2020 has been a rough year for most of us. As it moves toward an end, I wanted to reach out specifically to business owners — especially small- and micro-business owners who’ve faced such huge challenges this year.
I’ve watched from the sidelines as my colleague and friend Jan Andersen decided to close her corporation after 24 years as a successful micro-business owner. She’s just one of several entrepreneurial professionals I know who decided to fully retire this year after facing client, health and safety issues, primarily driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her experience reminded me that business successions/transitions don’t always mean selling to a new owner, passing a company on to a family member or even the death of an owner. Sometimes these transitions just mean facing reality, stopping and letting go.
Recently, Jan told me that it’s been harder to close her corporation than it was to open it. Everything from the mundane — closing a savings account and cancelling a credit card — to the surprisingly difficult process of changing business-based phone and Internet services to personal. And then there’s shutting down the business website and e-mail address, knowing that some contacts will be lost along the way.
As great actors know, how you exit the stage is as much a part of your professional success as your time onstage. So when you decide it’s time to close a business, the letting go needs the same care and attention that you took when you opened and ran it. Assuming you’ve already talked with your accountant, attorney, immediate family members, board members and possibly others in making the decision, here are a few additional suggestions:
Plan how you’ll finish work. You need a specific plan, including timeframes, for wrapping up projects/work, passing clients on to other vendors, and finalizing closing paperwork and financials. This is no time to wing it.
Be careful what you discuss. You don’t owe a detailed explanation of why you made your closing decision to anyone. Be as discreet and careful of confidentiality as you would be in the normal course of business.
Decide if a closing event is appropriate. In the era of COVID-19 some kind of closing party, “thank you” for clients/customers or other event is no longer an automatic “of course.”
Make any needed introductions. When appropriate in the process, connect those who are handling your affairs and introduce clients to new vendors. Make any other connections between people that will help them handle your departure.
Tell employees first. If you have employees, tell everyone at the same time and in a face-to-face or video conference if possible. This life-changing news shouldn’t go out via the grapevine. Keep the initial announcement brief, reassure them as much as you honestly can and show them your schedule for when more details will follow.
Tell clients next, quickly. You won’t be able to control “leaks,” so get out in front of it. Have a client message prepared so you can send the news to your clients as soon as you finish talking with your employees. (If you have so few clients that you can efficiently make personal phone calls, do that. Otherwise, use a carefully crafted memo or email — not via text!)
Stay polished to the end. Just because people know you’re closing up shop doesn’t mean it’s time to start wearing sweats every day, physically or mentally. Maintain your usual level of dress and grooming, as well as your professional behavior and presence, throughout the process.
Finally, recognize that shutting down a business isn’t just a legal and technical process; it has emotional challenges. You’ve put your heart, energy and time into building something that maybe lasted for years — and now it’s going away. Grief, sadness, relief, joy, frustration, guilt, even depression can all get mixed up in a stew of more than one sleepless night.
