If you could talk to yourself five years ago, what is the biggest piece of advice you would give the younger you about leading your company into the future?

What decision did you wish you had made…?

Now think about you five years from today. What do you think the wiser you will have wished you had done today, that maybe isn’t even on your radar yet?

I posed both these questions to a 67 year old business owner the other day.

This is what he told me he wished he’d decided to do five years ago:

“Get out of the way sooner! Stop thinking I have all the answers and all the energy to execute all the plans!�

He looked out the window for a minute. But then he turned to look at me, his eyes watering and slapped the table. “I wish I had hired my replacement five years ago… taught him or her everything I know, introduced them to everyone we do business with. It would have saved me a lot of grief and probably grown my business much more effectively.�

Now, you need to know that this man is very successful, and accomplished in his business. There is nothing about his company that you wouldn’t be impressed by.

Except that he is facing a dilemma he didn’t foresee. The right time to sell is now because his ideal buyer is looking. He is tired. His company is on a growth upswing. But buyers don’t see a team behind him.

So to prospective buyers, his company isn’t worth what he wants to sell it for because it is still dependent on his decisions, his leadership, his relationships and his product development wizardry.

It takes 2-4 years to transition the leadership of a successful business so it doesn’t lose it’s star performers, key customers and brand value… the goodwill that make a business worth 2x or 3x more than current value… the value buyers pay a premium for.

His advice for business owners like you?

“Timing is everything. I could have had a GM in place and running the business for me by now if I wasn’t too proud and too stubborn to get out of the way. Now I’ve got to mentor someone for the next two years and I have no idea if the company will attract a buyer then or if it will be worth what I want to sell it for.�

His #1 strategy for growth? Delegate the next stage of growth to a professional manager. “Your company will be far more profitable and you are the beneficiary.�

If you, like this owner, want to get a return on your investment by selling the company, at the right time so you can extract the wealth you built inside your business, then you might want access to this free Guide to Know the Ideal Time to sell your Business.

What’s his biggest fear? That he won’t be able to keep growing the business so he can leave the kind of legacy for his employees that he and they would be proud of for years to come.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for yourself the future you is trying to tell you.