6 years later that advice netted me 7 figures when I sold the company. 

Run your business like you intend to sell it from day 1.

As I gear up for my first board meeting of 2024 with Child to Champion tomorrow it reminds me of the position I was in perhaps 8-10 years ago.

I’d just gone full time with my company Strength and Conditioning Education. Until that point it had been running as a successful lifestyle business alongside my full time job as a strength and conditioning coach.

I’d pitched for investment and been offered what I thought was significant funding, they liked what we were doing and where it was heading.

When we discussed the nitty gritty of a possible deal the head of the fund said to me

“we need to install a board for your business and run it with the sale in mind”.

I began having monthly board meetings and here’s the simple monthly structure I still follow to this day:

Week 1 – prepare the figures and report from the previous month.

Week 2 – board meeting reviewing last month and looking ahead to this month and this quarter. Set core actions for all parties and send out along with the minutes.

Week 4 – Quick meeting to update on those actions.

Quarterly strategy sessions to review and plan 12 months.

It doesn’t matter if you run your business solo and you have these sessions yourself, or whether it’s a board of 6-10 people, start as you mean to go on.

This structure has served me very well, I use a version of this with every company I’m involved with and all my clients businesses.
It shows you’re serious about your business, forces you to get your numbers together, drives accountability and performance, and lastly it documents the story and the journey you’re on which is extremely useful down the line if you ever want to raise investment or sell the company.
Even if you never intend to sell your business it will serve you well for the reasons above. 

I didn’t take the money offered, it wasn’t the right play. But I took the advice.
It upped my game and led to getting multiple offers for the business and selling it.
It would not have happened without that structure.

Build with the end in mind! 

Thanks for reading, 

BC.

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