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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
When and Why To Sell
By Judith Potwora

 

While experts say the best time to sell is when you're doing well, entrepreneurs say personal concerns signaled when they were ready to consider selling.

 

For Florine Mark, selling was a way to ensure that her children enjoyed the fruits of her labor. "I just wanted to be alive to watch my kids enjoy it," says Mark, who sold most of her Weight Watchers franchises to Weight Watchers International. About 60 percent of the business was owned by her children, she says. Since selling in 2003, "there are no big Ferraris or big houses," says Mark, who had humble beginnings and is happy to see her children prosper. She and her children have formed some philanthropic family foundations and get together monthly to decide where to allocate the funds.

 

Time is another reason to sell. Carolee Friedlander says she reached a point where she realized she had too many interests to justify her heavy workload at Carolee Designs. After she sold it she stayed on for three years to ease the transition and learn from her buyer, Retail Brand Alliance. Now she has time to travel, visit with children and grandchildren, advise other business owners and serve on boards.

 

And in a moment of total honesty, some entrepreneurs realized they just didn't love what they were doing. "I was spending 20 percent of my time doing what I loved and 80 percent doing the grind of business," says Cheryl Womack, founder of VCW Inc. What she disliked was negotiating contracts in the male-dominated world of insurance underwriters; what she loved was advising clients, who were small business owners. Since selling VCW, Womack now spends much of her time advising budding entrepreneurs through her nonprofit organization, Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World.

 

At first she mourned selling her company, Womack says, but gradually she got involved with her nonprofit and now travels the world advising women. She's finally reached a point where she loves what she does. Says Womack: "You can't get to the exciting until you get through the painful."