My friend had been offered a new job in a different city. This meant that he & his wife had to move from the home they had raised their kids in for most of their lives. It was a difficult decision, taking their kids out of high school to start them in a new school at that age, but the family was all on board, so they made the decision to make this major change.
To ensure they got the best price possible, for their home, they needed to do a lot of updating and renovations before they put the house on the market. There was a lot to do. Among all the changes they needed to make to the home, was removing the wallpaper from the main entrance, hall, and stairway, which opened two floors up. The work was challenging, because they were not just renovating and updating, they were doing everything at once: started a new job in another city, commuting, looking for a house to move to, packing, enrolling the kids in a new school, etc. It was almost more than they could manage. When they were finished the place looked amazing. In fact, it sold quite quickly, for the value they wanted.
Before they moved, I remember talking to my friend’s wife and she said, ‘I can’t believe what a huge change removing that wallpaper made. It came with the house, I always hated it, but I never put any effort or thought into changing it. I really love the house now and wish I had done more while we were in it. What a difference it would have made to my productivity in the home, when I was working.’
Preparing your business to sell is like getting rid of the old wallpaper. Sometimes making small updates, that you know will make a difference, but you just have not put it on the ‘front burner’ to do anything about, can make a big change over time.
Imagine what working in an updated business could do, when you feel more productive, in control, and have more energy? If this work is done now, years before you sell, you can use that time like compound productivity, to add value to you and the bottom-line of the business. And, if you do the bigger work now (e.g. expand, scale, offload, etc.) your business will show years of profits as proof of the value, justifying the sale to the buyer, in the end.
Don’t continue to live with ‘ugly wallpaper’. If there is something in your business that you know needs changing, start your updating and renovating now. Do it now so you get to take advantage of the benefits of a well-run business, as a small business owner. And then, later, when you are ready to exit, you’ll have what you need in place to easily put it up for sale.
This article is 100% original content – The articles you read in this blog are 100% created by Barb Stuhlemmer, not by AI. © 2025 Barb Stuhlemmer
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