{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda","description":"The idiomatic phrase \u2013 shoulda, coulda, woulda \u2013 conveys the feeling you as the owner of a business might have in three years. Ok, \u201cCould've, Would've, Should've\u201d is a Taylor Swift (and Aaron Dessner) song. But it derives from the phrase often written as \u201cshoulda, coulda, woulda.\u201d The combination of the meaning of each \u2013 should conveying correctness, could conveying possibility, and would conveying a thwarted intention \u2013 yields a meaning of the uselessness of looking back or looking for excuses. Pat Riley, President and former coach of the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers famously said: \u201cThere's no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.\u201d In my experience, three years is about the time it takes to prepare a business to be sold for the highest possible price. Most business owners are so concerned with the urgent matters of the business that they fail to pay attention to the important matter of assuring that the termination of their business interest results in a wealth-building event. This important strategy, which I call Prior Diligence, can result in wealth-building results but only if it is learned and utilized. I have outlined the Prior Diligence strategy in a series of posts on Substack called Owning a Business (rickriebesell.substack.com). The sooner it is implemented, the closer the wealth-building event. If you are the owner of a business interest in a profitable small to medium sized business, your primary concern should be to realize the maximum value from that interest. To be precise, \u201crealize maximum value\u201d means receiving the most net cash for that interest thereby converting the value in the business interest from a high risk business ownership to a personal asset held at a relatively low investment risk. This is when the sale of a business interest is a wealth-building event. Think down the road three years. What would it mean to be selling your business for the maximum value? For most profitable businesses it would be a wealth-building event. Think about the businesses that you are familiar with who have not been sold for maximum value but have been the subject of disputes among the owners, had an owner essential to the business leave the business, or for one reason or another been liquidated. There is a strategy to follow that in three years will have that wealth-building event more available to you. Or in three years you will be saying: \u201cshoulda, coulda, woulda.\u201d     ","author_name":"Business Concern","author_url":"https:\/\/businessconcern.net","html":"