Ep205 Dan Coleman - Exit Planning as Business Strategy: Why Every Leader Needs to Start Today

Dan Coleman 0:00

The discipline is if you start thinking about Exit Planning as good business strategy, that's the forced discipline. Look ahead out into the horizon to where you actually want to end up.

Mike O'Neill 0:14

Welcome to get unstuck and on target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with confidence and vision, but also to achieve ground breaking results. I'm your host. Mike O'Neill, I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective in each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started.

Mike O'Neill 0:56

Welcome to get unstuck and on target. Today, we're joined by Dan Coleman, a powerhouse in business growth and leadership coaching. Dan has helped over 80 businesses align their teams, sharpen their focus, and achieve results through tailored business operating systems. With more than 900 workshops under his belt, his insights are practical, impactful and exactly what leaders need in today's fast paced world. As an executive coach, I see how critical it is for leaders to make decisions with intention and align their teams for success. In this episode, Dan and I unpack the power of Exit Planning, not as a distant goal, but as a strategic approach to drive clarity, focus and growth today, whether you're building for the future or you're tackling today's challenges, this conversation is full of ideas you can start applying right away. So let's dive in, explore what's possible and help you get unstuck and on target. Joining me today is Dan Coleman, a business growth and leadership team coach who has dedicated his career to helping companies unlock the potential through tailored business operating systems. If you've listened to my conversation with Carrie Matthews in the previous episode, you'll notice some parallels in the important work that they both do. That's because aligning leadership teams and moving forward with clarity is one of the most critical challenges businesses face today, and Dan brings a unique perspective to tackling this challenge. Dan has curated a best in class framework, and he's also using world class business tools, which he uses to kind of architect his own unique business operating system that's tailored to the client. He is a certified Pinnacle business guide and a certified Exit Planning advisor, and he has helped 80 plus clients, and he's delivered over 900 workshops transform results for businesses of all sizes. Specifically, I'd like to spend time with Dan today, getting his thoughts on why Exit Planning is good business strategy. Dan, welcome.

Unknown Speaker 3:12

Hey, Mike, nice to be here. Thanks for having me,

Mike O'Neill 3:16

Dan. You have impressive credentials, if I understand what you do for your clients. There are a number of things we could talk about. I introduced this idea of Exit Planning. Why Exit Planning is good business strategy. Let's start there. Why do you feel that's such an important topic,

Dan Coleman 3:38

huh? So we don't have three hours. Do we like I'm afraid, not. Okay, so I think it's an important topic, because I've seen so many business owners wait until it's too late or too far down the path, when they finally switch the light on and say, I want to sell my business. What do I need to do for Exit Planning. Here's the thing. The pro tip is the working with a coach or working with a consultant or working with somebody else. If you use Exit Planning as a bit of the North Star, you're going to be working on the right things in the beginning anyway. So anytime I speak to with a new company owner or a new leadership team member, the conversation always comes up that I truly believe that when you go into improving your business and you really want to start moving the needle, if you start with the end in mind, you'll make better decisions. Today,

Mike O'Neill 4:42

for those who are watching, they're seeing me nodding. That would be a Stephen COVID concept, if you begin with the end in mind. And the end in mind for a business founder, they probably don't think that. They just figure they're gonna be in the business forever.

Dan Coleman 4:58

Yeah. Well. Well, yeah, yes. And Mike, nine out of 10 times I meet a business owner, the experience they're having is they're running their business. They're in the business. I n in the business, and they're not, you know, strategically working on the business. A lot of times they don't know how. They don't have the right team. They don't have a self managing company. The company depends on them, on their, you know, skin and bones to show up into the business every day just to keep the trains running on time, type of thing. And so their heads are down, watching their feet run faster. And at some point in the game, the the discipline is if you start thinking about Exit Planning as good business strategy, that's the force discipline to get your eyeballs, if you will, off you're running your feet that are running fast, and look ahead out into the horizon to where you actually want to end up. So it is a force discipline, and it will help you to make better, better decisions today. So if you're

Mike O'Neill 6:02

going to force that discipline in place, and you're challenging listeners to this episode to say, be thinking with the end in mind. Sure, is there a general rule that you have found, How soon should ideally, a distance owner begin thinking about exit strategy.

Dan Coleman 6:24

Well, if they didn't start it last year, they should start it today. Now, here's the thing about business strategy as well, the way I like to approach it, Exit Planning as business strategy. It doesn't matter if you want to sell your business or not, still think about Exit Planning as part of your business strategy today. And the way I go about that is, imagine paint a three year I lean on hemp Cameron Harold's book, vivid vision. I have a process that's pseudo type of that process, like, what is your three year vision for your life as supported by your business. Too many people live their lives backwards. What is the business as supported by your life? So what kind of life do you want three years from now, and how can your business support that? And if you can get a three year vivid vision on the board that describes really, really what you want your life to look like, but also what your business needs to look like to support that, then that's a good place to start, because you begin with that end in mind.

Mike O'Neill 7:30

Now, just for clarification, are most of your clients, clients that are contemplating exit strategies, or is that just one of your offerings?

Dan Coleman 7:40

No, not at all. Well, it's, it's always baked into all of my engagements, whether they formally want to talk about Exit Planning or not. It's the way I approach it. Because, you know, you know, Mike, I've got some long term clients. I've got clients I've been with for seven or eight years, and I think, I believe that anytime a team or a leader or ownership in a business engages with a business coach, the number one KPI, or key performance indicator of is this working, is what's the value of my company? You know, at the end of the day, we can come up with 10 or 15 or 50 KPIs, and is your coach working with you, or is it working engaging with that person? But at the end of the day, if the value of your company is not going up when you engage with somebody, then I would question that approach. So that's how I approach it. So sometimes we don't actually do valuations in the beginning and valuations three years or four years downstream, but it is my model about how I help companies, you know, do better and increase their value. And I do believe Mike companies or coaches, and this isn't about coaching, per se, but the best coaches, I believe, have a model. They have a process, and they have the business tools to support all of it. And my model is in value creation, and the way we approach that is in something called the four C's, the four intangible capitals. I borrowed that from the Exit Planning Institute like you and I talked about a little bit offline. Exit Planning Institute is a fantastic organization. I've been certified as a certified Exit Planning advisor, and I just love their model. I've been through a few different models as a business coach, and these days, I'm leaning on the four C's because it captures everything. It captures all the potential that I get to bring to the table in working with new companies. You know,

Mike O'Neill 9:45

I want to come to the four C's in just a moment. I love to pick up on something you just shared, and that is, you have clients that oftentimes are long term relationships. You reference one that was like a seven year relationship. That's right, what do your clients gain by. Working with you for that length of time, what is it about you that has led them to continue to engage you for as long as they have

Dan Coleman 10:09

such a great question. So I believe every team does better with a coach. You think about every professional team, high school team in sports, there's a coach, and the coach is there to help the team play better. And if you conceptually believe in that concept, then if you're a company owner, seek out the right coach that can help you achieve your vision and help you extract the value out of your company, if that's what you want to do. So it's really simple to me. I am always leveling up my game. I don't believe in, for instance, a business operating system in a box. I don't believe in a one size fits all approach. I believe in a very tailored, bespoke approach to business coaching. Now, the concept of business operating systems, I think, is very in vogue over the last few years, and there's a bunch of authors and and coaching communities out there that they say, hey, we'll help you do a business operating system. I've done so much of this work over the last 11 years that I've just landed on a place where company owners should engage with the right business coach that can meet them where they're at, that knows all about all the other systems and all the other best, best in class business tools, and so can take a tailored, bespoke approach with that company and their leadership team to get them what they want. If that makes sense, does that make sense? It makes perfect

Mike O'Neill 11:37

sense. That's one reason I wanted to bring you on the podcast, and that is the approach that you take. You reference the Exit Planning Institute, let me quote and that is the Exit Planning Institute demonstrates that 80% of the value in a business exists in four intangible capitals of the business. So the model we're going to be talking about next is referencing those four C's. So for the benefit of the listener, those C's are structural capital, social capital, customer capital and human capital. How would you like to work your way through those?

Dan Coleman 12:14

Well, let's have some fun. That's how I want to work. Work my way through that. And let me I have one more thing to add on your last question about why somebody would end up with the coach for such a long period of time. If you don't mind me, circle back briefly by all me, it's just, it's just because there's always value in as long as there's value with me in the room, then I'm going to stay with you for a long time. The day that there's not any value, I'm going to raise my hand and tap out type of thing, right? So I believe that the right business approach, for a business coaching approach, is having a coach is a who's a perpetual learner, who's going to push you, who's always going to bring new content, material, tools and frameworks and and a coach that helps level up the leadership team. Because that is the bottleneck. The leadership team is the bottleneck in business, in businesses, Mike, if you can unlock that bottleneck, then working with the coach is going to have limited ROI, per se, but so I've got more on that, but those are some of the reasons I have long term engagements. So so that, that said, I believe that and I don't want to emphasize business coaching too much, even though I always recommend coaches, because every team does better with the coach, and that's what I do for a living. The best approach is to to improve your company is to have a model I lens to look through, to filter out what you should be working on, what you should be saying no to what you should not be working on. That's the first part. Follow a process, connect with somebody has a process, or develop your own if you're not getting engaged with a coach, like, what is the cadence? What is the process? Is it proven? What is that journey you're going to take the leadership team through to improve the process? I saw the greatest tagline for a marketing company last year, and I can't shake it out of my head. And the tagline for a marketing company is, we help you avoid random acts of marketing. In my experience, yes, as a metaphor, nine out of 10 companies approach marketing that's like, let's try this, let's try that, let's try this. And I believe it comes it. It's the same metaphor for trying to improve your company via your leadership team. If you're a company owner, we try these random acts of leadership development, random acts of, let's build playbooks, random acts of, etc, etc, etc, etc. And that's not efficient, that's not optimized, that's not best in class. So, so. So owners and leadership teams, it is, my opinion, through all you know, 900 full day sessions is have a process, develop a process about how, over time, you're going to go about improving your your company. So a business, you have to have a model, my opinion, a process to follow the journey you're going to take your leadership team through, and an infinite business tool, toolbox full of the right best in class, business tools, techniques and frameworks, not finite, not limited. I'll quote Simon Sinek, where business is an infinite game. It's not hey, it's nine innings, nine innings, and we're done. It's let's keep playing this game and find success year over year over year in an infinite way. It's an infinite game of business. And so your business toolbox should be infinite as well. It's not static. It should be dynamic and it should be bespoke, because every company is different.

Mike O'Neill 16:05

Yeah, I love what you've shared thus far, because it all kind of ties together. That is business. If you think of it as being infinite, I get that constant evolution both the business, the processes, the tools, the coach that you're using, hopefully, is bringing to the table new skills, learning and growing. But you've mentioned the framework of, if a business is not operating with the end in mind, that is, what do you really want to do with that? You've given us several ways of kind of looking at owning and or running a business that I think it's fresh. What I also am picking up on is that you don't walk in with one size fits all. That's

Dan Coleman 16:48

right, 100% and beginning with the end in mind is not just for the owner, it's not just for the leadership team. It's for the entire organization, Mike, it's it's really getting all of those arrows pointing in the same direction. So it's directional in nature. We are going here. I do believe that one of the one of the leaders, most important job is to share the vision. Share the vision, share the vision, share the vision. And by the time you get to seven times, your people will hear it for the first time. So beginning with the end in mind is directional. And if you get a shared vision in a document, what one of the things that I do for that's really fun for all of my clients is, is we create movie posters. Well, Mike, what's the what's the intention of a movie poster,

Mike O'Neill 17:43

I guess, attract you to the movie and give you a little bit of a sense of what is coming perfect,

Dan Coleman 17:49

and invite you into into the story, right? Yeah. And so what? So my process when creating, we create through your vivid visions, is we create a draft of it offline with just the owner. We present it to the leadership team in a workshop, and get their buy in and engagement, and have them put their their fingerprints on it, you know, with some adjustments. And then we roll it out company wide and so and literally, like literally, we print movie posters. I love it that are designed. They're visually interesting. You know, 65% of people are visual learners, and we invite them in, into into the story, to get them engaged. And by the way, our people problems are always our people problems with engagement and retention. Well, you might want to start with the three year vivid vision movie poster that engages these people. Your retention will tend to go up. All right,

Mike O'Neill 18:40

for those who are watching, I leaned in on two things. One, you said something earlier about the criticality of your leadership team and how strong that bench is, and then you've talked about the criticality of employee engagement and making sure that all, not just the leadership team, all employees, have a clear understanding what that vision is. And I love the way that you are able to visually capture that in a way that draws them in to that process. That's right. Go ahead. Go ahead. I would love to go back, if you don't mind, so I don't lose that idea of these four C's. How do we overlay this model four C's to this conversation, sure.

Dan Coleman 19:23

So models are lenses about what to focus on. Okay, number one and these four C's, they're called the intangible capitals. I'm I'm borrowing this from the Exit Planning Institute I previously, in the last 11 years, embraced two other models. One was in a different system, and then one was from a coaching community that I was in. And this, this is, this is my latest and greatest iteration of what kind of model I want to use to approach, you know, to to converse with leadership teams in the. For and I love this model because it already captures the essence of what I do for companies number one and number two. Exit Planning Institute is based in research, so there's tangible backing, zone surveys and data and research to support these this version of the model that I've embraced in the last 12 months, and those four C's are structural capital, social capital, customer capital and human capital for anybody that might be taking notes. And by the way, Mike, if you want me to, I can provide a PDF to you for anybody that's interested, or they can email me and I can send them out some content on this as well.

Mike O'Neill 20:42

That'd be fantastic. Thank you. Of course,

Dan Coleman 20:47

of course. And we could, we could talk about the four C's individuals, if you like, for a few minutes. Well,

Mike O'Neill 20:52

let me ask this of those four. Let's zero in when you're working with clients, and I see the criticality of all four, which of these four Do you find that the companies struggle with most?

Dan Coleman 21:07

Great question, I thought you're gonna ask me, which one's most important? And I've had a lot of conversations around that, um, the one as as a general rule, as a general role. I

Dan Coleman 21:25

so structural and human.

Mike O'Neill 21:28

So we have two way tie between structural and human, and in terms of what I'm looking at, those are the two ends. Those literally the book ends of the model, the first and the last one. What is it about the structural capital that organizations tend to struggle with

Dan Coleman 21:44

they don't have the human capital to execute on it. Oh,

Mike O'Neill 21:46

that's cop now. Okay, all right, so this is a little bit of a chicken of the egg. So let's you probably know my bias, the human capital, is the one that I probably keyed in most. So you're saying that they don't have the structural capital because they don't have the right capital in place to do that. What are you kind of advising your clients? How do they go about building the correct, the proper, the best human capital to go address, the structural capital to go execute to this plan? Sure.

Dan Coleman 22:13

So human capital is all about the people. It's all about the talent. It's all about the leadership, from how you recruit, how you train, how you onboard, how you retain, how you keep them long term, how you level them up, how you build leaders. I like to think that one of my differentiators as a business coach is the leaders get better in the room. With me, I intentionally build leaders in the room because the leadership team is the bottleneck, like we could do all the work in the world. But if this stuff doesn't get pushed out company wide, via the leadership team view, via that human capital, the ROI is going to be limited. It's going to be, it's going to be choked out a little bit, right? So, so the human capital, it goes, it's, it's wide and deep, right? It's the talent you have in your company. And this, it this literally has a direct tie into the value of your business. When your business gets valued, whether or not you want to sell, if you're considering exiting, whoever is going to look at is going to look at your human capital, is going to look they're going to look at your talent. And if it's weak, you will get a lower valuation. If it's strong, you will get a higher valuation. And there's a critical reason for that. How dependent whoever's going to, perhaps, you know, buy your company, or if you're considering exiting, if your company is too dependent on you, the owner, you will it may not be sellable at all, to be honest with you, it may not be transferable at all. It just, frankly, may be too risky. But if you have good talent, starting with your leadership team, then the company, by default, I hope, lies less on you, and it can rely on the talent that you have. Do you have true leaders, or do you have just a bunch of technicians that are trying to evolve and to be a leader, if that makes sense. So human capital is is critical to getting anything done at a high level, best in class level. And one more point of context for you, Mike, in terms of Exit Planning, is good business strategy. This, this conversation doesn't have to be about Exit Planning at all. Just use it as a tool. Yes, how it's directional, right? And so at some point in the game, even though 80% 80% of a business owner's wealth is locked in their business, I'm gonna say that again, 80% of a business owner's wealth is locked in their business, and 80% of the time they can't get it out. And a lot of times it's because the human capital is weak. It's it's they can't access the value of their company if they ever want to decide to sell, because it's locked, partially because of human capital is weak. Yeah.

Mike O'Neill 25:00

You could have gone multiple directions. I'm obviously smiling because you did choose that that in large part is why I named my business bench builders, and that is, if you're not prepared to effectively build a bench of your employees and leadership, you're now going to go where you want to go. That's right. That's right. Dan, you've been doing this for a long time, you have used, I used the word curated in introducing you. You've kind of drawn from a variety of sources. I'll repeat something I said a moment ago. One thing that attracted me to you as a as a podcast guest, is someone who says, you know, your situation is unique. And it sounds as if what you do is you might borrow freely from these different things, if it speaks to their unique need. That's right. And so I think that is a differentiator for for you, and that's why I want to kind of kind of punctuate that. What else would you like to share that we haven't covered, that you think is important that we put on the table? Well,

Dan Coleman 26:07

I think owners and leadership teams should I want to re emphasize, have a model, figure out a process, a long term process to follow. Have access to the right business tools, and I'm gonna punch some people in the nose, metaphorically, don't do it yourself. Just don't do it yourself. Connect with the right person to help you, shepherd you through this, because the ROI will be 100x

Mike O'Neill 26:38

So Dan, let me pick up on that you're advising listeners, have a model, have a long term process, use best in class tools, but don't do it alone. No. What should business owners? What should business leaders be looking for? For that coach, they bring in,

Dan Coleman 26:57

um, somebody with the So great question. So somebody with the experience to help them achieve their vision, somebody that has great references and testimonials and don't shy away they don't shy away from that, right? Somebody that has a model, a process and an infinite set of tools, and somebody, and this is the most overlooked piece, I think, Mike, excuse me, somebody that is a good chemical fit with their leadership team, somebody that hit like, like, on the same wavelength, but a little higher, somebody that has a great value proposition, somebody somebody that has a great brand promise, like my brand promise is for all my owners and leadership teams. I literally say my brand promise is, I promise that you'll own a piece of real estate in my head. I promise to pivot when needed, push harder than what is expected, and together help you level up your company. That's my brand promise, and that speaks to I'm a relationship guy, not a transactional guy. I literally tell people, if you want a transactional guy, I'm not your guy. If you want a relationship that might go long term and you have access to me at all times, I might be your guy. Let's Let's talk. So I'm giving you a dose of the energy, the energetic fit with the leader in the leadership team. You

Mike O'Neill 28:19

know I was watching you when you describe you want to pick someone to come in your organization who is on the same level, if you would, but a little bit higher. Yeah, I'd love that comparison. And the what you offer your clients, they are getting a piece of the real estate in your brain. How did you phrase that?

Dan Coleman 28:44

Yeah, I promise that you own a piece of real estate in my brain and the back story. By the way, another pro tip, just because I can't help myself. I think storytelling is a severely underrated leadership team skill, if that makes sense. But yeah. So the back story to own a piece of real estate in my brain is I think about my clients a lot. I'm up at three in the morning, sometimes in a good way, thinking not. I'm a huge preparation guy. I'll put five hours, four hours into preparing for a session, right? So I think about this a lot. That's why I literally say you own a piece of real estate in my brain. I don't show up 15 minutes before a session and say, Okay, it's the same agenda every time. I don't think that serves companies long term. So that's what I mean by by that promise.

Mike O'Neill 29:33

I love it. I think it's noteworthy. You have conducted over 900 day long workshops. One might say that you just kind of go into autopilot, and what you're saying is, no what you get with Dan is, I'm gonna probably be at the three in the morning, not because I can't sleep in I can't sleep because I'm so excited, and I'm dedicating my my time, my energies, to what your needs would be. Dan, you've been doing this for a good while. Can you share in a an example where. You're working with a client, and it just wasn't working. They got stuck, and what did it take in your work with them to kind of get them unstuck?

Dan Coleman 30:09

Bush the concept of they have the wrong people in the room. People are our biggest liability and our biggest asset all, all at once. It's hard to find good people. Finding good people the landscape to how you go. But you know this better, better than I do. Mike about has changed drastically over the last since COVID, a lot has changed. The game has changed, right? So if nothing changes, nothing changes. I get, apparently, I'm full of quotes today, right? I've got, I've got one more. If I got one more for the audience, if you could stand it, it's this. It's the start that stops most people. So literally, the start that stops most people. And this is with leadership teams, and it's and it's and it's funny how there seems to always be one person on a leadership team. There's an Alex, there's a Deborah, there's an app, there's always one person you know in the company that is always the problem long term. And I'm and with the CEO offline, I'm like, is, today the day are we going to take action? So the short of it is Mike is it's the people you have to get unstuck about how you and develop literally, an obsession around right people in the right seats, starting with the leadership team. It's my number one tip.

Mike O'Neill 31:41

That's a great tip. Would that be what you would want to be kind of a closing thought or takeaway for us, and if not, what would it be?

Dan Coleman 31:49

Um, could I have, could I share two please? I've been asked dozens of times over the years that all the companies that do the best, what's, what's the common denominator? It's obsessing over the right people in the right seats, obsessing over the right people in the right seats. So that's, I think that's, that's, that's the first, the first thing I would like to leave your listeners with. The second thing is, get a coach. I don't care if you're a big company, a small my smallest company is $4 million right? My biggest company is $380 million and everything in between, right? Get a coach, because the investment into the right coach to help you do the right things, but also help you not do the wrong things, is literally a no brainer. Find the right coach, get him on the team. Doesn't matter what they look like, and just just go after it, just go.

Mike O'Neill 32:47

Those are my two. I think those are excellent. You know, Dan, before we close, here's something for the listeners to reflect on, and I think it dovetails with this conversation very nicely, and that is, is your leadership team moving forward with clarity and alignment, or are gaps in development holding your business back? Leadership isn't just about solving the immediate problems, it's about empowering your team with the skills and systems they need to drive sustainable growth. At bitch builders, we specialize in helping businesses unlock their leadership potential. So I invite you visit bench builders.com to learn how we can support your team's growth. Dan, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. For listeners who want to connect with you or learn more about your work, what's the best way for them to reach out?

Dan Coleman 33:37

Yeah. And so one last clue of a slide. One more. One more tidbit in here for bench builders, I really lean on. I have a image. It's a piece of artist says, what got you here may not get you there. Same with your people, what the people that got you here may not get you there? So call bench builders for that. So you can email me dan at Dan Coleman coach.com my website is Dan Coleman coach.com you can find my LinkedIn there as well. Everything you need to know to get a hold of me. My assistant's name is Cassie, C, A, S, S, I, E, feel free to email Cassie at Dan Coleman coach.com and I'm happy to send you a PDF overview of why it's important to have a coach, model, process, tool, system, etc.

Mike O'Neill 34:30

Dan, thank you. And I also want to thank all of our subscribers for joining in. And I hope today's conversation with Dan has inspired new ideas to help you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of get unstuck and on target. I hope you've gained insights to help you lead with confidence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at bench builders, we're committed to. Your success, your leadership excellence and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know? Who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path. You.