NISER Succession Planning Seminars conclude

What to put in place to grow

Like so many business owners, when it came to succession planning, Ken Miles didn’t know what he didn’t know.What he did know was that, at 49, he had just six years left to achieve his aim of retiring at 55.

And he knew that despite building Ausimix into a successful small concreting and paving business, the business was probably not in a position to9 be sold for anywhere near its real value.

So, Mr Miles joined a group of other Sunshine Coast business owners in March this year to do the NISER Succession Planning Skills Development Program, funded under the federal government’s Building Entrepreneurship in Small Business Program.

“When I bought the business it was basically a trailer with a cement mixer on it,” he said.

“We’ve built up to the stage where we’ve got five full-time employees, three mini-mix trucks and a pre-cast products division.

“But after doing the program, I realized that while the business is going very well, we wouldn’t have been able to sell it because we had nothing in place to present to a potential buyer.”

Mr Miles said he now had implemented strategies to not only prepare for a sale, but also to help the business grow.
While Mr Miles did the program with a view to an eventual sale, facilitator Geoff Moller said it was only half the succession planning story.

“It could also be called strategic transition planning, because for some business, it’s about learning what to put in place to allow them to grow,” he said.

…download article here