by Margaret Hirsch

You spend your whole life building up your business and getting everything going and then you must quit while you are ahead. This is one of the most difficult tasks you will ever have to do. It’s something that nothing can prepare you for.

They say the sign of a good manager is one who has their team so well trained that everything will run like clockwork even when they aren’t there. ActionCOACH teaches business owners to get everything set up so that the business will run exactly as it should so that you can take a well-earned holiday or break - but does this really happen?

There are so many books, letters, and teachings on

How to start a business
How to run a business
How to grow a business

But there are none that I can find on how to hand over a thriving business and leave it happily in the hands of others.

Allan and I decided to retire when we were 50 years old. The business was up and running, we had bought and paid for the home of our dreams and our cars. We had money in the bank and our children had returned from their trips overseas and decided to stay in South Africa and join the business. So all was very organised and very sorted exactly to our plan. However, there was one flaw, two days into our retirement we were bored silly and couldn’t wait to get back in the saddle, so to say!

To spice up our lives we moved from Durban to Gauteng, we thought we would give our management team room to move without us breathing down their necks every day. This proved to be the best move we had ever made and life was fast and exciting in Jozi, and we found it so much easier to do business than in Durban and the business went from strength to strength. In 2002 our Fourways branch opened, our first store in Gauteng.

In 2012 I handed my role of MD over to my son and just for a change we went to Cape Town. Everyone had warned us that life in the Cape would be very different and they were not wrong! It was a culture shock of note, but we soon slotted into the Cape way of life and became a force to be reckoned with in that space.

*Breaking Ground for our Milnerton branch in 2011, our first branch in the Cape*

I decided we would retire when I turned 70 and everything was in place and then Covid hit and threw a real spanner in the works. We had a salary bill of millions, hundreds of millions owing to creditors and no money coming in for six weeks. It was all hands on deck and we carried on. Like the question, when is a good time to start a business, the answer is 20 years ago but if not then, then today and the next question is "when is the best time to end a business?" Well after our 50th wedding anniversary in 2022, I decided this was the time we had to say goodbye to the business and move on.

I was ready but Allan wasn’t, he loved the business, loved the staff, loved the customers and he wanted to be there all day every day. The solution? A part time move to the USA to get him away from the business and let the young energetic management team take over.

They were doing incredibly well, reaching heights we had never even dreamed possible, and even though we were not physically there, with Zoom we could keep an eye on the business and make sure that the customer service levels and dedication to our customers is still upheld by the new team.

People often say to me “What is the most difficult thing you have ever done” and the answer is:

To Delegate!

I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about delegation. It’s not getting someone to do what needs to be done. It’s about making sure they do and then checking that it’s done properly.

No one will ever do something as well as you would, but so long at its about 80% right, that’s good enough - you and/or the business will get by on this. The knack is to get a lot of people doing things about 80% as well as you do and then things go well.

So, the question is when do you start planning your exit? The answer is TODAY! Start getting ready to move over and move on, you can’t go on forever and you don’t want all your hard work to go to waste. You need to ensure that you look after your staff and your legacy. Start today setting up the structures just in case. You never know what the universe has in store for you, and you need to be prepared for any eventuality.

Letting go is neither easy nor for the faint hearted but everyone must let go sometime, and sometimes sooner is better than later. You can sit back, see the fruits of your labour and make sure that the harvest goes on, and on, and on…

Much Love,

Margaret Hirsch