Sarah Durham is an entrepreneur and creative consultant passionate about helping entrepreneurs. She founded Big Duck in 1994 to help nonprofits increase their visibility, raise money, and communicate more effectively. Now, she serves on its board of directors after selling the business to her employees in 2021. Sarah now provides coaching to entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and women in leadership roles through her firm Compton Durham. For more information, you can go to comptondurham.com.
If you are thinking about exit planning from your business, I have an amazing expert who will speak to you about how she transitioned out of her business, and it’s probably not what you would think. As we talk with Sarah Durham today, we discuss two different transitions Sarah made from her own companies, including an employee-ownership model with Big Duck. She shares her wisdom on owner transitions, so listen in to a great episode for any leader.
“As we were transitioning to a place where I was separating from the business, I really had to practice letting go, and I really had to stop being central to conversations in order to make space for my colleagues to practice stepping into those decisions.” – Sarah Durham
Listen to the podcast below:
This week on SmallBizChat Podcast:
- Transitioning to an employee-owned business.
- Planning your exit strategy before you’re ready to transition.
- Employee ownership for small businesses.
- Types of employee-owned organizations.
- Sarah’s work as a coach with other companies transitioning.
- Running and growing your business to be saleable.
- Difficulties of transitioning to employee ownership.
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Sarah Durham:
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