Ivan and Mariana Polic: From Burnout to Profitable Exit

Discover the surprising twist that helped a burned-out business owner successfully exit their company, even after failing twice before. Learn how a simple change in perspective transformed their business and how you can do the same. Find out the unexpected solution that turned their business around and led to a victorious exit.

Have you reached the point in your business journey where it feels like that just everything in the business just happens around you, requires your input, all the decisions made by yourself or your other founders in the business, and that the team just rely on you to get involved in everything? In this conversation on the Exit Insights podcast, I’m talking to Mariana and Ivan Polic, and this is exactly what they experienced. It was stressing him out, running the business. It was causing a lot of pressure. On his family, and it just came to a point where he just couldn’t take it anymore. And he figured that something had to change. We explored what he changed, what was the realization, what happened, and how it transformed the business and the culture of the business. And Ivan and Mariana share in detail what they did and how they dug themselves out of the hole they were in. Now they’re helping other business owners from what they learned along the way. It’s a great episode and I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to the podcast that’s dedicated to helping business owners prepare for exit so you can maximize the valuation and then exit on your terms. This is the Exit Insights podcast presented by Succession Plus. I’m Darrell Bates-Brownsword, and today I’ve got a husband and wife team joining me. I’ve got Mariana and Ivan Pollack. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks. Thanks for having us.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Great stuff. Now, guys, you’ve got an interesting exit story, haven’t you? You’ve and I just remember now preamble that you threw a couple of things out there. So some exciting stuff. So why don’t you give us the background of a little bit about the business that you used to run and just how that’s set up, because you have had a successful exit, and that’s the story we want to tell. And then we’ll get into what you learned along the way of your exit journey and what you’re doing about it now. So let’s start with some background.

Thank you. So it was a very difficult, demanding. Business we were running. It was an aerospace manufacturing firm, and we were cutting metal to mission critical parts for the aerospace industry, for commercial airliners. Lots of stress, 24/7 operation, things going wrong overnight all the time, you know. Lots and lots of difficulty. I was very overworked and stressed out and at some point I realized, like I drove up to the building and I was, I couldn’t get out of the car. It was, you know, couldn’t get out of the car into my own business. It was a very, very stressful time. And I realized that if I keep going like this, I’m either going to have a heart attack or stroke or something because I was carrying the entire thing and stressing out over it. So from that moment, we kind of turned over a new leaf and we. Put all our energy into investing and getting our team in place, getting everybody on the same page, lifting their capacity for leadership, and changing the culture of everybody waiting for me on key decisions and all the problems.

And gradually, we held a daily morning meeting for about three years straight without ever missing it. And through that whole journey, we were able to build a team that was able to independently run the business without us. At that point, we were maybe working two to 3 hours a week.

Wow.

And from that moment on, a year or two after that, we decided to sell all together. And that was a journey. Throughout about a 15 year journey of running this business, we tried to exit three times, and third time was the charm. The previous two times, we were not really quite ready. Both of those adventures ended during due diligence. And so you could say we failed due diligence twice. So we got a lot of experience on what to do there and how. How to get it right finally, so. We can share some of those. And that was our journey. And lots and lots of lots and lots of learning.

Brilliant. So let’s just dig in and get a little bit of magnitude about the business so that those who are listening can figure out how to relate to it. So did you start the business yourselves?

No, we didn’t start the business we acquired the business about 15 years ago.

Okay. And how big was it when you acquired it? And a number of people is fine. Just to give us the magnitude.

I think we had about 25 people.

Yeah, 25. And 15 years later, when you exited, how many were in the business then?

110.

Wow. So you grew it nearly five times in terms of the number of people. And in a manufacturing business, I imagine that also included a heck of a lot of plant and equipment, um, investment over the times and location and premises as well.

Yeah, we were in a 30,000 square feet building. We had about 50 CNC machines that were very high tech. And it was. It was  kind of call the business a monster because it was a monster for the demand it had on everyone to make sure it run properly.

That everything is going to run properly. And we ran a 24/7 operation for many, many years. So getting through the week and getting everything covered was quite an adventure.

You’re taking me back, right back to my early days when I first started consulting, and I’m talking like 20 years ago. I worked with a client who did exactly that in Adelaide in Australia.

They worked in the military and aerospace industries and fighter planes. And I remember just being blown away of what he could do on these, I think, five access CNC machines. He was telling me about the precision that he had to work to which caused all the stress and putting a 1 mm hole in a piece of aluminum and then putting a thread in that hole. I just remember being like, that’s jeweler precision, if not more. And they’re doing this in a machine. The workshop was amazing. It was an all white painted floor. You could eat your meals off the floor of that workshop. And that’s. Well, this guy had an attention to detail second to none. 

So I can imagine the work environment. And is what I’m describing. You’re nodding. Is that similar to what the operation you had?

Yes, that’s very, very similar. Tolerances on the parts that we were running were less than a hair, so. You had to get it right. Lots of those tricky holes and threads and things. And so in an ever more demanding aerospace industry, that just continues to raise the standards on quality without really rewarding it with additional price. So quite a scramble.

And I can relate to the stress because I imagine the failure rate was reasonable as well, and therefore having to rework and that would impact capacity and workloads and overruns and I imagine in contracts with all those sort of organizations, this huge sort of penalties on overruns and all just building up to the stress.

So you got to the point where you’ve gone, I just don’t want to be here anymore, and put your head in the car park. So when you reach that point, and I’ve seen it in a number of business owners, they’re just so stressed to the point. And I’ve even heard business owners say, look, Darrell, I don’t care. I give the business away just to walk away from all this stress. And did you reach that point?

Yeah, it was very, very difficult. I mean, there wasn’t. I mean, if I could walk away, maybe I would, but there was no there was no way to walk away.

Yeah.

There was no way to walk away. There was no one to that could pick this up. And I just had to. I had to find a find a way to get everything organized enough that I could then do it.

Okay, so you’d reached rock bottom, shall we say. Who did you turn to? How did you know what to do? Like, you knew that you’d reach the point where you’ve gone, I can’t carry on like this. I need to do something different instead. Like, was there any help available?

Yes, I actually, I actually. The biggest, biggest breakthrough that I received. Was from a systemic consultant, and we did an exercise, actually, where. I was very identified with the business, and I was very entangled with the business, if you would. My identity and the business identity were one fused one. And then I almost felt like I was doing surgery on myself. And so they always say, tell the surgeons, never operate on yourself or your family. I was doing that for many years, and we did an exercise that actually freed me up quite a bit, and. It was quite, quite innovative. And from that point forward, I had more space to operate and utilize the things I already knew.

So I would call that inner world shift. I had an inner world shift that. Then enabled my other skills and abilities to come through fully. But I was prior to that, I was taking everything personally.

Yeah.

And I was carrying everything personally. And every mistake and every. Everything that went well or wrong, it. was all up to me, and I was internalizing all of that. And that was the biggest difference. Mariana was hugely helpful in this regard because she, her role was as the chief cultural officer.

So when I finally had my shift, Mariana and I were able to partner. And have a huge cultural shift of the entire organization from being owner centered to team centered. And that’s what enabled the ultimate exit to be possible.

So you’d reach the point where, and I’ve heard other business owners say this to us, where they go, look, Darryl, I’m running the business. I’m living the journey far more intensely than I ever did as an employee, because I’ve got all of my personally, I am the business. I identify the business as me. I’m making all the decisions. So, therefore, every decision I make, I need to paint over it to get the right decision. Oh, and by the way, I’ve got my houses double mortgaged up to fund the business, so it feels like I’m really locked in and there’s no way out.

So, yeah, they just lived the journey, and they just go everything is far more intense, and it feels like I’ve got a laser spotlight just on me. So it. When you’re in that situation, it’s really hard to look out and go, well, I just need to make some shifts. I’ve got to change the focus and get the focus off me and get the management team, you know? And it just like it says in all those good business books, and it’s really easy to say how hard was it to actually make that shift and make those baby steps at the time?

Yeah. I think that somehow I woke up to the fact that if I keep going like this, there’s going to be a major, major consequence that I couldn’t undo. My help was gonna suffer.  And that’s the sad part about it. Lots and lots of business owners, after a 40 year career, their reward is either a heart attack or a business. They have to give away because there’s no one else around. You know, they never actually make the leap out of the being identified with it. And with their demise, the business is done. And so that was very possible for me in that moment. And somehow I realized that I had  to change. Otherwise it was going to be a major problem.

Yeah. And when I did, I started consciously not, not doing things and not, not actually executing things that I could. And actually creating the space for other people to be able to and before that, I was everywhere. So there was no space for development of other people. And because of that, there was no development and no progress there.

Yeah. And I’m sure at the time you thought you were helping when you were.

I was. I was very productive.

Really helpful guy. You’re everywhere. You’re helping everyone.

Yes, I was very, very helpful. I was very productive, and I was actually constraining the business tremendously. I was being the bottleneck of the business.

Okay. And so you had this, my words, epiphany, where you realize that, yeah, I just have to change. We have to change if things are going to go on. Was there anything guiding you? Where were you getting your inspiration from?

Well, like I said, I had, I had that. We started digging into more and more of the kind of inner world work where what is actually the obstacle here? What is the hidden dynamic that is actually running the. Running the situations? What are the patterns, my inner patterns. That were affecting the situation? And with that kind of inner world work, I was able to see and create more space. And that was, I think, the biggest opening because on the business side of things, I had a lot more skill and tools because I was, part of, also over an advisory board of directors. So I had all the skills and tools. I just wasn’t able to utilize them because of my because of my identity.

Yeah.

I was using them as a from a perspective of an individual rather than a whole business. You know, zoomed out perspective.

You knew what to do, but there was something that was stopping you from doing it. And if I’m understanding, you started working on yourself first.

Correct.

And your behaviors and your beliefs around what was your usually limiting beliefs? What was stopping you from doing things or stopping you from not doing things and getting out of the way and trusting those people that you had employed and then getting out of the way and allowing yourself to not get back in the way. But I’m imagining it there was a bit more involved than that you had to give them some sort of framework, some guidance on how you wanted them to do things as you were backing out of the trench, so to speak.

Maybe you can share about the meetings and the early start and how did it all feel for the organization?

Well, yeah, I can speak for the organization and the people and all of that, and kind of is more side like a witness to it. You know, even though I was there with him every step of the way, it was the biggest responsibility was on his shoulders, on Ivan’s shoulders. And I could kind of witness, you know, with him being in the trenches and, you know, that this is all for, as well as for spouses at home. You know, even whether you’re working in your business, with your partner, whether that’s a husband or wife or you don’t, you know, you kind of share that burden, and sometimes, you know, a lot, sometimes you don’t. But you instinctively feel that, you know, just the, the complexity of it all and how heavy and vast the burden is. And, you know, when Ivan talked about being identified with the business, that very much was shown in him, carrying it all and doing it all and thinking for everybody. And the more he was identified, the less space was for others to step in, not necessarily me, but the rest of the team.

Well, why would I want to do anything? Why would I want to make a decision? Why would I take initiative if, you know, if he’s going to do it anyways and it’s going to be on him? So, you know, when that internal shift for him changed, I also noticed that changing for the rest of the team because they then felt that there was more room for them to step in and start making decisions and start taking responsibility for it. And, you know, in those early days, when we established those early meetings at 09:00 a.m. When we had all the heads of the departments and the lead, you know, kind of like the lower and middle management as well as top management, you know, those meetings used to, you know, take like an hour and a half because it was so new and people were very quiet. In the beginning, it was only Ivan speaking and me a little bit and a lot of teachable moments, but people were kind of afraid to step in because they didn’t know how would that look like? But then the more Ivan was teaching and mentoring and stepping away, the more they were kind of starting to contribute and to take responsibility. And, you know, we went from, you know, having those meetings for an hour and a half to down to, you know, 15, 20 minutes, quick check ins unless there’s something to deal with. And they were also, the team was self initiating and self maintaining those meetings and leading them and facilitating them.

So, you know, at one point, they didn’t even notice whether Ivan was there or not because they got it. They completely got it, and they were happy. There was an energy uplift when they were able to step in.

So I’ve heard people say that culture can be a competitive advantage. It can also be a disadvantage. In your experience, how long did it take to change the culture from that micro managing, frustrating leader culture through to the management team running the business itself and you guys operating in what sounds like to be in a chairman type of role?

Well, I think within a few weeks. Few months, excuse me, within a few weeks and months, you can make a big, big shift on the culture side. For us all together. For us to be not, not on site, it took probably nine months or so. It took us maybe three years altogether to exit.

Yeah.

So that’s the kind of timeframe also, it depends on your current state of your culture. How ingrained was this? Is this culture? This organization had a kind of a systemic history of one person carrying the whole load. And so if the organizational memory, if you would, has one person carrying the. Whole load, then it might take a little longer to share the load. One quick story on this was we had one of the main, most important customers decide that their upper management decided that they’re going to want zero defect product. All of a sudden, somebody had a good idea to have zero defect product line in something that has been worked on for 60 years, which is a mission impossible. So we get this directive and it’s like, you either do this or we have to go elsewhere. And so we had to, literally, in the middle of this culture shift. We had to do this kind of major zero defect. Literally we were rebuilding the engine while the plane was flying.

That’s kind of how it felt because we had thousands and thousands of parts that used to be good, are no longer good. And thousands of parts every day coming through the line that we were not sure if they’re good or not good rework of epic proportions. 100% inspection.

It was a zoo. And during this, during this time, and we tried to find the solution, and I tried to find the solution, and finally, I walked into one of those meetings and I said, guys, if I knew how to solve this, I would have already solved it. So if we’re gonna even have a shot at solving this, because without solving this, we don’t have a business. I think we’re gonna go out of business because this customer is way too important, and we have to solve this. If we do solve this, we’re going to be in great shape, but if we don’t, we’re dead.

And I don’t know what to do here. So it’s going to be. If we do solve it, it’s going to be all of us putting our energy together to come up with a way to do this.

And that  was the first, I think that was the leadership in the unknown that. I wasn’t even aware of, that I was doing a kind of a vulnerable admission or acknowledgement of the fact that this thing is not going to be solved by anyone person. It’s an impossible task. And with that, I think that was another impulse in the culture shift that made a huge difference. Obviously, we ended up solving the problem. And ended up getting close to the zero defect. Close enough. And we were able to use that as a big proof of concept of the team, team becoming a lot more prominent and more important than just me.

So, guys, this is the first time. I’ve interviewed lots of business owners who have had a similar story of transition, of being stuck deep in a hole, of going, I need to make some changes and get out. A lot of them have had the help from a business coach or a consultant or using a methodology such as E myth or traction or some sort of framework that just guides you through really simplifying what we tend to make really complicated on our own.

This is the first time where someone’s really said, and look, hey. And this is me paraphrasing, but where someone said, hey, look, I hold my hand up. The problem is me. I’m the problem in the business. The whole reflection of the business, of the way I’m showing up as the leader, as the owner of the business, I’ve got to change to allow the rest of the organization to change. And that’s, I think, refreshing, because we always know that the business is a reflection of the owners anyway, but for the owners to come to that awareness and drive that change. Self supported, if I’m understanding. So kudos there, guys. What I’d like to do now is, I think, just go, okay, so acknowledging that, and I imagine there’s a whole lot of management systems and processes and all of what I might group into the normal stuff that is covered, and we’ve covered that many times already on the podcast.

But what happened? So you’ve made the changes. You’ve brought the management team in. You’re now operating as a team rather than an individual. And I like saying business as a team based sport. Talk us through, if you like, why the first two due diligence has failed. Before we jump into what you’re getting involved in now, and sort of like, because most people only get one opportunity, one bite of the cherries. So you did something clever to orchestrate a couple more opportunities. And if you can just share some of the lessons, mainly from those failures.

Well, a lot of people won’t tell you that they failed twice because they’re ashamed of it.

Yeah, that’s true, too.

Yeah. You know, that’s why our clients love us, because, you know, we’re honest. And when we tell them, they. They’re like, I want to work with you because I need to know.

Yeah.

I want to work with you because you failed. Well, yes, we did. We did. You know, we were not, we were not quite ready. The business that we were running had tremendous amount of risk. And when we were going through it the first time, the risk became apparent, which negatively affected the valuation, which changed the calculation for us tremendously. And we realized that if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to do it right, and we’re going to have to reduce the risk. Part of the risk was, I was a big risk. There was a concentration of customers. There’s a risk. So we had quite a bit of work to do. We also had a very unique. That’s the first failure. The second failure was around how we were accounting for inventory. So we had a very entrepreneurial way of doing this, and we were accounting for it on the value that the parts had we never lost inventory, actually, customers. We had long term relationships with customers that were 20, 30 years. So we had actual value on the shelf. And during the second due diligence process we got in an argument around that. Our way of doing it made a tremendous amount of sense that, to me, made sense because I knew exactly all the intricacies to someone new a buyer who is looking at reducing risk and calculating for risk. They couldn’t understand my view on it. And so that was the second failure. So we had to find a way to make it more of a redo the books over several years and to account for things a more conventional way. And finally, on the third try, by that time, the culture shift was already happening. The operations were independent of us completely. And that reduced the risk tremendously. We still had the concentration situation, but. we covered that with contracts, long term contracts and a very, very solid relationship.

So we were able to take a very difficult business for exit and turn it into a very viable transaction. And private equity, actually, a financial buyer bought us and they said that this. Is the best culture and theme that they’ve ever acquired. And our transition process from the sale we had an argument around how long we’re going to stay during the transition. And they said, oh, we need you for six months. We said, we’re not we’re not there in operations. You don’t need us. You know, we’re not going to stay. They said, well, we can’t do the deal. And then we changed our mind. We’re like, oh, maybe we can stay a little bit. So he said, how about two days a week? We’ll come two days a week and support the transition. They said, okay, let’s do that for six months. In the third week of the six month transition, on our 6th day, they brought us into the conference room and boardroom and they said, you know, you told us we didn’t need you, but. You know, we can see after these three weeks that we really don’t need you. Thank you so much. And that was, that was two years ago. I think we’ve had two conversations since then with the buyer of our business. So things, they really didn’t need us.

Can you imagine how you would have felt around the time you were trying to sell the business the first time if someone came up to you and said, Ivan, we don’t need you in the business?

Well, that would have been interesting. I would have probably taken that when I was really in the parking lot. But yeah, for someone to say that would be a huge risk. It would have to be someone, an insider of some kind that’s very, very familiar with that. And it still would have been probably a disaster for them because I was way too important to get rid of me. And the people that were present on the ground were not equipped to deal with what they needed to deal with.

Yeah, it’s the classic in the early days of that business, a massive gap in capability between the owner and the next layer. And part of that is down to the owner’s ego or pride. That word’s already come up today of the business needs me. I’m important to this business. This business couldn’t function without me. And that sense of being needed and being part of something is what we seek. But you realize, you know, all successful businesses owners need to at some point that it’s actually the other way around.

And the journey I see is often it’s a bit like being a teenage male. And as we’re those teenage males, and you’re smiling, Ivan, because I think maybe you’ve been there as a teenage male is we go through that journey and in those late teenage years, we’re defining ourselves and understanding who we are, and we’re not actually looking for guidance or feedback or consulting at that stage. We’re trying to figure it all out for ourselves. And depending on how mature we are and how quickly we mature, we get to those early twenties or late teens where we start to think, well, hey, perhaps the old man, or getting input or those that have been there before me aren’t so silly after all. And getting input is actually quite helpful.

And as a business owner, the equivalent is we’re bringing consultants into. I don’t have to do it all myself. I can just steer and guide and be captain of the ship, rather than the captain and every other role on the ship at the same time. So it is a learning journey, much like life, and there’s correlations there, and extracting ourselves out of the business is really easy to say, but takes about three years to really complete and transform that culture to the point where the business really doesn’t need you. So congratulations.

Thank you.

So apart from the work you did personally, and understanding that you were the block and you were the one getting in the way, and your style and your behavior was holding everyone from reaching their potential. Apart from the behavioral side of things, what was the most important thing, if you can pin it down, you’ve mentioned the meetings, but was there anything else that you see is the most important structural or management system or tool that you introduced into the business?

What we found is that usually there is founder business owner who has built and grown the business to a point where they are very important. And that dependence in the business owner’s mind, they think there’s no way like, I know the sales and I know the operations and I know, the technical side. And, you know, if I’m looking for a successor, there isn’t another one like me. I mean, there is. I can’t find. I mean, like I’m a unicorn. What am I gonna do? I mean, how I’m gonna. Who’s gonna do this? There’s not a person on the planet that has this set of skills.

And so what we, what we really, what we really used was a kind of a, a triad of leaders, if you would, you know. So we have found out through our own journey and through helping other people. As well, make the same shift, that. It takes three to five people, to anyone, Michael Jordan of business that is there on the ground. So probably they’re correct in saying that they are unicorn. And because of that, spreading the workload across the business and across those functions to several people, that reduces the burden of the stress. How did this come about? Well, we tried to get a person that is going to take over and then it didn’t work and they burnt out. We realized that the burnout was happening. Faster and faster because the business was growing and growing more and more. The demands were higher and so we finally put together a group of people that were going to take over. And that’s what made the biggest difference. I recommend a book called Tribal Leadership that covers actually this triad method, if you would. Triad of leaders. They say that the three people is the minimum number for a stable, stable organizational structure. And so when you have one, it’s not that great. When you have two, usually is like up one upmanship against, you know, I’m great and you’re not great type of thing. And we are great is only possible with three.

Yeah. So we’re back to that team based culture. Culture of keeping each other accountable, working together. And three, I often see that the management team with three heads is typically finance, marketing and sales and operations as the third one, you get those three skill sets. They’re complementary and they work together, and that’s often the three things that the owners were doing. Burning the candle at all ends and sides and everything together, holding it all together, doing the work of ten people.

Okay, so we’ve now implemented some disciplines, some structures. We’ve got the business operating as you like it. Third time’s a charm. You managed to get the PE to buy it, and after six days or three weeks, they said, thanks for coming, we wanted you for six months, but, yeah, we really don’t need you anymore.

You can on your way, guys. You’ve now got five months up your sleeve to what you thought, what are you working on now? How do you keep yourselves busy? You still look young. I imagine you’re not spending all your time playing golf.

What is it you’re up to nowadays?

Yeah. So during our transition, and when we were working only 2 hours a week. Or so, we already thought that. I think the next thing to do for us would be helping people make this transition that we made similarly to what we did. And some unique things emerged from that process that we wanted to share with other people. We could see definitely the need. A lot of people, a lot of business owners would get stuck. Like, we got stuck. So, having gone through it, having figured out some things, we wanted to share that through our, you know, sitting on these advisory boards, we got a lot of skill around supporting people, going through processes. So that was. That was a big part of it, and we were doing some of that work in parallel. The more time we were freeing up, the more work of that kind we were doing, to the point where going into our manufacturing business became a difficult thing for me. And I knew if I was there, that I realized that that particular business was benefiting from my absence.

And because he was benefiting from my absence, I decided to stay away consciously. I would be getting daily reports. We built a daily P and L. I was, you know, very intimately aware of everything that was going on. And I could  respond to things remotely just from the reports we built and the dashboards we created. And so at some point, I was like, okay. I wake up in the morning, and. I’m like, okay, do I go in today or do I not go in? And inside of me be like, all this fight, you know? What kind of man are you? You’re not going to go to work today? Are you serious? What kind of. What kind of. What kind of human. What kind of man. What kind of man are you? I had all this inner dialogue of this, and I would be like, well, I am a different kind of man. I would just keep talking to myself this way because it was an inner. Inner, inner struggle of that old identity that I had to be there.

So now you’re going through a different type of stress.

That’s correct. And so that was a major transition for us. And then our ingenuous solution came out. I think Mariana came up with it. Where you want to share how we. How. Which one? I came up with a lot of genius solutions. Which one are you referring to? Yes, she did. She did.

So she had us going back into the old business. All right. The consultant thing. Yeah, she’ll share this one. This is. This one was great. So, yeah, the more we were engaged in helping others, because we already kind of acquired some clients. We were teaching at the local university in the family business dynamics class. We got invited to several presentations on other universities interstate here in the United States. The more we were doing that, the more we were kind of attracted and finding our soul’s purpose and feeding our souls, you know, seeing the results and all of that, the less we were inclined to, you know, go to the business daily. And then also even on those days that we were supposed to go. And, you know, on one of those days, we we were coming in, and it was particularly hard for both of us. And even though the team got it and everything, we still wanted to, you know, see them. And then Ivan goes, you know, so what are we going to do?

How are we going to organize a day? And, you know, we kind of both were not excited to get out of the car. And I said, well, what if we walked in there like consultants? What if we treated your own business? Exactly.

Our own business

And our own team. What if we treated it as consultants? Which meant not just. Which meant, for the most part, removing ourselves kind of, you know, from it and, you know, getting a different perspective and making it easier for ourselves and for people inside. And that tremendously, in that moment, changed the energy of how we felt, you know, physically, mentally and emotionally.

And the moment we stepped into that door, we actually saw the business in a different way. And we saw just how far we’ve come. And that we saw that it almost as though we were invisible. People were just doing things on their own. And that’s when we realized we’re not needed and we’re better off serving as consultants and advisors someplace else.

So you’re really, really able to detach yourselves at that point and take that 30,000 foot view or have a look from the outside in without the attachment. So there’s a real turning point.

I think, that felt like the final detachment. That was the final little bit of detachment that we had, and then we. Were done, but then we still had to do a transaction, which is a whole another ballgame. So it’s consultants. Yeah, it was. It was. It was a party that it’s still, the process has a lot of. A lot of pitfalls. It’s kind of a minefield.

So, yeah, we talk about, yeah, the. Owners need to be exit ready. The business needs to be ready for exit, and then the numbers have got to work, and you got to get all those three things working, those three areas working and adding up before a deal is going to happen. And if the owners are ready and the business isn’t ready, well, that’s not going to happen. Or if the business are ready and the owners are still hanging on, they’re not ready. Well, that’s not going to happen. And if the owners are ready and the business are ready, but the numbers just aren’t right, well, then they’re going to hang on until the numbers are right.

You got to get all those three areas working and adding up for a deal to work, and then you got to get all the details behind all of that. It’s not just that emotional piece as you identified. You still got to sign the paperwork and go through due diligence and demonstrate that you have addressed all the risks and reduced all the risks for the owners so they know what they’re getting. Otherwise, they’re going to say, we need you in there for not just six months, but three years making sure that that revenue comes in as per the forecast.

That’s a big obstacle. A lot of people that stops a lot of people because they cannot imagine them becoming an employee. After building a business for 40, 30 years, decades, and then all of a sudden they have to answer and take commands from, from somebody else that.

Exactly.

That stops people from doing it. And the way to go past that would be to build a team that’s functioning independently of you.

Yeah.

That way you don’t have to stay on.

Exactly.

So using also for the.  Sorry to interrupt. It becomes also confusing for the employees. You know, when you. Okay, so what is it like? We sold it, but you were still here and who’s the boss? And, you know, they still are not able to step in if the owner stays afterwards.

That’s a really good point because new owners have come in and they’re legally in control of the business. But the employees have got loyalty to the old owner and they’ve got commitment to them and they’ve got emotional control. And that’s often another contributing factor as to why earn outs just don’t work. And I’ve seen the goalpost shift, the energy of the owners going, well, new owners, I can’t be an employee. They’ve lost their mojo. And it’s one of the reasons why at Succession Plus we do what we do to help as many business owners as we can get ready so they don’t need an earn out. And it sounds like that’s what you’re focusing on as well now.

Yeah, that’s what we’re focusing on, where. We’ve launched a new brand called jumpstart your exit. So helping business owners Jumpstart Your Exit. Is for business owners who want to strategically exit in three to five years. Create their lucrative exit and create the freedom that they want, that they deserve. So that’s the newest thing that we are focusing on. We’re getting a lot of really great results with that kind of approach preparing the organization holistically across all those different shifts. We call it the three shifts, inner world shift, the operations system shift, and the marketplace shift. Those are the three shifts that we focus on, on getting a business ready and getting everything organized. And so it’s so great to have a conversation with you, Darryl, because clearly you have made a lot of difference for business owners in our shoes. And it’s a pleasure to share our story with you and your listeners. And, you know, from the wealth of knowledge that’s on your, on your website. And our previous episode, it’s a tremendous service that you are providing to the, to the world out there.

Thank you. So, guys, you’ve got, we’ll put all of your contact details in the show notes that we’ll have on the website. So how they can contact you if they want to learn more, if they’re manufacturing expertise, by the sounds of it, and they want to create that exit, they feel stuck. They want to learn from someone who’s earned their stripes by failing several times. First, they can get in touch with you, but by way of wrapping up this conversation, is there one thing, or how would you like listeners to remember this call this podcast episode. How would you like them to, what’s the takeaway? If you like that you want them to remember.

I’d love to say that no matter how dire the situation is, no matter how bad things are, no matter how deep the hole is, no matter what feelings you’re carrying, it is possible. And I can tell you that I was in a very, very dark place, and I didn’t think that it was possible part of the reason why I didn’t do more about it, because I didn’t think it was possible. So I want to say that no matter how bad your situation is, if you make a decision and you make a commitment, you can improve it tremendously. There’s plentiful information available. You can make the change that is needed, and you can improve your situation tremendously. And you can actually have a crowning moment of your career and your journey or transition out of it in an honorable and lucrative way. And come out victorious, if you would, from and that was my situation. I kind of worked myself into a major problem with a very, very good intentions, and I can imagine other people are in could be in that same spot. And I’m telling you here, having lived it, that it’s possible. And you can do it, too. With with some intention and some focus and some commitment, you can come out victorious, too.

That’s brilliant. I can’t add to that, guys. Thank you. It’s a great story, and it’s a story of encouragement. And, yeah, if you put the work in, you can dig yourself out of that hole and have a successful exit and exit on your terms. That’s fantastic. Thanks, Mariana and Ivan, for joining me on the Exit Insights podcast.

Thank you, Darryl. Thanks for having us.