Retirement question

Take on a Partner in Buy-out Agreement

> My question is directed to business owners who have gone through this process.
>
> I know that I will not sell my records for a fortune and my equipment is nice, but getting some age to it.
>
> How do you value thousands of digital surveys, My filing system is top notch, I can put my hands on a survey in seconds.

Isn't the real value of your practice in the established name that you have as well as the information assets?

I'd think that your best bet would be finding some energetic young surveyor to take on as a partner under a buy-out agreement. Hambright & Young. That way, you'd be there during the transition to introduce your existing clientele and to make sure that your successor would understand the value of the records he or she was proposing to acquire for money.

Naturally, you wouldn't want to take just anyone on as a partner. It would have to be some surveyor with the means to carry your business forward on a profitable basis so that he or she could pay you what it is worth over time.

I'd get in touch with Andy Nold and see whether he's getting tired of West Texas barbecue and ready for the Central Texas life.

Take on a Partner in Buy-out Agreement

Randy,

Good advice by Kent, and the fact that you have a good indexing system in a non-recording state, adds to the value.

Randy,

Do some research on the 'goodwill' of the company, basically the name and reputation of the company...It can be worth a lot of money.

I know my Dad sold the company based on the goodwill of the name. Even the IRS said it was fine..

Joe

P.s. shoot be an email if you'd like more details.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that selling my business is not going to be worth the trouble. Not unless in the next ten years or so before my retirement I hit some kind of jackpot contracts that I could pass on to a subsequent owner and pay off the debts that I've incurred over the last couple of years and show a really nice positive cash-flow that I've forgotten even what that even looks like.

If things turn around to the point that I can make some modest payments towards debt and take home enough that I don't have to cash in more retirement funds, I will consider that a crowning glory to an otherwise fairly successful career. Do I seem negative? Sorry about that.

I don't plan to retire. I plan to drop dead with a total station on my back and a slash pile in front of me to break my fall.

Maybe colon cancer will get me 'cause I don't see why I should let some Button Pushing Doc put a camera up my ass.

Dave - Colon

Hey Dave,

The only reason to have the button pushing doc do his thing is so that you can get 3-4 glossy, color photos of the inside of your colon to show all of your friends.

They make for great conversation around the dinner table.

Scott

Dave - Colon

I got my first colonoscopy last month. Prior to that I'd only had a sigmoidoscopy, which only covers the lower 1/3 of the colon. The sedative/anesthesia thing was pretty interesting, especially since I gave up all recreational chemicals except caffeine over 20 years ago.

I brought a small voice recorder with me into the procedure. Subsequent review of the recording indicates that I was a bit of a troublesome patient, prompting the nurse to say -- in a testy voice and on several occasions -- "Mr. Frame, you've got to stop resisting the scope. It's getting all tangled up in there!" At one point, when things were apparently going much more smoothly, I responded to some instruction or another with, "Oh, yeah, a nap sounds like a great idea!"

From what I've observed, colon cancer is a distinctly unpleasant way to go. I strongly endorse the recommendation that everyone over 50 get a colonoscopy every 10 years. The laxative thing is a drag, no doubt, but it's a short-lived drag. The procedure itself is painless, and the post-procedure loopiness is great fun for whoever gets to drive you home.

Medical footnote

> From what I've observed, colon cancer is a distinctly unpleasant way to go.

Somewhat off topic but my brother is a researcher working with a group that has just gotten approval from the FDA for clinical trials for one a whole new generation of cancer drugs with a novel mechanism that makes them both highly effective and completely non-toxic. Their drug has just been approved for trials on both leukemia and colorectal cancer patients, but is apparently effective against a broad spectrum of cancers and tumors.

Assuming that my brother is telling me the truth about what they've done so far, I will be very surprised if many cancers, including colon cancer, are not rendered curable in a few years.

Go ahead and get the colonoscopy for now, of course.

The best example I've seen recently is our local vet. He is doing what Kent has suggested, and has actually taken on a partner and an associate vet.

The transition term is ten years, at the end of which he leaves and the associate will move up to junior partner status. An important note is for 20 years the name of the business will not change, and he will maintain an advisory position until the name is changed. At that point he will be 65 and fully retired.

Keep in mind he put the wheels in motion when he was forty, and went through 3 prospects until he found one that fit.

Second Jim Frame

It's not all that bad, Dave.

Recommended frequency is once every five years, unless there's a family history, or prior polyp.

Spend half a day with conditions similar to having eaten bad tacos.

Then, go into a nice office, lie down and take an IV induced nap.

Half an hour later, someone is driving you home.

As the alternative for a particularly nasty, often fatal cancer.....no comparison.

Third Jim Frame

After watching my grandfather literally die from colon cancer in front of my eyes over a 3 year period, I would not wish that experience on any person.

Get the screen, had they caught my grandfathers cancer earlier, he would still be surveying today.

A title company or county surveyor may be interested in your un-recorded surveys rather than a surveying school?

Dave - Colon

Jim, I too had the "pleasure" of the sigmoidoscopy. The difference as you mention is that they do not go full bore, and therefore you do not need anesthetic. People getting the sigmoidoscopy can enjoy the fact that they still get that uncomfortable feeling of that probe moving deeper into the colon - it just does not cause pain. Lovely stuff.

Take on a Partner in Buy-out Agreement

Thanks for the plug, Kent, but I think I am going to ride out this Wolfberry play as long as I can. Even though I am seeing signs of recovery, the future is looking turbulent. As long as we have an oil-based economy, West Texas surveying will stay busy. When I do finish working out here, my heart is in Fort Worth - even though I think the world of Central Texas and the Hill Country.

Take on a Partner in Buy-out Agreement

I guess I need to sell out before the ol colon goes to (tongue in cheek) shiit.

I am not a huge fan of taking care of myself, but since I have a stubborn and hard headed bride of more than a 1/4 century, I do get the necessary screenings for a guy my age.

These tests are very important!

After 50, you better follow your Doctors advice with these matters.

lol

Randy

Second Jim Frame

Feel my pain, have lost 3 family members to colon cancer, so for me it is once a year. They average removal of 30 or 40 polyps each time. So far, nothing has been even close to a problem, but hey, I'd rather have a rough weekend and an extended nap (I always have them knock me out) once a year than the alternative.

Aim higher than Ft. Worth, Andy

> When I do finish working out here, my heart is in Fort Worth - even though I think the world of Central Texas and the Hill Country.

Andy, I think I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "I couldn't possibly be good enough to survey in Central Texas". So you want to fall back into surveying in a stockyard town like Ft. Worth instead of working among the bluebonnets, granite, and cranky German ranchers of the Texas Hill Country.

Do yourself a favor and just think positively. So, it's noon in late February, 2011. Where do you want to be? Do you want to be eating dirt around Odessa or breathing the sweet air, laden with flowers and the scent of big city money (it smells a bit like the expensive shops that they don't have in the malls in Odessa)? Ft. Worth and Odessa are fine as places to learn where you don't want to live, but the Hill Country of Central Texas is the real deal.

Third Jim Frame

> After watching my grandfather literally die from colon cancer in front of my eyes over a 3 year period, I would not wish that experience on any person.
>
> Get the screen, had they caught my grandfathers cancer earlier, he would still be surveying today.

My thoughts exactly. Been there done that, NEVER ever want to watch someone die like that ever again!! All because my relative was too "stubborn" and refused any kind of treatment that had anything to do with looking up his colon or "examining" it. The cancer spread to his brain causing a tumor the size of an orange and a smaller tumor the size of a walnut; spread to his prostate and spread to his bladder which burst his bladder open and that is how he finally died. *sigh* 🙁

Aim higher than Ft. Worth, Andy

I'll leave that to you, Kent. Your lucrative Central Texas survey consulting business is safe. 😉 And FWIW, Odessa still smells like money.