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Episode Summary
You’re 50. The business has 25 employees, a national reputation with major insurance carriers, and a CFO telling you to wait another year because the price is too low. You sell anyway. That’s where Mark Raderstorff was when he sold Behavioral Medical Interventions, the rehab psychology firm he built over 15 years from a three-day-a-week private practice. I had Mark on to walk through the full arc: how he brought four key employees in as shareholders (10% combined) to build a team that wasn’t dependent on him in the chair, the year he burned with a private equity suitor who never had the money to close, the strategic sale to a complementary firm out of Grand Rapids, the six months he stayed on as president with no authority, and the sabbatical in Ecuador that finally let him turn it off. The most honest line of the conversation: he and his wife traded time for money. The business is worth twice today what he sold it for. He’d do it again.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- Knowing your number before you negotiate gives you a stopping point that beats squeezing the last dollar out of the deal.
- The value of your company is inversely proportional to how badly it needs you sitting in the chair.
- A suitor who can’t show you their funding source can burn a year of your life and never close.
- Giving key employees real equity (even 10% spread across four people) creates loyalty money alone won’t buy.
- Selling a service business means selling a group of people. The buyer is acquiring the team, not the logo.
- Once you sign, every day you stay on as a figurehead with no authority is harder than the deal itself.
- Your encore career deserves more thought than you give it while you’re prepping the sale.
- Trading time for money is a real choice. Selling earlier for less can be the right answer if you name the trade-off.
- Your spouse’s career and life belong inside the exit conversation, not bolted on afterward.
- The loneliest part of selling is keeping it quiet from the employees who built the thing with you.
Sound Bites
“The value of your company is inversely proportional to how important it is that you run the company.” (@TBD) — Mark Raderstorff
“We traded time for money. We could have easily held on to this business and probably sold it for today for twice of what I got four or five years ago.” (@TBD) — Mark Raderstorff
“Figure out what your number is. What is your number that you want to achieve in your business? And then once you get that number, get out.” (@TBD) — Mark Raderstorff
“Having the title president and not having any authority. Once you sell, the quicker you can get out, the less stressful it is.” (@TBD) — Mark Raderstorff
About This Episode
Mark Raderstorff is a rehabilitation psychologist who built Behavioral Medical Interventions (BMI) from a three-day-a-week solo practice into a 25-employee firm with national contracts helping injured and disabled workers return to work. He sold BMI in 2010 to Crisis Care Network (now R3 Continuum), a Grand Rapids firm specializing in workplace traumatic event response. Today Mark works three days a week in private practice and volunteers two days a week with kids in schools, and counsels other baby boomers through their encore career decisions. This episode is one of the early Life After Business conversations focused on the messy reality of selling a professional services firm and what comes after.
Resources Mentioned
- Behavioral Medical Interventions (BMI) — Mark’s company, sold in 2010
- R3 Continuum (formerly Crisis Care Network) — The Grand Rapids firm that acquired BMI
- Raderstorf Associates — Mark’s current private practice. — mark@raderstorfassociates.com
- The Value Advantage — Show sponsor, Ryan’s peer group platform for owners building sellable businesses
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — Mark’s “is this what I want for the rest of my life?” question at 50 is the Module 1 conversation
- Module 9 — Operator Transition — The six months as president with no authority is the canonical example of why operator transition needs a real plan
Milestones:
- Milestone 1 — Time & Role Goals — Mark and his wife made the time-for-money trade explicitly, and named it
- Milestone 25 — Operator Transition Plan — The post-close role he didn’t plan for
- Milestone 27 — Integrate & Pass the Baton — The awkward handoff to the new president
Concepts referenced:
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Mark’s recognition that the business value was tied to him in the chair, and the equity-grant fix
- Value Gap — The honest version: he sold for roughly half of what the business is worth today