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Trapped by your business?

Written by: Nicholas Fraser

Article Overview: As with all my articles they come out of real experience and my on going conversations with MD’s and Directors. I have been quite active in the business acquisition marketplace recently on behalf of a client. The word “trapped” has come up a number of times in my travels.

Trapped by your business?

Trapped by your business?

As with all my articles they come out of real experience and my on going conversations with MD’s and Directors. I have been quite active in the business acquisition marketplace recently on behalf of a client. The word “trapped” has come up a number of times in my travels. And that can mean being trapped for positive reasons as well as negative. Now it may be that this word has revealed itself because I was talking to people about exit strategies but having said that I too had similar feelings of being trapped when I ran my own businesses (overdrafts, guarantees, pride being some of the reasons).

Now typically feelings of this nature arise due to negative situations that constrain the ability to do things; taking away the ability to be in control. For being in control is a key factor in being a leader of the business; or at least that is the perceived view. But there are many differing factors that can stimulate the feeling of being Trapped.

Is this you?

v Responsible for staff

v Pride in your company identity and worried about its name

v Personal Ambitions?

v No succession plans

v Fear of the unknown

v Poor profits

v Good profits (so you feel you have to stay to earn them)

v Poor pension arrangements

v Overworked (very, very common)

v Recession

One of the top ones is the parental feeling of responsibility for staff and the business; too responsible. In discussion with one MD he told me that he was putting too much effort into the business and spending his own money (mortgaging his future if you like) to keep the staff employed. Another chap I met had been in business for 45 years. He was the business and completely identified with it and had lost the perspective to focus on what he was beyond that. In each of these cases it was only in discussion that the reality began to sink in that change might be needed and more importantly could be achieved. A sense of relief could palpably be seen with each of them when this was revealed.

In other situations some realise they need to move on but because they have dominated the business and the staff underneath, there is no one to take over when the time comes. The reality then dawns that this edifice that they have built may not continue. But at least here they are facing up to this fear of the unknown.

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