Why your strategies are failing you (5/24/25)

My team recently sat down with a retiring local business owner as she prepares to sell the business and land.

Unfortunately, her business and the land under it are worth just a fraction of what she estimated the value to be. 

Her dreams feel crushed, and she now has a crucial decision to make.

This woman is not alone.

Many business owners, entrepreneurs, and real estate professionals work an entire lifetime, only to discover they were simply working a job.

They start a business for the greater good. 

They work, putting in their blood, sweat, and tears, for an entire lifetime. 

They earn a decent living. 

In the end, eight out of ten businesses are sold for much less than the owner anticipated, if sold at all.

In the real estate sales business, many agents simply close up shop.

Tens of thousands of agents are expected to leave the industry this year, in part based on shifting market conditions and increased regulatory pressures, and in part as a talented generation becomes closer to retirement age.

The pressure on all business owners is a great challenge with great opportunity.

The pressure offers a turning point.

Continue the status quo, or begin to create a new way of thinking.

Here are three ways you can think differently and create long term strategies that work.

First, create a long term vision for your business (and life).

Where do you see your business five years, ten years, or even twenty years from now?

Will you be working in the business, or will you be a visionary, allowing other people to step in and do the day to day work?

What type of lifestyle do you want?

How much time do you want to spend working?

What do you want your daily schedule to look like?

Second, think seriously about your future exit plan.

Is your business model sustainable for the long term?

Have you created vertical aspects in your business to generate money into the future?

For example - products, services, revenue share options, or technologies?

These are just starting places as you think about diversifying your income streams.

Will you be selling your business?

Will your children be taking it over?

Will you want to have a second in command that will be able to keep the business running?

As you think about these questions, you can then reverse engineer a plan, to place your business in a better position to win in the long term.

Third, innovate and experiment like a mad scientist.

Consider your customer success path, and build systems to keep clients engaged and doing business with you on a recurring basis.

Is there a way you can add an extra revenue source to better meet their needs.

Experiment with your marketing systems.

Which systems are currently generating the most business?

How can you continue to optimize those systems?

Be constantly engaged in the data.

Understand the trends.

Understand shifting consumer needs.

What will your industry environment look like five years from now?

Begin innovating now to find out what works, and always be thinking two steps ahead.

Pivoting is a necessary part of business.

Experimenting can ultimately produce big rewards.

Test on a daily basis.

Think of the heartbreak of the business owner who is at the end of their career and discovers their strategies failed them.

Just like with the anti-vision, recognize the real pain that comes with being ill prepared for the future, and begin building strategies that serve you today, and allow you to be forward thinking.

1. Create a long term vision for your business (and life). 

2. Think seriously about your exit plan. 

3. Innovate and experiment as a way of life.

Your future self will thank you for creating strategies that serve you.