Start with the end in mind

When you’re planning and starting a business of any kind, it’s really important to think of the “end game”. Unless you want to buy yourself a job (and in some professions that’s the most common choice), you need to see how you can offload your business in 3, 5 or 10 years and why anybody would buy it.

So, what’s the point of this? Well, it sharpens your focus. Say you want to sell your business in 5 years and you want to get $3 million for it. Start to think of who would buy your business. Why?

Now, every time you make a decision in the business, evaluate it against this end goal. Say you want to go on an international trip. You can make it a legitimate business expense, as you’ll be taking some meetings. But you’re unlikely to grow the business from these meetings. Would the future owner agree to you expensing this trip? If not, don’t.

Go on the trip, but don’t load it on the business as it will give a false picture of the business’ profitability. And that will come back and bite you when you need to sell your business.

Keep working with this mindset and your business will be worth a LOT more in 5 years—guaranteed.