How Women Entrepreneurs Should Prepare To Sell A Business

Forbes

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May 24, 2018

by

Kerry Hannon Kerry Hannon , Contributor

A friend of mine, Wendy Volhard, recently sold her pet food business, Volhard Dog Nutrition. Since I’ve been writing about entrepreneurship for women over 50 lately, the passing of Volhard’s baton got me thinking about the question of how women should prepare to sell a business.

And that led me to speak with Matt Hansen, a Certified Financial Planner and exit planning adviser with UBS Financial Services, Inc., based in San Diego, to get his advice for boomer and Gen X women looking to sell their businesses in the next few years (you’ll see my interview with him below).

Volhard, a renowned dog trainer and author, developed the recipe for her natural dehydrated dog food 40 years ago. Its creation and success has been her legacy. (In full disclosure, my Labrador retriever, Zena, dines on it daily.) I haven’t spoken to my friend since the sale, but knowing her, I imagine it was an emotional, if practical decision. She’s now in her mid-70s and her husband, Jack, who was also an expert in dog training and author, died about a year and a half ago after a long illness.

Often, entrepreneurs like Volhard see their business as their identity, their passion, their contribution to the world. Stepping away can be wrenching. But if done properly, it can be financially rewarding and, yes, liberating.

For many entrepreneurs, “the business is their retirement plan,” David Deeds, the Schulze Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, told me when I interviewed him for a column on retirement plans for small business owners. “The plan is that when they retire, they are either going to transfer the business to a family member in exchange for a share of future wealth or a buyout or they are going to sell it off and turn that into cash.”
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