Straight Talk About Planning Your Succession: A Primer for CEOs is an honest guide and workbook for small to medium business owners to use when they are planning for their exit. It deals with the emotional aspect of excitement, preparing your people, and more. It was not the most in depth book as it was a pretty quick read (about 3 hours), but provided a lot of information.
Planning for an exit is a stressful, uncomfortable, and emotional process for business owners, but no one likes to talk about that. This book breaks down the facade that you must be stoic and unafraid when planning. This guide is designed to help owners overcome their emotion in order to create a successful exit. It goes beyond the dollars and cents and talks about avoiding risks and preparing the people around you.
“If you have no dear or discomfort, you are probably not ready to embark on this journey with serious intent.”
Abbey Donnelly, page 11
From my point of view, this book taught me that if you have no fear or discomfort when preparing for a new journey, then you probably are not ready to seriously embark on the journey. When facing changes in life or planning for the future, it is normal to feel anxious and that is applicable to many parts of my life, even outside of work.
As owners of EPI, Chris and Scott Snider have to plan for exit and will have to deal with the hard truths and emotional aspects. They will have to prepare their key people and their business. This book will help prepare them and act as a workbook with assessments to help them prepare.
Though I am not an expert, overall, this book increased my knowledge of the emotional aspect of a sale, preparing your key people for a sale, and post-exit.