HOW IS IT THAT SOME PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESSES END UP with terrific new majority owners, the Entrepreneur Owner-Managers (EOMs) moving gracefully into the next interesting and rewarding
chapter of their lives, surrounded by friends, their positive legacy assured, their independence powered by the fortune just realized . . . while others’ outcomes look more like a train wreck? Is it merely luck, or is it more than that?
Because we at Bigelow believe that EOMs are the most powerful pro-social and pro-economic force
on the planet, we work only with them, the ones who have skin in the game, their own capital at risk. And lucky for us, it turns out the best seasoned, successful EOMs leave bread crumbs of know-how. They actually leave clues as to the right pathway(s) to take. Sure, they always have talent and have usually been visited by good luck, but the pathways are proven and knowable in advance. Our approach is to seek out, work with, and learn from those EOMs who dare to act unconventionally and whose positive legacy and sustained enterprise value (EV) show us what is really possible. Now we are going to take what we’ve learned from them that really works, synthesize it, marinate it with our experience, and freely share it with you.
The following chapters reveal what we believe are the half dozen most important actions you can take right now if you want to earn a capital gain someday. These are the actions that the best EOMs got squared away in advance—sometimes way in advance. No, not every successful private business does this, but the best ones do, and we can learn from their wisdom and experience.
When we saw that EOMs left these road maps and that others could benefit by them, we could not
keep them to ourselves. We designed this series of insights to be shared. If you’re an EOM and find this material interesting, great! You may want to share it with your senior management team. If you are an expert advisor to EOMs, you may want to share it with a client who is thinking about these kinds of challenges.
Are you a seasoned, successful private business EOM? Want to earn a really rewarding capital gain in your business someday? Want to someday realize the legacy and the fortune you have worked tirelessly to build? If so, what can you do right now? Read on.