Developing my exit strategy to ditch my golden handcuffs

[NC Bidniss]

Since I last posted on this forum (winter/spring of 2019), a lot has changed in my life. At the time a was a new father to a little girl, had made some headway in my career and business, but had a long way to go. I first came here after reading The Millionaire Fastlane looking for some advice on what I should do with the business/career opportunity I had and what I should do to maximize the potential with the opportunity.

To outline the opportunity is simple. I owned 7.5% (which is now 10%) of a family business. I finished college and came to work for the family business which had sat dormant since 2008, only earning income by leasing commercial and industrial properties. A large facility, a 200k sf warehouse on 20 acres, had a bad tenant, needed a lot of cleaning and repairs, and needed to either find a new home or a new use. I was paid a decent starting salary and was given a decent amount of control to see what I could do.

As of this writing, I am sitting in my office at that very site. What was once an empty building is now a full-fledged warehousing operation which services local manufacturers. Not including myself and two other family members technically on payroll, the site is operated by 9 full-time employees on a single shift. Day-to-day, the operation runs itself and generates a pretty decent revenue stream. I have expanded the site to 35 acres by purchasing some adjacent land, I am currently in the process of building a small processing plant attached to the main warehouse to expand our service offerings, and I have begun further development of the site to prep for future building. Along side that progress, I have made a lot of headway in the non-operational interests of the business. All-in-all my efforts have seen an increase of over 350% in revenue and over 90% in net income since 2019. I earn a much larger salary now, and if I wanted to continue, I would live a very comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle for the rest of my life doing this.

On the personal side of things, a lot has changed as well. My daughter is almost 3, and I now also have a 1-year-old son. My wife and I bought a nice home in arguably the best neighborhood in town (which isn't saying all that much given the town we live in). I drive a pretty nice car now (a 2017 Audi S7), as does my wife (a 2017 Yukon Denali). I have also finally picked flying back up and have nearly completed my training. I'll have my license at about the same time my plane will arrive from the factory. It seems, from the outside looking in, that I've got it made. However, the last couple years have been fraught with pain and struggle.

In March 2020, I lost my mother to cancer. She was only 57. It nearly destroyed me. A lot of the reason we decided to buy a home where and at the time we did was because we knew she was sick and we wanted her to be able to watch her grandkids grow up as long as she could. I imagined she would have 3-5 years. She died exactly a month after we closed on our house. This came with a lot of after effects which I will leave to your imagination. That paired with the stress of working to run a business was too much, and it all came to a head on New Years Eve. That was the turning point for me. That is when I shaped myself up, started working on my overall well-being.

Altogether I have found a good deal of accomplishment and success in a couple short years. I've experience a lot of personal growth over the course. However, I've done the math, and I've found that what I'm doing now is likely a dead end. It will afford me a comfortable life, but it won't be a free life. When I peel away the successful exterior I'm left with grueling existence. A 40-hour workweek is practically a vacation at this point, which points to the obvious fact I'm living for the weekend. Since I live in a relatively small town, the weekend isn't all that much to look forward to anyway. I need to make a change. I need to afford to move my family to a comfortable area. I need to take back more of my time. I need to release myself of the golden handcuffs of the family business. It's been made clear to me that I will not see an increase in ownership to any significant degree any time soon, and the portion of my ownership is not valuable enough to be freeing.

I find myself at a crossroads. I can either continue living as I am until I either die miserably of old age or quickly by felating a shotgun, or I can strategize my exit. As of now, I have no idea what I am going to do. I know I have value in the business and my personal investments that amount to a decently significant net worth, but I don't yet have a plan as to how I can put that to use. Sure I can calculate my escape number. I can plan where I want to be and I can build a roadmap. What I lack now is the vehicle. My experience, to my knowledge, in industrial real estate and warehousing doesn't translate well to a guy striking out on his own. It's so capital intensive that I really don't seem to have a prayer in making it work alone. My experience in business operations and development, of course, will give me an edge on the average Joe, but all that gives me is a steering wheel, not the whole vehicle.

This post is much longer than I intended. I suppose what I need is a nudge in the right direction. Or maybe I just need to vent. All I know is that until I can emancipate myself from this family business and from this droll existence, I will not be happy. Nothing I have tried to date has worked, and I fear that my dreams are just slipping further away.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Any comments, advice, tips, stories, and so on would be great to hear.

 

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[Bigguns50]

Thank you for sharing. Great write-up and very insightful. I hope we can help.

It doesn't seem like you're at a crossroads at all. Do you journal? If not, I highly recommend doing so. There are no rules for journaling and you can write about whatever you want. I have many journals. Personal, business. the Big Picture, spiritual, and more. Some of these have helped tremendously with my big life decisions and business plans.

Making a big change like the one you will make takes a lot of introspection. A lot of reading and learning and research. From my perspective, you are in a good place to plan a change and take a chance. One thing is for sure. You will learn a LOT about yourself as you evolve. Enjoy the process. Respect the forthcoming hardships and pain. That doesn't mean you have to suffer. You don't. That's optional.

 

[LightHouse]

Thank you for being transparent and writing all that up, giving everyone a real solid update. I imagine this was good for you in terms of typing out and vocalizing the current state of things. I am terribly sorry to hear about your mother, I can imagine that was tough.

I wanted to point out a very limiting belief that you are holding on to and hopefully also no longer want to hold on to it....

I My experience, to my knowledge, in industrial real estate and warehousing doesn't translate well to a guy striking out on his own. It's so capital intensive that I really don't seem to have a prayer in making it work alone. My experience in business operations and development, of course, will give me an edge on the average Joe, but all that gives me is a steering wheel, not the whole vehicle.

This has not been my experience at all. I have worked with people and also in that industry directly and I can tell you that as an individual you can get started, it just may not look like what you are used to. The thing is you have to get creative and let your goals drive you to make things work.

You may not have all the collateral or cash to put up for buildings, but you'd find that most pathways in that industry don't involve your own personal capital and ideally not even a personal guarantee (though it may be necessary up front).

To give you a quick hypothetical, you could move to a new area and work with an existing owner that has a disheveled or underperforming portfolio and turn it around for cash plus performance fees. You could leverage creative financing to get your way into a small industrial property and use your knowledge to revitalize it or change it's use focus, and then work your way up with more property.

The point being, you do and always will have options, but you have to help yourself see them and even look for them more often.

I hope you stick around and continue to update us on your journey!

 

[WJK]

I too am in real estate. I too took over the family business property -- a mobile home park. I bought out my dad and supported my mother for 10 years before her death. So, I now own it -- all these years later. Yes, I too built it up -- to 8 times the income of where I started. Yes, I too feel "stuck" a lot of days.

But, the flip side is that --
Many of the people on this forum and in our worlds would do just about anything to be in our positions.

We have wonderful experience and educations in how real estate and the business world works.

We are well paid for our efforts.

We can use this as a spring board for other opportunities.

Here's a challenge or two for you.
Why don't you look for a white elephant with pink toe nails.? That's a building has lost its intended use and sitting vacant or under used -- much like your family's property. Survey all the buildings in your area that in that type of situation. Spend some time dreaming about what you could do with them. What uses could you convert them to? How much it cost? How would you plan the project? Could you get it approved by the local BS Department? Will it pencil out on the $ issues? Hint: there's a lot of commercial buildings in many areas that are just sitting there waiting for a creative new owner...

Can you buy out anyone in your family business? There's all kinds of deals to make.

You could buy the future interest at designated point in time. You'd pay for that interest today at discounted rate, so it would cost you less cash. For example: You could have naked title to their interest in exchange for your cash. They could have something like a "life estate" where they continue to receive their share of the income for the rest of their lives. I've seen this work with older relatives. You'd need an attorney to write up the agreement.

Does anyone need cash to send their kids to college? Maybe you could buy them out. Or you could buy their income for a period of time in exchange for you paying them a lump sum of cash. Make sure you do your numbers carefully up front to make it worth your while. This can work for helping relatives buy a home or other large purchases.

Keep saving and thinking about what you can do.

Can you start a sister business to your family business? What can you do on your own that works with what you are already doing?

You will need cash, no matter what you do. So, save and put your strutting money together...

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Have you done a 1/5/10 Plan? If so, is what you are doing a bridge closer to any of the numbers?

 

[Tiago]

Are you 100% on exactly what it is that you want? If so, can you share that with us? That would make it easier to point you in the right direction.