early

Entrepreneurs need time to plan for their exit and to shape the business in a way which achieves the best outcome. Some of the time is needed to allow for making mistakes - finding the right successor was problematic for example in several of the case studies

2. Think about the exit you want

It's not just about the money. What do you wants to happen to your employees? Are you worried if the culture and values in your business change after exit? What kind of legacy do you want to leave? It's important to think about these things before exit.

3. The best advisors have been through it

This was an interesting one. Many advisors have facilitated multiple sales and the more they do, the better they get. The very best advisors though have sold their own business or ideally several businesses. They have the unique advantage of seeing things from the seller's perspective and Bo rates this very highly.

4. What will you do after?

Somewhat surprisingly, this was one of the biggest issues for the exiting entrepreneurs. Those who thought about it in advance and had something to do after exit, tended to finish big and well. Those that didn't ended up a bit lost, without purpose, full of regrets and unhappy, often for many years.

So I'd recommend 'Finish Big' to all business owners. If it gets you thinking about your exit now rather than when it's too late to finish big, it's a few quid very well spent.

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