Get Ready to Dispose of Your Store

Retailer Joe Lueken isn’t exactly giving the store away. Still, he’s giving three stores, forgoing a potentially greater financial gain. According to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, ownership of Mr. Lueken’s two supermarkets in Bemidji, Minnesota and one in Wahpeton, North Dakota will pass on January 1 to the current store staff through an Employee Stock Ownership Program.
     Mr. Lueken is retiring. Proceeds from the transaction will pay off the Lueken family over three to five years. Each employee is being given, cost-free, shares based on length of service and salary. The ESOP will repurchase shares of any employee who leaves or retires.
     This method might not be your choice for riding off into the sunset. So what is your choice? In my experience, most owners of retail businesses think about disposing of the store only at a theoretical level. They don’t set the specifics and then work toward them.
     Your default option might be to assume family members will take over the operations. That’s worked repeatedly for F.B. Thomas Drug Store in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, which is now in its fourth generation of ownership. But Mr. Lueken’s family wasn’t interested in assuming ownership. Only about one out of every ten privately-held businesses makes it through to the third generation.
     Start developing and implementing your alternatives for disposing of your store. Be ready. Think long-term and monitor your steps.
     Psychologists at University of Minnesota and Texas A&M University point out the difficulties we encounter when monitoring our results. One big difficulty is that monitoring requires focusing on the here-and-now, and the here-and-now includes all the incoming demands on our resources. Getting the shelves stocked now, paying the pressing bills before the mail pickup, resolving the argument before things get really ugly. This pulls our thinking away from the longer-term perspective.
     There’s also something else: The psychological research says that when a retailer carefully monitors results toward achieving long-term goals they’ve set, one consequence is that time seems to pass more slowly for the retailer. And that, in turn, makes the goal seem more distant. Ironically, then, monitoring our achievements so far can actually interfere with what gets measured ending up getting done.
     Avoid continuous monitoring of how far you need to go to achieve long-term, somewhat fuzzy goals. Instead, regularly monitor how far you’ve already progressed toward each clearly defined business objective. This includes having your exit plan in place.

Click below for more: 
Incorporate Family Values into Your Retailing 
Prolong Opportunities for Family-Owned Stores 
Monitor Your Progress Toward Objectives