Taking over business from retiring baby boomers

[The Sandman]

The most important factor is the ability to think outside the box. Manufacturing problems are so wide ranging that once detected by a salesperson operating as a troubleshooter they have to be somewhat inventive to quickly come up with a solution.

EXAMPLE: Multiple sheets of wood veneers are assembled and loaded into an opening (known as a daylight) between multiple steel plates (platens) and the press is closed hydraulically to employ extreme pressure plus temperature to cure the adhesive between the layers of wood veneers.

A sales person is visiting and observes the application of a silicone emulsion sprayed on the platen, and at the same time observes that as the pile of wood veneers is loaded into the opening between the platens a shower of sawdust and larger wood fibers drops out around the pile.

How does the troubleshooter react? He/she should warn against the use of silicone in such a case partly because it does not completely prevent the build up of that detritus which cures during the pressing and is extremely difficult to remove.

If the wood veneer pile is not placed precisely where there is no build up of cured detritus he/she should also report the fact.

He/she will know the reason and the solution, part of which is already mentioned above.

Later he/she will return by appointment to demonstrate his/her company's superior product that resolves the problem, and obtain a large order when the production team see how easy it is to remove the cured build up of detritus.

Walter

Oh man, if I had seen this a year ago I would have been all over it. I got into engineered wood products (Plywood and LVL) 10 years ago, mostly on the technical side, with some time on production. What you're describing is right up my alley. Heck, I've gone to Canada go help our OSB supplier troubleshoot the quality issues we were seeing.

But I quit last year to buy my own business. The goal is to work myself out of the job and free myself up for other things but I'm not there yet. I'll have the loan paid off at the end of the year which will free up cash flow to hire my replacement, so I'm not too far off. But I won't have much time before then.

 

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[Spenny]

Superb post. I'm going directly into a career to transition to just this.

You hear people who have been in the business for years, and they say precisely this. "People need to sell the business to retire, and the P/E of the business is 4 with good margins."

After digging around in stocks for a while, you can't get much better than that on the public markets (unless you're searching).

 

[addV]

You hear people who have been in the business for years, and they say precisely this. "People need to sell the business to retire, and the P/E of the business is 4 with good margins."

After digging around in stocks for a while, you can't get much better than that on the public markets

And I think they shouldn't. A public company and an SMB have got completely different risk profiles.

 

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