Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
HOW TO TURN AROUND YOUR DISTRESSED BUSINESS
10 :: Dealing with failure takes time.
by Andrew Tellijohn
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS is never fun, but life doesn?t end when you do. So give yourself time to mourn. Nobody likes to be defeated. Businesses are like children to entrepreneurs and their demise can hit hard.
At some point, however, you?ll have to suck it up and move on, whether that means going out and finding a job or ? as many entrepreneurial types do ? figuring out what company you are going to start next. While it might feel like a personal failure, it?s important to remember that businesses fail for several reasons. So realize that yes, there is life after bankruptcy.
Use the failed business, the bankruptcy experience, and the wheeling and dealing that got the company started as a learning experience. Talk to your bankers, your bankruptcy attorneys, your creditors and your other advisers about what you did right and what you need to do differently next time. You?ll probably realize after a couple of years that the business failure isn?t the worst thing that ever happened to you.
That said, the first time failed business owners see creditors, vendors and others negatively affected by closure of a business can be awkward. But what most of them will tell you is they want to know you did the best you could by them both when you were running your business and when you were trying to save it.
It?s important now, while you?re in the process, to do everything possible to make things work. Even creditors say as long as entrepreneurs were character-driven, as long as they made every effort to take care of suppliers, unsecured creditors, vendors and other parties, they can move on and the failed business owners can hold their heads high.
As part of that, communication is important. Everyone with a stake from employees to lenders deserves to know what is going on throughout the process, no matter how embarrassing or delicate. Treat them with integrity and respect.
Give them your best effort and they will be forgiving in return. If you follow those steps you can look them in the eye at that first meeting following the company?s demise and feel no shame.
This remains true after the fact. Have post mortem conversations with business experts, especially if you plan to go into business for yourself again. Those talks might provide a sense for what went wrong and put a positive spin on your next endeavor.
Eventually it becomes important to move on, whether it?s to find a job or to figure out what the next business is going to be ? if for no other reason than to make a living and support the family.
Start networking in the community, begin designing another business, or get a job. But realize that failure can be a great teacher and move on with the lessons you have learned. It can be a life-altering experience.
CHECKLIST
? Take time to mourn, but remember the ?poor me? approach doesn?t solve anything.
? Figure out what to do next, whether it?s getting a job or starting another business.
? Assess what went wrong in the previous situation so you can make improvements for the next opportunity.
? Have candid communications with the people that were involved. Good dialogue can help you move on and it can be constructive for your next endeavors.
? If you gave your best effort there is nothing to be ashamed of.
As the name suggests, Owatonna-based Kamp Automation looks for customers with a process they’d like to automate. It could be a small, inconvenient, tiny part that people can’t assemble. It could be a high-volume product so needed that the customer can’t find enough labor to produce it in the necessary quantities. “We’ll work anywhere from medical device companies to the seed industry for corn and soybeans,” says Kent Patterson, co-founder, president and CEO. “We just jump all over wherever there is custom automation.” The company started in his garage. Patterson and his partners built a machine. The company started to grow to the point where now it has 48 employees — and had a bunch of people and stuff in different locations. “We went from a garage to a shop to a shop and just kept moving to new places and signing leases,” he says. “We got to a point where it’s like, OK, this is getting big enough and sustainable — we felt that we wanted to look for our own space.’”
