Leadership Team as a Value Driver (#282)

On this week’s episode of the Maximize Business Value Podcast, "Leadership Team as a Value Driver," host Kim Bentson is joined by Mastery Partners, Scott Couchenour and Gil Bean to discuss the critical importance of leadership teams and organizational structure in building business value. The speakers emphasize that a leadership team is not just for operational support but is a direct reflection of a company's value and risk profile. Key indicators of a valuable leadership team include empowerment, depth of bench strength, and the ability to own outcomes rather than just tasks.

When leadership is not ready or is overly dependent on the owner, the business's risk increases and its valuation decreases.

Listen to our podcast 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 Kim Bentson
Kim Bentson is an accomplished Strategic Manager with a proven track record of delivering results. Kim is a natural problem-solver who is passionate about helping businesses achieve their full potential and is committed to delivering her clients the highest level of service.

Learn More about Scott Couchenour
Scott Couchenour, founder of Serving Strong Enterprises, offers over 40 years of leadership experience, helping business owners and executives navigate major transitions, rediscover purpose, and design a fulfilling next chapter after business or career success.

Learn More about Gil Bean
As a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), Gil Bean applies his curiosity, empathy, and his desire to listen to maximize business value and preserve wealth. His strategic advisory leverages past success as an EOS Implementer and his long history in enterprise software sales, helping owners achieve clarity for their successful exit.

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Mastery has developed a 4-Step Process to help business owners achieve their dreams.

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Transcript

Tom Bronson (0s):

By listening to this podcast, you are already taking steps on the path of improving your business readiness. Nice work. Got a question? Well, we'd love to hear from you. Submit your questions@masterypartners.com and look for the Red business owner hotline button. And as you think about today's episode, remember the decisions you make every day as a business owner are either building value in your company or quietly eroding it. So here's a question to take with you.

What decision will you make tomorrow that builds value in your business? Now go get it done. At Mastery Partners, we're the people that make companies more valuable and more transferable. Our guides help business owners build companies that's ready for whatever comes next. And if you want to see where your business stands, visit mastery partners.com to learn more about the transition readiness assessment. So until next time, keep maximizing business value.

Kim Bentson (1m 12s):

Welcome to the Maximize Business Value Podcast. I'm Kim Benson. I'm a business owner operator, and honestly, still figuring this out right alongside you. Today's topic is a good one. I used to think building a leadership team was about finding good people and keeping them, and that really is just the beginning. Here's what I didn't understand until I started going through this process myself. Your leadership team isn't just operational support, it's a direct reflection of your company's value and risk profile.

And here's the part that really like kicked me in the gut. Buyers aren't buying your business as it runs with you. They're buying it as it runs without you. So the goal is to make yourself obsolete. And that one shift really changed how I think about the Leader Des leadership decisions and investments that I make on a day-to-day basis. And today, audience, you are lucky 'cause we've got two people right here in my corner who have helped business owners work through exactly this and are amazing leaders themselves.

Gil Bean and Scott Couchenour, and they are part of the Certified Partners at Mastery Partners. Gentlemen, glad you're here. Thank you.

Scott Couchenour (2m 38s): 

It's a pleasure to be here with you.

Kim Bentson (2m 40s):

Yeah. So let's get into this. Most owners think about leadership as an operational item, like I kinda mentioned, keeping the business running day to day. So why should they be thinking about it as a valuation or a value builder instead? And Gil, I wanted to start with you. So when a business owner asks that question, what are they really asking?

Gil Bean (3m 6s):

What are they really asking? That is, that's a great question in and of itself. There, there are a number of things that come to mind for me when, when you phrase that question, the first is, or the one that rises to the top for me is what is referred to as either owner dependence or owner reliance. And what that means simply is that the, the business is overly reliant on the owner for the day-to-day, for its day-to-day operation and day-to-day success.

That's really important in the valuation of a company because when a company is over reliant on the owner, the the buyer's risk goes way up and the owner's value in the, in the company or in the business goes down. And, and that, that dichotomy alone is very compelling when you add to it the fact that a buyer is evaluating the business base with based on the owner not being in it, rather than with it or being in it, that becomes even more compelling.

So that's the issue that I would raise right to the top and to, to look, summarize it in a, in a sentence, buyers prefer competent leadership throughout the organization, not just with the owner.

Kim Bentson (4m 39s): Yeah. And it makes, it makes the business owner's life easier in the process too, I think.

Gil Bean (4m 45s): Oh, no, there's no doubt. Candidly, they don't always see it that way, but yes it does.

Kim Bentson  (4m 52s): Yeah. And what about you, Scott?

Scott Couchenour (4m 55s):

Well, I wanna pick up on a couple of words that Gil Gilman. And one was risk and the other was value. You know, it, it's quite simple. Like If you were to have a level here and If you lowered risk and you increased value, what you have is a big space that gives the owners option. You know, we talk about valuation, of course, a value a business is much more valuable to a buyer when they're not, when the business they're buying is not dependent on somebody who's not going to be there.

Right. Because why not just start your own business than buy one that you have to reinvent, but it equally, there is value to the owner themselves. When you lower the risk and increase the value, you have that extra owner, that space or margin or options. And it's funny, it, it's, it's hard to realize this sometimes, but every single function that flows through an owner equals, and that's tough because there are some things, you know, if you, if you're an owner and you're listening to this podcast right now and you're thinking, well, there, there's a few things that only I can do that must be done, who else is gonna do them?

Right? So that's the, that's a little dilemma. But if you, I always say, if you look at your business through the eyes of a buyer, you are going to see things so much differently and you'll find a way to get others competent and ready to do what you have done so many years.

Kim Bentson (6m 34s): 

I think it's really important to look at that long-term picture because in, in bringing up leaders or training, you know, your team to be a leader in your company or take on more responsibility, that's a big investment usually on the part of the business owner to make sure everything is how they would do it, right, or close to it, or efficient. And, you know, over time it's a big investment upfront, but over time it does create value in its own.

Just giving that to them creates value for your company, but also for you. 'cause that's one less thing. And you can really look at the long game there versus I just gotta get through today. So

Scott Couchenour (7m 23s):

I gotta share a story from a meeting I had just prior to us sitting down to record this. It's a business owner owns a restaurant business and they were talking about making this this dish for the owner, and it's a takeout place. And she said, you know, I had this idea why it was a beautifully built piece of meal. And the owner said, why don't you take this out to the o to the customer instead of me?

And she said, at first it was weird because I do that. That's, that's my role and I have such a high value on customer service. But when I was able to see the person who actually made that meal, take it out to the, the customer, it was kind of two things going on. First of all, ooh, I didn't get to do that, but there was also a companion. I got to see it done by someone else. So she got a taste. And when I was talking with her, I saw, I sure wish I would've been recording this.

'cause that is exactly the the kind of thing that you wanna see.

Speaker 2 (8m 32s): That is, it really is. So as you're, I, I know you both, both are helping business owners. What are you actually looking at when you evaluate the leadership team? What are you looking for?

Gil Bean (8m 47s):

For me, that's easy, Kim. And it's a one word response empowerment. I, I think it's critically important. And by that I simply mean it, are the leaders in the organization, are other people in the organization empowered to make decisions or are they just an extension of the, the owners' will, if you will? And that's, it's a huge concept and I, I, my guess is we'll come back to it more than once during this conversation, but it's, it's perfectly fine to talk about right people and right seats and all the other things that we've all been reading about and talking about for years now, actually for years.

But, but the fact still remains. If, if leaders aren't empowered to make decisions, the rest of it, I don't wanna be too strong about this, but the rest of it can be a waste of time. There are other things that come to mind other than empowerment. One is depth. What's the bench strength that, that the organization has and how deep is the bench strength? But I, I will, I'll finish where I began. And that is, to go back to the word empowerment, it's absolutely essential.

Scott Couchenour (10m 8s):

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I would say empowerment. When I see empowerment taking place, I see key team members responsible in owning the outcome, not the activity. Owning not just the tasks related to the outcome, but the outcome itself. It's almost like, almost like looking at whether or not the key team members look like owners and act like owners and smell like owners because they take responsibility for the outcome and not just the, the step by step.

You know, they, they have a sense of ownership and that, you know, that's, it's tough to get to that point, but it's, it's well worth it.

Kim Bentson (10m 57s):

It is. And also, I mean, it's a huge learning for everyone involved. I keep thinking about, I, I played sports coming up and it was like, you always learn more from your losses than your wins sometimes. Yes. And when you have to make those decisions and the outcome doesn't exactly land where you thought it would land, you learn a lot from that. And, but, but it makes, makes better leaders, I think, too.

Scott Couchenour (11m 30s):

Well, that's an interesting side note, Kim. Yes. When things don't go well and the outcome was not achieved, looking at key members response to that, right? And, and because the, the outcome not reached, how they handle that is an outcome in itself because leadership is more than just getting things done, but it's how it's gotten done and, and how you react and leverage when things don't go well.

Kim Bentson (11m 58s):

Yeah. Have y'all had any, you know, experiences where you're walking through this process with a business owner and what happens when leadership isn't ready and the implications of maybe what that, what happens in, in real life real time, I guess? Do y'all have any examples?

Gil Bean (12m 18s):

Sure, of course.

Scott Couchenour (12m 21s):

Of course. Where do we start?

Gil Bean (12m 22s):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Many times the, the ease or the most obvious answer is the one that people overlook. When you, when you listen to folks talk, both owners and people within the company or within the organization, when you listen to them talk, one of the things that that comes up for me all the time is, why do you do that?

Why do you do it that way? What's the point of that exercise? What do you do with the information that you garner from that? And people often look at me and say, well, that's, that, that's not important. What, what's really important is the fact that we're doing it because we determine that it will do this or it will do that. Well, okay, how's it work? How's that working out? Take me through it so that I can understand. The only reason I go through that is to say that sometimes the, the best answers are the most obvious.

They're right there in front of your face. If you just look at why are we doing this? Or one of my favorite question is, how do you do it? Now, If you wanna, if you wanna improve, take me through how you do it now.

Kim Bentson (13m 43s):

Right?

Scott Couchenour ( (13m 45s):

I, I was walking past the office of a client one time, and I knew he is not detail oriented, but here he is working with a bunch of checks and he's got a spreadsheet on the, the computer off to the side. And I'm thinking, this is, this doesn't look right. So I stepped in, I said, can I, can I just sit and watch what you're doing? He said, come on. Yeah. And after a few minutes of watching, I said, what are you doing? And he said, well, I own some, as you know, I own some rental properties. And he owned a construction company and that's what we were working in. And he owned some, some real estate property.

And he says, I'm putting the deposit together. I said, do you enjoy doing that? He said, absolutely not. I hate this. This is, this is like fingernails across a chalkboard for me. I said, well, would you like for someone else to do that? And he never really thought about it. And so what we ended up doing was we broke it down step by step, and we brought in an assistant who actually loves that kind of stuff and does it quicker and with less error. The challenge that the owner had was, I don't wanna lose touch.

There, there were two challenges. Number one, I didn't wanna lose. I don't wanna lose touch on who's paying and who isn't paying. So we built a feedback mechanism, a report that, that his assistant would provide as well. The second thing is he wanted to be the one to go to the bank to make a deposit because he is very people oriented. So we carved that section out. What happened was, we, and I asked him, how much time does this take every week? He said, about 40 minutes. So we extrapolated his cost per hour based on the bottom line of the business, and we saved him a hundred thousand dollars a year, just allowing him 40 minutes that he could do something else that needed to be done.

And, and I think that's typical. A lot of business owners just go through, they, they've developed a routine, they've developed a way of doing things, and they haven't really had someone ask them, what are you doing? And, and just kind of getting into the nitty gritty, he is who it, it was one of those wide open eye-opening freedom giving experiences. It's done better, it's done quicker by someone who loves it. And he doesn't have to, but he gets a report and he gets to do to the deposit.

So

Kim Bentson (16m 3s):

Yeah. I, that's so funny that you brought up the rent checks. My, one of my aunts has a bunch of properties and rental properties, and how she does leases is how she started the process in 19, I don't know, 86. She does it the exact same way. And every time someone comes in to try to like, Hey, we can automate some of this, we can do this. She goes, no, this is the way I've done it.

And so don't you feel like sometimes the, the bottleneck is the owner who can't let go of that? Like, similar to what you were saying, they can't let go and there's so much, there's a lot better ways sometimes to do it, and they just have it in, they're very narrow in how they think it should be done. So do y'all come across

Scott Couchenour ((16m 55s):

That? I think that's one, yeah. I think that's one of the, one of the biggest challenges and, and why owner dependence is such a big issue. Big issue in turning a business into a transferable business from a job with overhead to an asset. The business owner has done things for so long that it's almost like they've created ruts and to get up out of that rut. They don't, you know, they need someone to pull them out of that so that they can see. And once they're out of the road, they see, oh, I could see so much better.

Kim Bentson (17m 25s): 

Yeah. Yeah. It really is true. Really is true. Gail, did you have something to add?

Gil Bean (17m 30s):

Just, just this and I, I I I, I think that one of the words that we have successfully avoided so far is control. Because c control is, that's a bad word. Control is very definitely a loaded and unsavory term. Yeah. When you start down that path, and we'll get into therapy rather than, than business common sense necessarily, but control is an issue. And, and learning what to do with it, regardless of who you are in the organization, learning what to do with it, it's really a, a valuable thing.

Yeah.

Kim Bentson (18m 9s):

Well that's the whole theme, right? Of the e myth revisited is they didn't like how it was being done, so they started their own business so they could do it how they wanted. So,

Scott Couchenour (18m 20s):

And then they said, how did I get here? Yeah. And

Kim Bentson (18m 22s):

Then what am I doing? I, I can relate to that. So for the owner listing right now, including me, who knows this is a gap. Like we've listed a couple of different scenarios of how we evaluate leaders and Oh yeah, I do that. Or Ooh, that's, that's really something I need to stop doing. Like, where should they start? Where do, where do they, you know, how do they get going to a different path?

Scott Couchenour (18m 57s):

You wanna, you wanna go Gil? Or you want me to

Gil Bean (18m 59s):
Go ahead Scott, if you like? Sure. Yeah.

Scott Couchenour (19m 1s):

There, there's, so the big thing about this, the, the, the road out of owner dependence, in my opinion, has a lot to do is paved with standard operating procedures, right? Getting everything out of the head and into either written or module onboarding training kind of thing. And yet that's such a daunting ask for a business owner. How do I take time out of the day-to-day to list out step-by-step what I do?

And, and here's, this is an idea. So you get a phone, you get a recording app of some kind, whether it's AI or not, and you get yourself a, a noise canceling headphone headset or earpiece. Hmm. And then, or ideally one of those medical glasses, let's say you, you're, you're doing things with your hands and that's, and you just know how to do things. You hit record and you just talk about what you're doing in real time as you're doing it.

And when you're done with that task, you stop record. And if you do that over a number of tasks and just get used to explaining as though someone physically was right beside you and you were, you were talking, it's all recorded, then you can drop that into ai, have it develop a standard operating procedure and you're, and it's not something you have to take yourself out of the flow to do. You're actually in the flow talking about what you're doing and it's being recorded just like this is being recorded.

Kim Bentson (20m 37s):

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I know when one of the mastery partners was coaching me, he said, just make a list of every single process, just start by making a list of everything you do. And then that kinda also helped shape roles. But then I had a, I just had a list to, okay, I need to, I need to write that out or I need to record that. And then you feel like you're making little incremental process and then you can hand it off to somebody if you can.

So I love that. And

Scott Couchenour (21m 11s):

If you're not, if you're not inclined to list and, and that sounds like such a huge thing, then bring someone along beside you all day, someone who loves to record things and just bring with you for a few days, few days or a few weeks and just have them record everything you do.

Kim Bentson (21m 31s):

Yeah, that's a great one. What about you, Gail? Do you have anything to add?

Gil Bean (21m 35s): 

Well, I have a, a a a relatively complicated. It isn't really complicated. It's an exercise. I would suggest an exercise, and then I would suggest something extraordinarily simple. The the first exercise is just to document what your organization looks like now document your org chart, who's doing what and what that looks like. But you shouldn't basically, I shouldn't say you shouldn't, but you're probably better advised to focus on what you want the company to be rather than what the company is.

So if you were to, to draw a corollary to that map as it currently exists, and that is what does the company look like that we want to create here? And you will come up with a delta that really, you can call it a gap map or you can call it whatever you like, but it basically is illustrative of, of what the work is that needs to be done. So that is the exercise. The other thing is incredibly simple. I would, I would get four index cards and write down four words on the, on the four index cards, empowerment, outcomes, alignment and accountability.

And it's absolutely essential that you embrace those four concepts. Wow. So get them to, in instill them as part of your thinking and as part of the thinking of the leadership team and, and move that distillation or the installation over into, into the culture of the organization. So again, simple thing, empowerment, outcomes, alignment and accountability.

Kim Bentson (23m 27s):

I, I love the index cards, but I also like lists too. So the index cards, that would be that, that f that would help me remember to, am I being those things. So that's a really good one. Yeah. And then I love the, the, you know, we're at, one of the clients I'm working with is we're doing EOS, which is the entrepreneurial operating system. And that accountability chart where it's not everything a person does, it's everything a role, what a role that you would want to have do.

So, so across the organization, I could have three different places on that org chart based on what I'm doing right now, but that's a, as you get, you know, growth and scale, and then you can hire for those other pieces as your role gets bigger. So anyway,

Scott Couchenour (24m 29s):

Yeah, and Kim, I'd add onto that, once you have that accountability chart established, now you have the outcomes that you're expecting and you can extrapolate the personalities that are likely to succeed in each of those boxes on your org chart. So you can now, now you use Optiv Index to have all of your team members take, which will give you an insight into who would be more likely to succeed in those particular boxes.

And it's more about the outcomes as it is just putting people on a tree. You know, it's, it's, you start with the outcome and then you add the people to the outcomes rather than adding people and then trying to fit things under them.

Kim Bentson (25m 15s):

Yeah. It makes a, you know, that happened to me. I, when I worked at Granberry Solutions with our founder Tom Bronson, I had three jobs. I had three different jobs, and then we kept growing and, and in that growth, those jobs kept getting bigger. And so then we would bring in a person to take that job, and then we brought in a person to take that job. So it's brilliant when you look back, you know, five years down the road and go, oh, and I'm sure that's how he had it mapped out at the, at the time.

I, that's not what I saw. But that's, that's that going back to that leadership aspect of empowering your leaders to, you know, create those systems and move the company forward and looking, you know, up from the desk of what's coming ahead. I think that's really, really important. So if someone's listening and thinking, I, you know, need to, to do this. And, and I think, Gil you kind of already touched on that a little bit about the first move of embrace these concepts of empowerment, outcomes, alignment.

How does that, like you, you said embrace 'em, but is there things that you could do as a leader to embrace 'em, I guess go a, go a level deeper?

Gil Bean (26m 51s):

Yeah. First of all, make them a part of your thinking and, and understand that your company is going to be a better company if, if you, if you take these concepts and instill them into your culture. And what's gonna happen is that leaders, employees, customers, vendors, people are, people will ask you, what does that mean?

Why, why are you doing that? What does empowerment mean to your organization? And, and as you, as that happens, and as you talk more about it, it will take root in the culture of the organization. And then there's, there's all sorts of things. You mentioned EOS, Kim, there's all all kinds of things, all kinds of systems, if you will, that are, are intentionally designed to create those things more strongly within the organization.

Scott Couchenour (27m 58s):

Right? Right. It's almost like when you take those four words on the three by five cards and you sit with them and maybe you don't know everything about empowerment. So you, you pull up chatt BT and say, te tell me everything I need to know about empowerment and, and just immerse. What happens is you create your own algorithm and is using the reticulate activating system in your brain that notices trends and patterns. And if you keep feeding the pattern, feeding your brain, you'll begin to notice things more readily in the real, in real life.

And so empowerment turns into morphs from a word on a three by five card to, Hey, here's something that really fits in this situation with Sally on a Tuesday afternoon working on the, the budget for next year. So now it, it just becomes a part of the way of life. And I like what Gil shared, you know, just sit with it, you know, immerse yourself in it to a degree that, that it becomes second nature.

Kim Bentson (29m 13s):

Yeah, absolutely. And then that really is the shift right there about not doing more and not getting tied to your desk, but really thinking long term and embracing those words really will elevate your business and your team, which is what we're all trying to do. Right, right. I think it's also about take Go ahead, Scott. You were gonna say something?

Scott Couchenour (29m 41s): 

No, no, I wasn't, go ahead. Okay.

Gil Bean (29m 43s):

Oh, but I was, oh,

Kim Bentson (29m 45s):

Go ahead Gil. Go ahead Gil.

Gil Bean (29m 47s):

Yeah. The, the classic, the classic argument there is when you start talking about, about really embracing those things and making them part of your culture, the classic argument is, we, we don't have time to do the stuff we're doing now. How in the world are we gonna have time to make all of those things part of our, of our daily business life? And people do not understand. And one of, one of our jobs as, as value accelerators and advisors in the exit planning, transition planning, however you wanna think of it, it's to help people understand that doing those things saves you so much time in the long run.

You, you just have to make that initial, take that initial step and take them seriously and start moving toward them.

Kim Bentson (30m 45s):

Yeah. It's really not about doing more to your point, it's seeing your business more clearly. And when you have that clarity, it's easy, you know, like, this is the way I need to do it. To have that, to move forward and, and achieve that, you know, dream exit or whatever is next on your, on your goal board, but building that structure really helps lets other people carry it so you can carry other things, right? If we're, if we're all carrying a bunch of bags, we, we don't have, we have no room to take on anything else.

So that is really limiting in business and in life.

Scott Couchenour (31m 27s):

I do have something I would add, Kim. Yeah, I always, it's always interesting to me when I hear, and I've said this myself, myself, I don't have time, I just don't have time. It's been, I'm so busy. Yeah. The average person is awake 16 hours on average, 16 waking hours every single day. If you carved out 30 minutes to work on your business for that matter on your life, and you did that for 90 days, you're talking 45 hours in three months, you'll have spent on your business.

That's the equivalent of a, a more than a 40 hour week, obviously. Yeah. But think of the, I think we just kind of get this idea that we are so busy, there's no one, I mean, if you're busy 16 hour day after day after day, there is something wrong and you're not gonna survive. Yeah. But if you carved out 30, ideally 60 of those minutes, it, it's, it's becomes more doable. Now, you may have to be creative as to what time you do that, because depending on the, like, if your business is seasonal or if you've got a very busy afternoon or morning or whatever, you've gotta find the time.

But yeah, you know, there's, there's a lot more time than we actually have than we think

Kim Bentson (32m 55s):

There really is. And you know, just like writing down the process you have in your mind how long it takes. Well, you don't really know until you start the timer, stop the timer and run through the whole thing to, to really know. And that helps give you clarity on, oh, that's, this is how long it really take. And I found, I find that it doesn't take as long as you think it takes to do those things that you mentioned here today. Like just dedicating 30 minutes to work on your business.

And it seems like it's easier to handle too, in those smaller bites.

Scott Couchenour (33m 32s):

Right. At least you can get started that way. It's a good place to start.

Kim Bentson (33m 37s):

Yeah. So if you're listening and realizing you may not have the full picture, that's exactly what the transition readiness assessment is designed to help with. It shows where you're building value and where you're losing it, where those gaps are that we were talking about today. So you can make better decisions moving forward. You can learn more@masterypartners.com because the sooner you see that, the more options you'll have.

Gil Scott, any last words you wanna share?

Gil Bean (34m 13s):

No, I've already offered my last four words, so I'll, I'll leave it at that.

Scott Couchenour (34m 20s):

Yeah. I, I think if you're a, if you're a business owner listening to this and it's daunting and it requires a lot of courage, just recognize you're not alone. You're, you are not the only business owner listening to this that is struggling with Rich. And we're here to help. We're here to help. We've been there. Each of us partners has, has led our own businesses, and we know what it's like to be on that side of the desk, but you're not alone.

Kim Bentson (34m 45s):

Yeah. I love that. That's great.

Gil Bean (34m 47s):

Council Scott.

Kim Bentson (34m 48s):

Yeah. Gail Scott, y'all are brilliant as always. Thank you for bringing clarity and action. I love those two together. I love clarity and action. You both gave us lots to dos. And to that business owner who, yeah, to that business owner that submitted that question. Thank you. That one helped more people than you probably realized. And like Scott mentioned, you're not alone if you're listening and thinking, yeah, I've had that same question. The fact that you're asking means you already think like someone who wants to build something that lasts.

And that's exactly where you wanna be. So subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And until then, keep maximizing business value.

Tom Bronson (35m 32s):

By listening to this podcast, you are already taking steps on the path of improving your business readiness. Nice work. Got a question. Well, we'd love to hear from you. Submit your questions@masterypartners.com and look for the Red business owner hotline button. And as you think about today's episode, remember the decisions you make every day as a business owner are either building value in your company or quietly eroding it. So here's a question to take with you.

What decision will you make tomorrow that builds value in your business? Now go get it done. At Mastery Partners, we're the people that make companies more valuable and more transferable. Our guides help business owners build companies that's ready for whatever comes next. And if you want to see where your business stands, visit mastery partners.com to learn more about the transition readiness assessment. So until next time, keep maximizing business value.