Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust

by John F Dini

Overview

Fast paced, enjoyable to read and even more fun to look at, Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust is a new kind of business book for the 21^st century. Modern technology and the Internet combine to surpass the drab, text filled “drone tomes” that fill too many business owners’ shelves.

Over 200 illustrations, photos, graphs and cartoons take the reader through the historical shifts that created a generation of Boomer entrepreneurs, and the equally powerful forces that are assembling to challenge their successful transitions. Humor and insight share each page, mixing entertainment with critical information for planning the biggest financial event of most entrepreneurs’ careers.

Your Exit Map covers the various strategies for transferring a business to new ownership. It describes the features that attract different classes of buyers, how they target companies for acquisition, and their methodologies for assigning value.

This is not an exit planning encyclopedia. Your Exit Map offers a high-level overview of how to use simple tools to determine the balance of priorities between your retirement timeframe, financial goals, and your desire to preserve the legacy of what you’ve built. It explains sales through business brokers, competitive acquisitions, private equity, leveraged buyouts, ESOPs and family transfers; describing the parameters for extracting maximum proceeds from each approach.

Your Exit Map also features interviews with owners who have exited their businesses with varying levels of success. In their own words, they describe the best and worst things that happened as they prepared to exit, during the process and afterwards. Their stories bring home the joys and pitfalls hat accompany such a major change in lifestyle.

Author John F. Dini has won multiple book awards for his conversational but insightful approach to business writing. This is a book that you will read, tell friends about, and then read again.

Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust is supplemented by an online library of free interactive planning tools, checklists and educational resources at www.YourExitMap.com. Each tool referenced in the book is available for instantly modeling your own plan, along with articles, white papers and the author’s own exit planning blog www.Awakeat2oclock.com.

Your Exit Map has been praised by leading authors of business books, as well as the CEOs of business owner organizations.

In his books and articles, John F. Dini has long been one of the most reliable sources of wisdom for entrepreneurs, especially those preparing to transition out of their companies. With Your Exit Map, he has written another book that manages to be both entertaining and informative.
~ Bo Burlingham, author of Finish Big and Small Giants

Your Exit Map is a fantastic and necessary read for anyone who is looking to sell their business successfully. It is full of great content that will no doubt be valuable to anyone who is either in the process of selling their business, or considering their exit strategy. John Dini has demonstrated great value in his previous books, and this one is no exception.
~ Jason P. Zickerman, President and CEO, The Alternative Board International

Your Exit Map is an eye opener. It’s a must read for any business owner who wonders why he or she should be planning ahead for an exit. Most struggle with the exit phase. This book is a road map for getting it right”.
~ Gino Wickman, Author of Traction and Creator of EOS

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780979053153
Publisher:	Gardendale Press
Publication date:	05/31/2017
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John F. Dini CMBA, CExP President, MPN Incorporated John F. Dini is a consultant and coach to hundreds of business owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs, His book Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur, won "Best Business Book" at the New York Book Festival and the National Silver Medal for business books from the Independent Publishers' Association. He is also the author of Beating the Boomer Bust and 11 Things You Absolutely Need to Know About Selling Your Business, now in its second edition. John holds a BS in Accounting from Rutgers University, and an MBA from Pepperdine University, along with six additional business certifications. John writes numerous articles on exit strategy for newspapers, trade magazines, and in his own blog "Awake at 2 o'clock?" He is a 15-year member of Jim Blasingame's "Braintrust," appearing regularly on "The Small Business Advocate" nationally syndicated radio program, as an expert in the issues of business ownership. John also speaks to regional and national groups of business owners and their advisors. The message of Your Exit Map: Navigating the Boomer Bust is available as a keynote presentation for business owners and their advisors. Please inquire through www.johnfdini.com. John also takes a limited number of consulting engagements with mid-market companies investigating their options for internal transfer at www.mpninc.com. You can subscribe to John Dini's blog about planning your exit at www.awakeat2oclock.com.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Style Note

Part One: The Unstoppable Force that is the Baby Boom

1.1 The Tsunami

1.2 The Multiplier Effect: Television

1.3 The Economic Mother Load

1.4 The Speed of Change

1.5 “I am what I do.”

1.6 “I am what I own.”

Part Two: The Small Business Boom

2.1 The Entrepreneurial Surge

2.2 The Outsourcing of Family Life

2.3 The Rise of Franchising

2.4 The Baby Bust

Part Three: The Marketplace

3.1 Your Buyers

Why Not Millennials?

The Perfect Storm

3.2 Psychographic Factors

Values

Life Objectives

Financial Habits

3.3 Demographic Factors

Size Matters

A Great Sucking Sound

Supply and Demand

3.4 Sociographic Factors

The Benefits Battle

3.5 The Law-driven Society

3.6 Disintermediation

3.7 Entitlements

3.8 The Generation X Business Buyer

Part Four: Winning Starts with a Plan

4.1 What the Heck is Exit Planning?

4.2 The Last Competition

4.3 The Basics of Planning

Triangulation

Valuation

Multiples of What?

Add-Backs

4.4 Classes of Buyers

Entrepreneurial

Industry Buyers

Financial Buyers

Strategic Buyers

4.5 The Neutral Zone

Part Five: Beating the Boomer Bust

5.1 Understanding the Odds

"How do you know?"

"How many businesses will be sold?"

"When will the crisis hit?"

5.2 Eyes on the Prize

5.3 Preparing Yourself

Moving Forward

Lifestyle or Legacy?

Disclosure

Life After the Business

Family Businesses

5.4 Along the Way

Employees as Buyers

5.5 Growth Strategies

Value Drivers

Strategic Growth Systems

Acquisitions

5.6 Third-Party Buyer Design

Main Street Entrepreneurs

Industry Buyers

Professional Investors

Strategic Buyers

5.7 Internal Sales

Leveraged Buyouts

Employee Ownership Incentives

ESOP

Hybrid Buyouts

Family Succession

Hard to Sell Companies

5.8 The Art of the Deal

Price

Due Diligence

Transition

Post-Closing

Handcuffs

5.9 Confidentiality

Round One

Round Two

Round Three

5.10 Building a Team

5.11 Why Start an Exit Plan?

Post Script

Getting Started

About the Author

Interview Questions

A Glossary of Exit Planning Terms

Picture Index

Editorial Reviews

In his books and articles, John F. Dini has long been one of the most reliable sources of wisdom for entrepreneurs, especially those preparing to transition out of their companies. With Your Exit Map, he has written another book that manages to be both entertaining and informative.

~ Bo Burlingham, author of Finish Big and Small Giants

Your Exit Map is a fantastic and necessary read for anyone who is looking to sell their business successfully. It is full of great content that will no doubt be valuable to anyone who is either in the process of selling their business, or considering their exit strategy. John Dini has demonstrated great value in his previous books, and this one is no exception.

~ Jason P. Zickerman, President and CEO, The Alternative Board International

Your Exit Map is an eye opener. It’s a must read for any business owner who wonders why he or she should be planning ahead for an exit. Most struggle with the exit phase. This book is a road map for getting it right”.

Gino Wickman, Author of Traction and Creator of EOS

Working with thousands of entrepreneurs, I can tell you the coming crisis is REAL. Your Exit Map is a timely and needed call to action for business owners everywhere to play offense before reality puts you in a costly defense position around stewarding what is typically your greatest legacy asset.

~ Mike Sharrow, President & CEO, The C12 Group

From the Publisher