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Are you thinking more and more about your future exit and realizing you have more questions than answers? Do you know what you want out of your exit but are unsure of the best plan to achieve your goals? Are you wrestling with your ideal time to exit? Unsure how to talk to your employees? Worried about your business partners? And what can be done to minimize taxes?

These are just some of the questions we commonly hear during the confidential, complimentary 45-minute consultations we hold with business owners to help them get ready for exit. For the fifth year in a row, this month we are standing by, ready to schedule a free consultation with you to answer your exit questions.

If you intend to exit by selling your company, either to an outside buyer (a competitor, private equity group, etc.) or an inside buyer (one or more employees), the price you receive at sale will likely be closely tied to the company’s earnings. The higher the earnings, the higher the likely sale price.

As we know, there are two potential ways to grow earnings — increase revenue and decrease expenses. Both methods can maximize earnings prior to selling your business. In our experience, many companies underestimate the amount of expense reduction that is possible prior to selling the company, without harming morale, the team, or key operations.

A newly released survey explores the human side of being a company’s chief leader and offers insights for CEOs and business owners on the challenges involved in getting themselves and their companies ready for exit or success.

The survey, The CEO: A Personal Reflection, was prepared by global leadership consulting firm Egon Zehnder. Over four hundred CEOs from a cross section of industries and countries participated. Topics addressed included what the job entails, the level of preparation CEOs felt they had received before taking the role, their succession planning process, and how CEOs lead and cope in these volatile times.

Note: This material is adapted from A Tale of Two Owners: Achieving Exit Success Between Business Partners, by Patrick Ungashick, CEO of NAVIX.

Dear Business Owner,

You might not like this letter. Reading it could help make you a large amount of money, save irreplaceable time, and avoid an inestimable amount of stress. But you still might not enjoy reading this because it contains some facts you may find hard to hear.

Our company does exit planning – we help business owners define their exit goals and then design and implement plans that achieve those goals. In our work, it’s common that one of the major obstacles to the owner achieving exit success is the owner him- or herself. Yes, often you comprise a large part of the problem. We usually don’t say this so bluntly because getting fired for tactless speech helps neither the client nor us. But the common reality is you – or more specifically, your habits and misconceptions – are a significant barrier to exit happiness.