How to Relax After Selling a Business
You’ve done it.
You’ve sold your business, you’ve gone through the migration process, and now you’ve been paid out. If you’re like the average seller in our marketplace, you were paid over six-figures for the business you just sold.
That’s quite a sum for anyone to get all at once.
Counterintuitively, you might become stressed about what to do next. Even if you didn’t get a six-figure pay out, you might be concerned about the newly acquired tens of thousands of dollars in your bank account. It is almost paradoxical: you may think that a lump sum of money will make your life better, but it can end up causing you unforeseen anxiety.
Often, our businesses BECOME our lives; if that’s true in your case, then you’ve just sold a part of your life.
What will you do with yourself now? What will you wake up to in the morning? Now that there is not as much driving you, you’ll probably find yourself in a strange mental state.
Luckily, there is A LOT to look forward to in this stage.
Take the Time to Plan
If you didn’t have a plan for what you wanted to do with the money before you sold your business, now is a good time to make that plan. Take the next week or two to really consider what your business and life goals are. You now have a “war chest” of capital to use to help you get to the next level in your life. You are at an advantage the vast majority of people never get when it comes to how mobile you can be with your capital.
Write down your list of goals, whether they are business- or life-related.
It is important to take this time of self-reflection. Almost all the greatest moments in life, including one’s success, come from the simple sheet of paper where you outlined your roadmap for moving forward.
In your plan, you should have a few different items outlined.
Take Time Off
It is VERY easy to just keep working after you sell your business. We’re entrepreneurs, so we get it—you have a thousand and one ideas you want to pursue and test out. By the time you arrive at selling a business, business processes and idea generation have become a passion in your life.
You will most likely feel pulled to work on your next project right away, but you should seriously consider taking some time off. It doesn’t have to be for long; it could even be just a week to relax and unplug. When you take this time to care for other aspects of your life outside of business, you’ll find yourself coming back to the work with renewed vigor, new insights, and energy that you wouldn’t have had if you just went straight into the next project.
It is very easy to get caught up in an endless cycle of work, especially as an entrepreneur.
So, take that week off. Or go wild—take an entire month off to go backpacking across Asia or to spend more time with your family.
Trust us: it’ll be worth it.
Invest for the Future
A portion of the capital you earned from your business sale should be put toward your retirement. You could be making investment payments to your self-directed 401(k) plans or other investment vehicles, including investing into offline assets such as real estate.
As an entrepreneur, you never know where the future might lie, so you’ll want to protect your future self with some conservative investments. If you have any debts, consider paying them off to make sure you’ll be operating from a position of power when you make your next business decision.
Invest for Rapid Growth
Although you’ll want to invest in more conservative investments to safeguard your money, that shouldn’t be where you invest all of your newfound capital. You have already proven your skill to create highly profitable assets that you can sell to other investors.
Consider using that capital to supercharge your process. You are now in a better position than ever to build out a team to handle several of the tasks you used to do by yourself. With a team, you could potentially launch multiple projects all at once and generate several assets that you can sell down the road.
You could also look at using your newfound capital to acquire another profitable business. It is not uncommon for a seller in our marketplace to deploy their capital into buying other businesses in the marketplace.
After all, right now, you are the most liquid that you’ve ever been. When you have that much liquid capital, you can often make much better deals at the negotiating table. Once you acquire the new business, you can also use that capital as working capital to start attacking the most low-hanging fruit, which can dramatically increase the business’s traffic and earnings.
Congratulations on Your Success! Now Go Relax.
No matter what your next steps are, we want to congratulate you on your success. We hope it is just one of many successes and that we’ll be seeing you again in our marketplace, either as a seller or as a buyer.
Whatever your plans are, we’ll be here to help you with whatever we can.
If you already know you want to sell again or use your newfound capital to acquire a business, go ahead and click one of the links below.