Your mindset going in to exit planning is the most critical determinant of your successful outcome. There are a number of mindset factors that you must recognize and consider. Your mindset will determine your ability to set and achieve your hopes and dreams. You have to be able to recognize and adhere to the process to achieve them. Most CEOs have dreams and goals of the outcome they want from their business. Many fewer CEOs reverse engineer their goals into a timeline, process, and a sequence to get to that exit.
Challenges will occur that could derail your exit plan, guaranteed. Fighting or resisting those challenges is an unproductive waste of time and energy. Instead, install and master a mindset to address, overcome, resolve, and circumvent each challenge as it arises.
Attitudes/mindset are often ignored or minimized when exploring what we need to learn to achieve our goals and get to an exit.
Most CEOs trained to emphasize the strengths of left-brain thinking, resist addressing or developing the right-brain skill of mindset readiness. Mindset readiness requires the most time to develop and is not easily measured or demonstrated. But your mental and emotional attitudes are the most important of all learning components because your attitude/your mindset is the gatekeeper that determines how well you acquire, master and apply any other skill set and knowledge.
Entrepreneurs stubbornly adhere to tired outdated thinking which in turn sets up their business to continually struggle, not achieve its full potential and settle for selling their business for only a fraction of its worth. That downfall is totally preventable.
In the area of mindset, attitudes and beliefs, do you experience any of these? Make note of the ones that apply to you.
- Have no exit goals
- Can’t set exit goals
- Don’t know how to set exit goals
- No consensus on exit goals
- Can’t delegate/afraid to delegate
- Prisoner of the entrepreneur’s trap – Trying to wear all the hats
- Scared to grow – because of past experience, old belief systems, systems or staff that slow or prevent your growth
- Scared to share control, responsibility, ownership or profits
- Scared to lose control
- Easily distracted – by environment, people, events, equipment
- Minimal goals/easy goals/short-term goals that don’t stretch individuals or the organization – to play it safe
- No personal accountability of the leadership team/ of you
- Still running the business as an opportunist
- Resist building a strong business foundation for growth or increased value
- Ignore or deny the need for exit planning
- Ignore or deny the need for contingency planning
- Ignore or deny the need for continuity planning
- Ignore or deny the need for succession planning
- Ignore or deny the need to plan for your transition
- Ignore or deny the need to plan for your reinvention
You’ve heard the phrase:
Your attitude determines your altitude.
Your mindset is the key to everything you will achieve to exit your business when you want to. When you decide each of these elements is important enough to the business and to your future beyond the business, only then will you take action and:
- Develop the skill sets
- Acquire the necessary knowledge (direct learning or surround yourself with experts)
- Develop plans, strategies, and tactics to achieve everything you want for your business and from your business when you exit.
- Apply the discipline and leadership to accelerate growth and maximize value on your timeline.
“It’s a mindset – you’re only limited in scope by your own imagination and your ability to see through problems, challenges and roadblocks to the opportunities.”
