The next step

“I’m only in prison because of my beliefs . . . I believed the night watchman was asleep”, so said Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher in the TV comedy classic Porridge.
And when his cell mate at Slade prison asked what he was thinking about, Fletch replied, “I¹m working on my exit strategy, Godber”.
Yes he might have been thinking about a different type of exit strategy compared with a Lancashire business owner, but at least he had time to think.
One day you are going to want to get out of your business, which hopefully you don¹t regard as a prison.
It could be that you want to retire. Or you want to pass it on to somebody in the family. Or even that you want to sell to your employees or a third party on the open market.
So this poses the question: What are you doing now to make eventually getting out of your business as easy and rewarding for you as it can possibly be?
Through my firm¹s work with Lancashire businesses, we have discovered that answering the following seven questions is an excellent way to kick-start the process of planning for a smooth and profitable exit.

Norman Snodgrass
Senior Director, Mayes Accountants