Full disclosure, even I didn't know this was a thing until a few years ago — and I even purchased an existing business and still didn't know that businesses were "transacted" between buyer and seller.

Problem: I propose that not many business leaders are aware of this uber-specific niche strategy for a variety of reasons but mostly because so few small businesses are 

A. Profitable 
B. Sale-able  
C. Matched with a team that can successfully market and transact the business.

It is for the above 3 reasons that most small business owners simply go out of business when they're ready to exit instead of turning their hard work into a cash payment.

Finding a qualified buyer is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

And, for buyers, finding a profitable, sale-able business they can buy immediately is just as hard. 

So, when small business leaders are first introduced to my work as a business broker they usually ask one of the following three questions. 

1. What's my business worth?
2. Can you sell my business? 
3. So, you're telling me I can buy a business?

In 2020 I celebrated ten years as a self employed business owner. It was one of the highlights of my year.

In 2010 I was presented with an opportunity to "buy" an "income stream" from an "established, profitable, small lifestyle business" and I jumped at the chance! Even though I had no idea at the time that I was what I was doing. 

At the time, if you would have asked me what I was doing, I would have said,  "I am using my life savings to take a gamble on this "thing" that's supposed to pay me a modest living while I run it remotely from a beach in Mexico." 

Immediately followed by, "Am I freaking nuts?!"

For your information, I purchased a salvage grocery brokerage business from my boyfriend (now husband, who started it with his ex wife. Hey, reality is stranger than fiction. I can't make this up!) 

I bought and sold semi-truckloads of damaged and outdated groceries from a warehouse in Houston and sold them to "Mom and Pop" retail grocery stores through out the southwestern United States. 

It was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life and definitely one of my best business investments.

Along the way, I learned A LOT, mostly the hard way. Meh, that's just who I am and how I learn = experimenting.

And today I'm going to pull back the curtain on some of the things I wish I had known when I started way back then. Maybe one of these will resonate with you and will help you steer clear of some of the disappointments and heartbreak I found on my path. 

Raise your hand if you're still trying to process 2020's avalanche of shit?

I'm reluctantly looking towards 2021 and loosely setting goals and intentions. From my current perspective, day drinking and scrolling Pinterest have slightly more  appeal than 2021 goal and intention setting.

But, I also know that counting my blessings and having things to look forward to are the foundational building blocks of turning 2020s challenges into lessons learned.

And as I've heard it said, "Its okay to have a break down. Just don't unpack and live there." So, take that, 2020! Who's with me? 

As I see it, the biggest problem is that we're missing critical information and resources when it comes to goal and intention setting. Science and personal experience have proven to us that simply imagining a desire and then saying, "I'm gonna do that" is not an effective strategy to achieving it. 

The majority of people use this method :: Commit + Try, when setting goals and intentions and it simply doesn't work. Consider addicts, for example.

"I am going to quit smoking cold turkey tomorrow." <<< How often have you seen this succeed? The reason it doesn't succeed is because nothing is different and no new information or tools have been introduced to the environment. The individual is setting themselves up to fail by using this methodology, or should I say, lack of methodology.

So, what are we missing? 

The root of that problem, is that we don't know what we don't know.

We simply do not know that we are missing critical information and resources. Good news for you though, I have been studying goal setting, intentions, habit formation, and personal development for over twenty years, and I gotchu. 

In today's post, I am going to share with you a few of the biggest pieces of missing information I've witnessed personally in my own life and in the lives of my coaching clients. I want you to be able to take this info and apply it to your 2021 for maximum productivity, profitability, and peace. 

I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a shit-show. And yet, we also know that 'character is formed in the crucible of life'.

It is with that in mind that I share with you the Top 8 Lessons of 2020. It is my hope you can use these tips to mine your own experience of 2020 for a silver lining. 

And if you really knew me, you'd know that 2020 has dealt me a shit hand unlike anything I've ever experienced. I apologize in advance for being vague and not specifically listing the avalanche of challenges that have been heaped on me but, two things: 

1. The specifics of my challenges are likely irrelevant to you and would only serve to meet my own selfish need to complain. 
2. I share these challenges with loved ones who prefer details to remain private.

(Note: in 2021 I intend to explore more fully the line between personal info and private info amidst the modern (over)sharing social media influencers. I hope you'll join me.)

In a normal year  I usually look forward to the reflection and projection time at year end that allows me to learn from the year going out and face with wisdom and renewed purpose the year that is arriving. 

But as I see it, the problem is that 2020 is insanely difficult to process... 

I constantly see people make seemingly small mistakes that add up to big calculation errors when valuing their small businesses. 

One common error is valuing a small business as a multiple of EBITDA instead of SDE. EBITDA is more accurate when valuing a company with a management team in place that usually has more than 50 employees. SDE is the more accurate measurement for owner-operated small businesses with 5-50 employees.