How Do I Sell Something that I Spent 20 Years Building? (#235)

In this week’s episode of "Maximize Business Value," Dave Casey discusses how to turn obstacles into opportunities during your sale. Tune in weekly to hear more from Mastery Partners and to receive relevant key content on your journey to maximizing your business value!

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Learn More about Dave Casey
Dave Casey is a seasoned business owner with deep expertise in all aspects of organizational behavior and a passion for helping entrepreneurs reap the full rewards of building their companies. He understands that a truly valuable business isn’t just profitable—it’s secure, scalable, and transferable. In addition to his work with Mastery Partners, Dave actively gives back to the entrepreneurial community through leadership roles with organizations like Business Navigators, Biz Owners Ed, and Liberty Ministry. Whether advising on strategic growth or mentoring the next generation of business leaders, Dave brings clarity, integrity, and decades of real-world experience to every interaction. His mission goes beyond exit planning—he’s committed to helping owners build lasting legacies.

Mastery Partners

Elevating Businesses to Achieve The Business Owner’s Dream Exit
The unfortunate reality is that for every business that comes on the market (for whatever reason), only 17% of them achieve a successful exit. You read that right. 83% of attempted business transitions never reach the closing table. Mastery Partners is on a mission to change that. We ELEVATE businesses to achieve maximum value and reach that dream exit.

Our objectives are simple - understand where the business is today, identify opportunities for dramatic improvement, and offer solutions to enhance the business, making it more marketable and valuable. And that all starts with understanding the business owner’s definition of his or her dream exit.
Mastery has developed a 4-Step Process to help business owners achieve their dreams.

STEP 1: Transition Readiness Assessment
STEP 2: Roadmap for Value Acceleration
STEP 3: Relentless Execution
STEP 4: Decision: Now that desired results are achieved, the business is ready for the next step in the journey!

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Transcript

MAXIMIZE BUSINESS VALUE PODCAST - EPISODE 235 Transcript

(1s): Tom Bronson

Welcome to the Maximize Business Value Podcast, brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners like you to maximize your business value and achieve the exit of your dreams, whatever that means to you. With insights gained from over a hundred business transactions, we share real world strategies, lessons, and expert advice to help you build long term sustainable value in your business. Each episode is hosted by one of our mastery certified partners. They're seasoned experts who've helped countless business owners navigate the complexities of growth, scaling, and building value.

(45s): Tom Bronson

They bring firsthand experience, actionable insights, and a passion for helping you build a business that thrives. So, let's dive in.

(1m 2s): Dave Casey

Hi, this is Dave Casey and welcome to Maximize Business Value, a podcast for business leaders that are serious about building long-term sustainable value in their business. You know, as many of you know, I've been a certified partner with Mastery Partners for several years, working with Tom Bronson and the team, and, and, and I work with business owners day to day, and we really help them maximize the value of their business in many different ways, always with an eye to the future, whatever that future might be that could w vary wildly, you know, depending on the age of the business owner, the type of business it is, really what their ultimate goals are and, and the health of the company itself.

(1m 49s): Dave Casey

So today I wanted to share a little bit about my journey as a business owner and how I got in and out of business and, and how I actually found my way to Mastery Partners. So I co-founded and grew an IT services business for over 27 years. So it was quite a long run. We had a great time. We formed in the mid eighties. It was kind of a great time to be in the IT world. Then, it was shifting very quickly from the mainframe computer world to local area networks, wide area networks, and small, small desktop computing. So there's a lot of things going on in that space.

(2m 31s): Dave Casey

At the same time, the telecommunications networks of the US were essentially split up. So the at and t had a, a essentially a monopoly on, on data and voice communications. And when at it was split up into many other companies, that that opened up a lot of opportunity for companies like ours. So we, we, we founded in mid eighties grew very quickly and became a, a strong regional player. So that, all that said, there's many things we didn't do right. Okay. So, so one of the things is we didn't have a real long-term plan.

(3m 12s): Dave Casey

My business partner and I started the company. We decided that, you know, there's some great opportunity here. We felt like we could, we could certainly do better than we could working for someone else in a very short order. We found out that we never wanted to work for someone else again. We always were gonna be entrepreneurs or, or be our own business owners. We morphed the business several times over the years. That's more than two decades worth of time. A lot happens in the technology space in that period of time. So we changed from an equipment based company to a services based company. We changed from a transactional model to a recurring revenue model. And we even changed from doing wide area network to local area network to IP telephony messaging, video conferencing, stuff like, like we're here today on a Zoom call.

(4m 2s): Dave Casey

So a lot happened over that period of time. I always had the advantage of a great team. We had a fantastic team of folks. Many of them stayed with us for more than two decades. Great economy. 'cause we were in Texas even when there were setbacks in the national economy, it seems like Texas with a couple of exceptions sailed through really well. And then of course I had great support from my family. So as a business owner, it was, it was wonderful and it was a, it was a good thing. There were a couple of bumps in the road that we had along the way. So, we will get to those in a little bit. But what one of the things that, why, why did we do well?

(4m 43s): Dave Casey

Okay, well we had a good market, we had a good idea. I think we executed well as a company. But one of the things we did for really the entire run is we focused on people versus profit. Okay. We really focused on enabling people, even to the point where if somebody outgrew our company, we would help them find their next position. Or if someone wasn't gonna quite cut it within our company, we'd help them find their next position. 'cause you never know, you know what, what goes around comes around. And, certainly we always wanted to be in a scenario where people were given high marks that we were a great employer to work for. I mentioned the long time tenure. We had several people on both the sales and on the technical side as well as the administrative side that were with us more than a decade, in some case, two decades.

(5m 33s): Dave Casey

That was pretty unheard of in the IT business. Lots of people move around the IT business, but we had great, great folks. The other thing we never did is we never compromised our values. I think that's really important. And every business owner, I think, looks in the mirror and, and wants to say that, yeah, we've, we may not have won that deal or we may not have come out on top of that particular situation, but we didn't compromise our values. And I think that's really important. So I mentioned the good things. There's several things we did wrong along the way. One of 'em, as I mentioned, was long-term planning. We never really, we, we set, we plan essentially year to year, sometimes two years to two years, but never longer than that.

(6m 18s): Dave Casey

In retrospect, that was probably not a good thing. We probably should have done a lot more long range planning and actually invested in the tools to allow us to do that. The other thing we missed out on I think was, was being aggressive sometimes when opportunities came along. There were some times when we, particularly when we changed the course of the company where we were out there in front a little bit, we were, we were ahead of the curve and maybe ahead of our competitors, but I think as time went on, we got a little more conservative and a little, little less likely to take risk. And I think that hurt us in the long run because I think we really could have grown the company significantly beyond the point.

(6m 57s): Dave Casey

It was when, when, when I sold the company, the other thing is we didn't use enough outside professional help. We certainly had a great CPA great attorney, that sort of thing, but we didn't use HR professionals. We didn't employ an HR professional and we certainly didn't use outside HR folks. I think that was a mistake. We could have done a lot better doing that. The other thing was, as we got closer to selling the company, I'll step back for a second and just tell a little bit of the reason why we did sell the company or why I sold the company. So I started the co-founder of the company with a great friend, Jack Higgs. He's super, super individual. We were in business over 20 years together and I lost Jack very well.

(7m 38s): Dave Casey

We lost Jack very suddenly. He had a heart issue and became ill, went in the hospital and, and never, never revived and never came outta the hospital. So it was devastating. It was devastating to me personally. It was devastating to the company, certainly our clients, our suppliers, our vendors and so on. But as I mentioned before, we had a very strong team. That team really carried the day and, and we, we, we succeeded as a company, even with me taking over everything versus running half, half the, half the operation, running the whole operation. We had some of our best years following that. And so we, we, we did make it through all that, which is, is sometimes that's that type of occurrence when we deal with clients that can be very catastrophic and can really threaten the existence of the company.

(8m 29s): Dave Casey

So again, I think some of the systems and processes we had in place, really, really we did well by those. We also, as I mentioned, I can't overemphasize that the team of folks we had at, at, at our company was just tremendous and, and, and really brought us through that. So I'd, I'd say to a business owner, make sure you surround yourself with top quality folks. You never know when you're gonna need them. And, and actually ask them to do a lot more than expected and get outside their comfort zone when something like that happens. It worked really, really well. The other thing that happened, and, and this is when we got a little bit closer to the exit, I put some things in place to reward some of the longtime tenured employees that we had.

(9m 17s): Dave Casey

And in one respect, they were, they were greatly appreciated. Some of the folks that I did that for seemed very much less appreciative. And really what I'm talking about is having them and participating somewhat in the financial rewards when we, when we actually exited the company and sold the company. So I really did that for two reasons. One is to reward people that had been very loyal and stayed with us for a long time. I stayed on when we sold the company for an additional four years. So it wasn't like, you know, Dave walked out the door. It was a very abrupt end. I stayed on for quite a long time. But the other side of that, which was interesting is I, I put kind of financial incentives in place for folks to stay and, and they did, although some of them weren't a good fit for the new organization, and they, probably stayed longer than they should have.

(10m 11s): Dave Casey

So you never know when you put together something like that, what the final outcome's gonna be. Again, an experienced outside HR professional might have been able to steer me through that a little better than what we did there. So all in all, it was, it was, it was an interesting thing that one, one of the things that we talk to business owners extensively about is what's next When someone has a business and they're considering perhaps doing a transition or where we're gonna sell that business, or we're going to sell it either internally to, let's say to employees or it's gonna pass down through a family, or it's gonna go to a strategic outside buyer or even a financial outside buyer.

(10m 53s): Dave Casey

But there'll be a change in control of the company. I mean, it's usually a big event. It's very emotional in most cases I've seen where it really can disrupt a family structure. And when a, when a change of control happens like that, when a transition happens, or even when, when the best laid plans of we're gonna, we're gonna arrange so that the employees can buy this company from the owners. That doesn't always work out like you think it's going to work out. So I think there's several things that I've seen that, that, that really could help in that area. One is to do extensive planning ahead of time and make sure that the company is operating on all cylinders. Make sure that every aspect of the company has been examined and that the proper, you know, people processes and, and everything's in place in terms of, of how the company's operating and that it's operating at top peak performance before any kind of transition takes place.

(11m 50s): Dave Casey

This will do a couple things, it'll make the transition easier, but it also dramatically maximized the value that's received by that transaction. I've seen too many companies where, for some, whatever the circumstances, they had to exit before they wanted to, things weren't in place. Maybe the proper people weren't in the right seats. Maybe the systems and controls weren't there. They ended up selling at a deep discount. And so it can really change the whole, you know, your generational wealth can be, can be affected by something like that. So it's very important that the company be operating well just to derive maximum value. I think the other thing to look at is that it's an emotional thing.

(12m 33s): Dave Casey

Too many times, if you're, if you founded a company, you've grown the company that's part of your persona, it's part of you or you're part of it, you're tied very, very tightly to that, to that company. And when that transition takes place, and now that company's in someone else's hands or another corporation's hands, then sometimes it's very psychologically difficult to say, okay, now what? You may even have a great financial result from that. You may have your bank account full, but emotionally you're not full. You know, you're, you're just kind of wondering, what am I gonna do? Now I've seen lots of folks that, that, that face that, and it's, and it's, it's on several levels.

(13m 16s): Dave Casey

I think you, one of 'em is, it's on a level of, let's say that, you know, you founded the company, you grew the company. You've, you, you, it's been, you most of the customers know, you associate you with the company, suddenly you're gone and what do you do the next morning? Right? You get up the next morning and say, okay, I, I don't have to go to work. In fact, I can't go to work. There's somebody else sitting in my chair where I used to be yesterday. So that's a hard transition for some folks. Personally, I did not have a hard time with that. Part of it was that I stayed on and worked with a combined entity. When I sold my company, we became part of a much larger company.

(13m 57s): Dave Casey

I worked as a divisional vice president for that, for that company for several years. So that, when I ultimately did exit, exit all the way out, it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal. I mean, we, we had done, I kind of planned for it almost a year and a in advance. And so it was, it was a fairly, I would say fairly graceful exit. Not to say that I still didn't think about what I am gonna do the next morning, but that's when consulting comes along. So that's what I've done since then. But the interesting thing is that in some, in many people's cases though, it's a, it's an emotional wrenching experience when, when you, when you leave a company.

(14m 38s): Dave Casey

So I think it's important that to, to, to do planning ahead, plan for that moment, you know, what's life gonna look like on the other side, both financially, psychologically, what am I gonna do with my day? Am I gonna play golf all day? Am I gonna travel all over the place? Who knows? And, and you must include, I think your family in those conversations, certainly your spouse and your kids, and just say, you know, here's, here's our next phase in life and this is what this is gonna look like. You may relocate to another part of the country or another country for that matter. And I've watched folks go through this, some very successful entrepreneurs that worked extremely hard, a great transaction happen, a transition happened monetarily, they're set for life, but emotionally they had a real hard time with it.

(15m 30s): Dave Casey

And some of them go off the rails. I know a fellow that left the country, moved to another country, got into some wild businesses in these other countries, and then finally came home to the US, got his mind kind of straight, started another company and, and is on his next go round of entrepreneurship. There's others that I think handle it well. They really plan for it and say, okay, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do. I've seen many friends and, and business associates that actually take that time, that that next phase in life is, is a time to actually give back and work with others that are maybe turn around and put your hand out to the next entrepreneur behind you that eventually is going to leave their business and help them through that process.

(16m 20s): Dave Casey

And that's exactly what we do at Mastery Partners, and I get a lot of satisfaction from that and the ability to help others and to, to talk, frankly, since I've been through that process of, of what this means and how it's gonna work for them. I think there's a couple of other things that come into play too. One, one is, you know, when you're helping others, it's, I think it's super important for you, that you really put yourself back in that chair again. You know, what am I gonna, what's it gonna look like as we go through this transition? The other thing is to bring in the right set of folks to help with all of that.

(16m 60s): Dave Casey

Whether it's a financial planning, wealth management firm, whether it's a, and the attorney that makes sure that that transaction works perfectly, that everything goes well. Or, and even just I think maybe a, a, a business psychologist really too, to just sit down with you and say, okay, this is kind of the what's gonna, you're gonna be faced with. This is what your day will look like after you leave your company. So what's that? You know, let's, let's work through that. Let's see, let's see how that works out. And certainly I think involve your family in that as well, and have your family part of the discussion, you know, as to when you execute a, a, a transition or how you do it, on what terms is, does it happen?

(17m 44s): Dave Casey

I think those are all important things. You know, one of the things we always ask on these maximizing business value podcasts is what's the most important thing that you recommend that owners do to build the value in their business? And for me, it's quite obvious. I think one of the things that you must do as a business owner is you must make yourself totally expendable. You have to reduce owner dependence to where you are, nice to have around, but you're not a need to have around. And if you can get to that point, it's incredible. The world is your oyster because any company that acquires you, they understand completely.

(18m 26s): Dave Casey

You're not part of the equation. You've built this, you've managed it, but now it's, it's running on its own. It has its own life. And that they can immediately say that, you know, there won't be any loss of value when you're not there that next morning. I think personally, it's good for your psyche as well. If you know that these, this team of folks that you've built this, this, this business that you've built is gonna sail on just fine without you. It's a little bit melancholy sometimes, but the other side of that is you have full confidence that this transition is gonna be good for everyone. It's gonna be good for the folks that work at the company, on the whole team.

(19m 7s): Dave Casey

It's gonna be good for the acquiring party and certainly gonna be good for you and your family. So to me, that's the big one. The important thing is to make yourself totally expendable and have it set. And you can tell whether you're that way or not. As you get closer to this, you should be able to feel like, Hey, I could leave for a month and I wouldn't, wouldn't have a qualm. I won't need to check my email. I won't need to call in and see how things are going. I won't know, I don't really know or care about, you know, did we get the Jones account? Because really that, that doesn't matter that much. You know, we've, we've got so much business that we, we don't, we don't need that one account. Okay? We, the world doesn't swing around you.

(19m 48s): Dave Casey

So to me, that would be the, the thing that as a business owner, that's kind of the ultimate is to make yourself totally expendable. So with that, I, I really want to close and, and hopefully that you got a little bit of information from me on this, that, you know, if you have, if you're a business owner and you've had your business for an extended period of time, there is a very graceful way that you can exit that business and ensure that you know it, it's, it's best for you, it's best for your team, it's best for your, certainly for your customers and your suppliers and so on. So that 's just a good thing all around. And that's exactly what we work to, to, to achieve with Mastery Partners.

(20m 30s): Dave Casey

We want a business owner to be able to exit their business, eventually their terms, their timeframe, with a full, full heart and just say, man, I've had a wonderful run, enjoyed it much, I'm ready for my next stage of life, whatever that might be. So with that, this is the Maximize Business Value Podcast. We give practical advice to business owners to help them build long-term sustainable value in their business. Be sure to tune in each week toward these podcasts, and you can subscribe to us and all the platforms so you won't miss a single episode.

(21m 10s): Dave Casey

So with that, this is Dave Casey, see you next week.

(21m 20s): Tom Bronson

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Maximize Business Value podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas on how you can continue driving value in your business. But remember, it's not just about listening, it's about taking massive action. Visit our website Mastery Partners dot com for more resources. Grab a copy of any of the books in the Maximize Business Value series on Amazon or via the links below. And don't hesitate to reach out if you want to know how to apply these concepts to your business.

(22m 1s): Tom Bronson

So until next time, I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to relentlessly execute while you Maximize Business Value.