27: Lesley Vossenkemper on Values, Transitioning your Business, and Leaving Well
“Step one, hold your values close. The second part of leaving well is finding purpose or gratitude in whatever it was that you’re moving on from. And then find future. What are you looking forward to next? Those three things.”
Lesley is an authority in developing data-driven strategies and unlocking potential in teams to achieve goals. She found her calling helping business owners and management teams multiply their impact by elevating strategy and focus and aligning resources towards a greater sense of purpose and reward.
After leaving her corporate executive role in 2021 she launched Scale-Up Strategies with a passion to help business owners grow and scale their businesses. She earned her Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation from the Exit Planning Institute, and with this training combined with her work experience AND her firsthand experiences as the daughter and granddaughter of successful entrepreneurs, she is grateful to have found a niche within the advisory space to leverage her experience and make a difference in the lives of hard-working business owners and their teams.
Lesley lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with her husband and 2 children. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor activities such as biking and boating.
“Working with business owners, their business becomes a sense of who they are. It’s their identity. And they can’t even imagine what they would do if they didn’t have their business to be running every day. And who am I if I’m not the owner of XYZ business?”
Additional Quotes:
There's a lot of different ways to transition ownership or leadership of a business and being able to provide that education first approach and helping them understand all of the different options that are out there and listening to them and their goals and understanding what's important to them.
I think our whole lives, we're always navigating who we are, what we want. What's for me been core is understanding my values. I will always do my very best. I will always keep learning. I will always take the high road and do what is right and good. And those kinds of pieces are more foundational to my identity than the job title I attach to my work.
Step one, hold your values close. The second part of leaving well is finding purpose or gratitude in whatever it was that you're moving on from. And then find future. What are you looking forward to next? Those three things.
To connect with Lesley or learn more about her work:
Take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz.
To learn more about Leaving Well, click here.
My Bookshop.org Leaving Well library has many resources to support your workplace transition journey!
To support and contribute to the production costs of this podcast:
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
Working with business owners, their business becomes a sense of who they are. It's their identity. And they can't even imagine what they would do if they didn't have their business to be running every day. And who am I, if I'm not the owner of XYZ business?
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible, I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief, confidence, leadership, and career development.
Braided Throughout will be solo episodes sharing my best practices and leaving well founded. Framework expect to be inspired, challenged, and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world. Lesley Vossenkemper is an authority in developing data-driven strategies and unlocking potential in teams to achieve goals.
She found her calling in helping business owners and management teams multiply their impact by elevating strategy and focus and aligning resources towards a greater sense of purpose and reward. After leaving her corporate executive role in 2021, she launched Scale Up Strategies with a passion to help business owners grow and scale their businesses.
Lesley earned her Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation from the Exit Planning Institute, and with this training, combined with her work experience and her first hand experiences as the daughter and granddaughter of successful entrepreneurs, She's grateful to have found a niche within the advisory space to leverage her experience and make a difference in the lives of hardworking business owners and their teams.
Lesley lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with her husband and two children. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor activities such as biking and boating. Lesley, I'm so glad to have you on, and I would love for you to just jump in and tell us in your words about one of your personal transition or change stories.
All right. Thanks, Naomi. So I'm going to talk about the transition where I ended up opening my own business. Uh, I was working in a large matrix organization, which nobody's, if you've ever worked in a matrix organization, it can be a little chaotic and the way how decisions are made and how you navigate any, you know, strategy and whatnot.
But my role within that matrix organization was essentially like a GM. So I was responsible for one of the verticals and the charge was to grow and diversify the revenue for that vertical. And so I came in and I developed that strategy and actually brought a partner to the table because I identified pretty quickly that if I was going to be effective at bringing new product to market, I had better get creative because their strength was not software development.
And so long story short, this partner ended up being an acquisition. We acquired them. It was the largest investment this business had ever made in an acquisition was about a hundred million dollar deal. And so after that transaction, I began leading. I was the champion of the integration, right? So it was time to execute on the strategy that I had created and received buy in from the board and the management team on pursuing.
And so we led I led the integration. It was. exciting. I've got past that first chapter of the real hurdles, which are hard and very peopley and in any integration. And then we were, we're moving forward with some of the other value drivers of the deal. Like we meet with new product development and some, some different kinds of strategies that were the core of the why behind, behind the deal.
And, uh, the CEO of the acquired company left and at that point in time, the, the CEO of the company that the parent company, uh, hired an external CEO. And I was like, hello, does anybody see me? I was, you know, from a career standpoint. Really frustrated. But then once that new CEO came in, he shifted strategy, had a different kind of plan and was bringing in some other external hires.
And, you know, I, through other transitions previous in life, I had a couple tools that I had learned along the way. One of them was about navigating feelings, you know, in my, in my twenties, I had been through a divorce and had seen a counselor and learned through that process, um, how to dig into feelings and emotional a little more deeply.
She had taught me. Yeah, I was so mad during that time. And she's like, mad is an umbrella feeling. There's other feelings that contribute. To that mad, like you gotta dig deeper and understand. So I, I called on that toolbox at that point in time and needed to understand like I, I was frustrated, but I was, you know, I was discouraged.
I was disappointed. I was number one, not agreeing with the new strategy shift. There was, there was a lot of layers there that were both personal from a career standpoint, but also from a business standpoint, I just. I couldn't get behind some of the shift in strategy. It just was, it was off course. And I felt like we were creating tremendous risk around the whole purpose behind the investment.
And so the second tool that I had learned actually, as I was earlier in my career, I was building and developing a very. Rapidly growing team. And we had brought in a leadership trainer and she had taught a team of project managers that were working on my team. They were feeling very frustrated with some of their team members.
And they, she was listening and she had gotten out this tool called the circle of influence. Draw a picture on a piece of paper and a circle in the middle, and then a circle around that circle. And so. Charting all the things that are frustrating you or causing you concern or anxiety, like all of the things that are, are not good, you write, you figure out which ones are things you can control and which things you can't control.
And after you've mapped out the things that end up in the center are the things that you can control things that you want, they're frustrating you or causing some negative emotion. But you do have control over it. So I went through that little mental exercise myself at that point and thought about Okay.
I can't control the decisions that have been made by management. I can't control, you know, the strategy. I've tried to explain the why I use that circle of influence all the time, because I really want to be thoughtful about where do I put my energy? If I'm not sleeping at night over something I can't fix or change or control, I kind of shut that down.
And I use that tool pretty frequently. But I thought to myself, I remember there's a quote out there of, if you can't get a seat at the table, build your own. And I thought, okay, as the daughter and granddaughter of entrepreneurs who've been talking business since, you know, I was a little girl, it's always been just part of household conversation.
I've always wondered, could I, could I have my own business? And, you know, I'm feeling like. I know I can't stay here. This is time. It's the right time. It's not even the right thing for me to stay because I can't get behind this new leadership team. And so I talked to my husband and said, you know, what if I were to open my own business?
And go and do things that I feel like I love my my best days. That was part of the process. I went through is trying to think about, you know, what, what are my best days? What are my favorite things? And I'm a builder at heart. I love to build and I love to help empower teams and. I thought, what if I could help other business owners do just that got all this great experience in my career, you know, 20 some years, having built and scaled businesses, how could I go and help others do the same.
And so I made that transition resigned my position left all on a very good note, and people were supportive and excited for me, and I'm still a big cheerleader and champion for those businesses knowing it was the function of my strategy that they are together. I want them to be successful and well, but it was time for me to move on.
I love so much about what you said. The things that I'm so thankful that you brought up are the tools that you knew from other transitions in your life. And I think that's something that if you don't take anything else away from this conversation as you listen, Going back into your own life to pull from what you've already been through is so magical and can be so helpful when you're navigating a workplace transition.
So I'm really glad that you brought those up, Lesley. I would love for you to talk a little bit more about, not necessarily about the story around values and the misalignment, but what you're seeing now with clients that you work with or other things that you are aware of where. Uh, values come into play.
And how, how do you know when there's that misalignment, uh, for yourself or for the clients that you work with? Yeah, that's a great question. For me, where I am in life right now, I'm pretty firm on my values, but it takes a second, I think, for, for people to navigate and build the confidence and who they are and what's important to them.
There's great tools out there. I love the Brene Brown value builder tool. It's a good exercise that kind of maps you through that. But I think for, for many people, there's a sense of friction is what they'll notice. It's like, Hmm, not sure how I feel about that, but I, in my work, what I find because I'm scale up strategies, I am a certified exit planning advisor and I help owners think about and plan for their future and that future, every single business owner at some point will transition their business, right?
They will, whether they. Take it to their grave with them or what, but they will end up transitioning out of their business. And so I think the values piece of how to do that is something that is so important to to allow and a business owner to understand. And I think that. Most of it's misunderstood.
They, I have to sell it or keep it. Well, there's a lot of different ways to transition ownership or leadership of a business and being able to provide that education first approach and helping them understand all of the different options that are out there and listening to them and their goals and understanding what's important to them.
And then you can kind of go through the pros and cons of the different options, and it's the values start attaching to to something. Um, a great example of that is some, but business owners feel really strongly about. Their employee base, right? I wouldn't be where I was without my employees, and I don't want to see anything happen to them.
I want to figure out, you know, that that is a value. That's a value that's being spoken right there. And so there's certain kinds of options that are better for that owner. And so listening and understanding their values, I can help steer or guide them in a different direction. I love that. And I'm also been wondering how many people could benefit.
From having that conversation with you about their business, even if they don't think they're ready, even if they don't have plans, you know, none of us plan to leave our jobs, you know, well, I should say a lot of people don't plan to leave their jobs and then it happens, or they start to realize that it is time.
And I'm just thinking of how valuable that conversation with you could be and is about planning for their, the future of their business. I, I think every single business owner should understand these basic concepts of, of exit planning and value acceleration. It's, it's a newer profession. I remember, you know, in my 20, 20s, there being product managers, like what is a product manager?
It was a new profession, right? And now it's ubiquitous. Everybody has a product manager. Everybody knows what that role is and how important it is to a business. And I think having A SEPA, a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, will become that same kind of ubiquitous understanding. I've got a CPA, I've got a financial advisor, I've got my SEPA.
If you're a business owner, you should have one in your Rolodex to call. It's an education first approach, but understanding the concepts. Is it actually shifts strategy and prioritization within a business? That's it really is empowering and it's methodology that is, you know, only 20, 25 years old. So it's, it is new in concept, but it is difference making to an owner.
Well, and I compare that to the value that comes to a family or to a household when you're doing estate planning, the whole idea behind estate planning is that you're, of course, putting legal protection around your estate, but you're also giving a gift to those that you leave behind when you die, which a lot of us don't want to talk about, but it happens to all of us.
And I think about that for a business owner, there's probably value and maybe you could talk to this a Value from a legalities and the business structure, but also the peace of mind for the actual owner. Do you find that the clients that you work with or the people that you've worked with in the past have been surprised by what they've learned when talking to you about exit strategies?
Yes, there's, there's a few different lanes of surprise, you know, the starting point of a lot of engagements, not all of them, but many of them where maybe there's an owner within 10 years, they've got a 10 year horizon of where they imagine wanting to do something more or different with their life. And a lot of times I begin with helping them understand how would an investor value your business.
That is often a real surprise for them. And unfortunately, many times a disappointing bit of news to learn that maybe they've built a lifestyle business, right? They've built an income. They've built a great life and a great income, but they viewed their business as a lifestyle business. They didn't under, they didn't ever really look at their business as an asset and have they built a transferable asset is their value in your business to transition to somebody else.
And if there is. Well, and then it's the opportunity, helping them understand these are the specific things you can do to make that change, and that's not something you can do overnight. So you need a time horizon to work with. So that's the first thing that's surprising. And then you bring up, uh, tax planning, tax and estate planning.
The amount of risk I think a business owner has if something happened to them, a 50 percent of businesses transition in an unplanned way. It's death. It's divorce. It's disability. It's, you know, we call it the five D's. It's a whole, that's a whole, um, understanding of all the ways. And then there's the six two, where sometimes people wake up in the morning, like, I don't want to do this anymore.
Something changed in their life. And so there's not some of those risk mitigation elements in place, which can be contractual. It can be, there's legal documents and planning that need to happen to ensure that your wishes are. Um, held tight when, when something does go wrong. So risk mitigation is one piece, but the, the other is how empowering some of those tools are.
And, um, you talk to owners and, you know, it's pretty common in owners to be trying to do the best they can to avoid tax or how do I get more money? Where I want it to go or preserve and avoid taxes where it's possible. And estate planning is one of those places. You can look at charitable giving options.
You can figure out how to take care of your spouse or your family. And, um, there's a lot of little eyeopening surprises that come along that. And I think the last we've mentioned is just, there's so many ways to transition a business. I work with nine, got nine different types of approaches to transition ownership, which is I believe all that exists.
And I don't work in the IPO world. I'm working with a smaller business that would be considering IPO, but it is just the light bulbs. It's the learning process. I didn't know that that existed. I didn't know I should be doing this. I didn't know. Uh, yeah, everybody would would benefit from from worrying about exit planning and value acceleration.
I even, it makes me think about folks that might come to you and say, okay, in the next 10 years, maybe it's because of age or because of lifestyle change, or like you said, they wake up and they're like, I'm just not feeling this anymore. I, I would, I would wonder, or I would think about people that come to you and say, okay, I'm looking at 10 years.
They probably come away from the conversation with you thinking, oh, I'm There's actually more opportunity here that I can explore that has to be so expansive and freeing. And then it goes back to your conversation about managing emotions. I would guess that's another surprise that people have when working with you is realizing like there's a whole hell of a lot of emotions that come up with owning a business.
And then also talking about its end, which is. It is hard and it's actually the biggest avoidance. The reason they're not learning the reason they're not exploring. There's a lot of emotion that I think many people think it's like planning a will, which who wants to do that? It always, it always feels like you can wait for later.
And also it's not really think you don't want to think about it. What happens to your kids? What happens to your, you know, it's, it's not a fun process, but I think the. Especially with people who are nearing retirement, I mean, you've got business owners who pretty savvy. They want to build sell, you know, go on to their next adventure.
And so that type of engagement is a different engagement working with somebody who's already wired to think about their business as an asset, but working with business owners, their business becomes a sense of who they are. It's their identity. And they can't even imagine what they would do if they didn't have their business to be running every day.
And who am I if I'm not the owner of XYZ business? And so part of the planning, it's, it's a holistic process. We look at the person, we look at the business, and we look at financial and which is not mutually exclusive of the other two, but that personal part of the planning is actually just as important as the business piece because 75 percent of owners within the first year regrets, regret transitioning their business because they hadn't prepared personally about what they would do.
And so that is, that is just baked into part of the planning process that I go through with my clients that you're, you're right. It is really emotional. And even some of those decisions around, okay, if it's more of an internal transition to a partner or a son or daughter or to employee ownership.
There's, there's a lot of emotion and sometimes some decision making that's hard. You might have a couple kids in the business who's, who's going to be, yeah. The president or the CEO of the business, and how do you navigate that and, and managing the family conversation for it. It, it's complicated, but it's why having, you know, somebody who's trained and able to help navigate and think through and talk about the things that are hard to talk about and that out is, is, is valuable.
That brings up the, the point that I was. I had written down earlier. Can you talk a little bit about what happens when there's a decision to be made, which maybe a lot of business owners don't think about with regard to how long they might stay after acquisition or after transition to maybe a son or daughter, family member, what have you.
Does that come up for part of your conversation with, with your clients as well around the different opportunities that they can choose from or navigate? Yep, you bet. So there's, there's, there's kind of two pieces there. One is how long an owner sticks around could be a function of training. Um, how do I train and make sure that my successor is got what they need to be successful.
And that is. You know, especially when you've got a planning timeframe where you know, all right, I've been through and I know what my options are and I'm choosing, I want to transition this to my, my kids. And there's some deal structure things that still need to happen. There's actual ownership shifts that need to occur.
So, but you, you've got timeframe and then you can think about unpack. What are the things they need to learn? And let's not just have this be a job shadow for two years. There could be, there could be real, you know, skills they need to develop. Maybe some external trainings to attend, some industry conferences, or there, there can just be layers there that if you're not intentional about it, it just, you know, continuing to work together for two years isn't necessarily via osmosis, the, the success measure or the, you know, successful approach.
But then there's other situations, which is a function of a deal structure. If you are selling your business, let's say to a private equity company, there might be an earn out phase where you need to stay in the business for the next two, three years in order to get the full value, the, the earn outs that are set up in the structure.
But that could also even look at like a consulting relationship. So, uh, maybe you're involved from a consulting standpoint for two years, but it really comes down to. What are the decisions? How are you approaching it? And what is the deal structure and how long the owner needs to be engaged or wants to be engaged thinking back to your own experience of leaving a corporate position?
Possibly thinking back to your experience of the education that you received as you received your certification and or client work. Could you talk a little bit about what it means to set down, set aside or rediscover your identity when it comes to matters of the workplace? Yes. That's interesting because I think there's an element of that that I'm still navigating, right?
I have A small business and I have been in C level roles of large businesses. So even my own shift and identity. It's like, this is my next act. Like, I've gone through my own type of transition and, you know, I do still, I, I've got a call after this. I think that people are interested in me joining their team.
I've got large consulting firms that are starting to pick up on. Huh, is, is this something we should be including in and they're interested in my work and I think to myself, is that am I am I fully done if I if I exited forever being in another business and in that corporate world again, but I think it's, um, The way that I manage that is just a check in a bit around what am I enjoying and what do I want the most, what are my best days, what's the emotion there, the circle of influence, and then reconcile that with what could I expect would change if I were to make that shift.
And am I now giving up some of the things that I want to protect the most. And, um, I think that, you know, Just those tools in the toolbox and the identity, the identity piece is something I don't know that's ever fully complete. I think our whole lives, we're always navigating who we are, what we want.
What's for me been core is understanding my values. I will always do my very best. I will always keep learning. I will always be high road and do what is right and good. And, you know, those kinds of pieces. Are more foundational to my identity than the job title. I attach to my work. That is beautiful. I love that.
You just said that. I also think that there's something that I've experienced with my clients where. Having the discussion with themselves about their identity outside of the workplace often brings them to a closer understanding of it might be the time for them to go, the time for them to pass it to someone else.
Uh, I think founders a lot of times, business owners, entrepreneurs, they all share the same, but it's my baby kind of a mentality. And being able to look at, and I identify What parts of the identity are able to shift is powerful. So I'm encouraging folks to take what Lesley just recommended around staying real close to your values around what does that mean for your day to day and what the future looks like.
Lesley, what would you say about change or transition that people might be shocked or surprised to hear? I think, I think a lot of times it's almost like a paradigm shift that I am asking people to make. It's Especially, especially when it feels like change is happening to you, there's, there's a real common defense mechanism that I see in people wanting to look out, you know, post blame or expect somebody else is going to make this better for you.
If assuming there's negative feelings around it, it is so much easier. To look out and expect someone else to fix it or someone else to blame for how you're feeling. And I think the surprising thing that I try to coach around is it changes about what you make of it. It's, it's all about what you make of it.
And so at the point that you can Start to identify purpose in the change. Like what am I learned? Is there an opportunity to learn? Is there an opportunity to bring somebody along the way with you? Is there an opportunity? So I say bring somebody along with you as I'm thinking about a business owner.
It's a change for them, but How is this an opportunity for someone else? And can you kind of invest yourself in helping that person be successful, take control of this and own the change and what you're making of it. And I think that it helps to create that circle of influence again, where, where can you place your energy that's positive and, and, and go forward and embrace, embrace what that is, whatever it may be.
What do most people get wrong in your opinion about managing change and transition? I think it's that. It's, it's the, that they get caught up in the change itself and that they are somehow a victim of it or want to avoid it. And that's the mistake. It's the mistake that people make is embrace it and try to figure out how, where the opportunity and the purpose is and the change, and it will change the way you feel about it.
Yeah, I love that. As you continue with your journey of discovering your identity inside of being a small business owner and doing this really important work, what are you walking towards as you navigate your next steps and as you help clients navigate their transitions? Yeah, what I'm walking towards is I just want to make a difference at scale.
I can go work. This is part of my, you know, decision making process of do I go into a bigger firm to think or what do I, what do I want to do? But I, I feel like I want to make a difference at scale and if people, I could help one business and work in that one business or I can work with many. And I think the message and the.
The methodologies and the, the content that I'm teaching and helping advise around is making a difference, not only for a business owner, but for their teams and their families. And that to me is what I'm working towards is I want to make an impact at scale for good and for better. I would also garner a guess that the folks that find their way to you also have impactful businesses and so that ripple of the scale that you help with also likely leaks into the community and the customer base across, you know, a well run business is one that ends well also and so, um, that impact desire for yourself is really, really powerful.
What does leaving well mean to you, Lesley? Now, we talked about holding your values close, right? That's step 1, hold your values close. The 2nd part of leaving well is finding purpose or gratitude, whatever it was that you're moving on from and. Then find future. What, what are you looking forward to next?
Those three things. I think those are how I would describe the parts of leaving. Well, to me, I love that. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to share as we close up? I mean, we've covered a lot of ground. This was yes. Great questions. We have, we've got, we've covered a lot of ground and I think it's so exciting to have met you and to know more about what you do, because it's such a needed piece in our world of business from a small business owner to an entrepreneur to a big corporation.
It doesn't matter the size thinking about the ending, wherever you're at in the journey, beginning, middle or nearing the end. It's important to think about transitioning your business. So Lesley, I'm so glad that you're in the world doing the work that you're doing. It was good having you on. Thank you, Naomi.
It was great to be here. Thank you for having me to learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. Visit naomihattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system.
We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation until next time. I'm your host. Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.