april

Somewhere along the way I managed to look at the calendar for the wrong year: This year April 28 was the last Friday in April, and also my last day with the company I founded so many years ago. As I'm getting ready to leave town this coming Tuesday, this last week was filled with very little work, and many goodbye visits with former employees, clients, and other friends outside of the business.

I met with all of our LLC business partners today to discuss what we learned from the potential new business broker (Steve). I shared all three of Steve's options, and explained to them why I didn't want to pursue the first two options, and after seeing the costs, they agreed.

We met again at the business broker's office downtown, and he presented his proposal to us. Steve's first option was that they could consult with us for a surprisingly large fee on how to grow our business. I went in expecting the might want $150 or more per hour for consulting services, but he presented a five-figure consulting contract, with no specifics about what they would actually offer, and who would perform the services. We discussed this for quite some time, and despite our questions, we couldn't get any specific answers.

Jack made contact with the other business broker he met recently, and we met in his office this afternoon. Their office is located in a tall building downtown, and the walls of the room we met in looked like a "Who's Who" of the local business world.

These are the diary entries for my book, How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary, for April, 2005.

The winter holidays and a new spring have come and gone since my last entry here. Today is tax day, and after more than a year and a half with Marty, everything on the "selling our business" front is still very, very quiet. Some days I feel just fine, and other days I daydream about selling the business and going off on a nice, long vacation.

A local company that we've partnered with in the past was sold recently. This doesn't affect our business in any way, but I've decided to use the event as an excuse to write a business acquaintance named Jerry who owns another small business here in town. I've met him at several local business events, and I've come to like him quite a bit.

A month has passed since the meeting with the “Hart to Hart” couple. As expected, nothing happened with them. Our business keeps chugging along. There’s no business growth, but we’re not getting smaller either.