Wedding Business Solutions

Are you building a business to sell?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Are you building a business to sell?

Are you building a business you can one day sell, or are you creating a lifestyle business that revolves around you? What happens to your company when you’re ready to walk away? In this episode, I explore the true value of your business beyond the physical assets—like your brand, your relationships, and your systems. Are your processes strong enough for someone else to step in, or is everything dependent on you? I’ll give you key points to consider if you ever want an exit strategy or simply want to create a business that runs smoothly whether you’re there or not.

Listen to this new 8-minute episode for insights on how to future-proof your business—so it has value beyond just your own time and effort.

Episode Summary:
In this episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast, I dive into a question that every wedding and event business owner should ask themselves: Am I building a business to sell, or am I creating a lifestyle business? I share my personal journey and explain why I chose to make my business centered around myself, with alanberg.com as the brand, instead of building something specifically to sell. I walk you through the differences between having physical assets versus selling your brand, reputation, and relationships. I also offer advice on how to make your business valuable to a potential buyer by creating strong systems and processes that aren’t solely dependent on you. Whether or not you plan to sell, this episode will get you thinking about your exit strategy and how to set up your business for long-term value.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Are you building a business to sell or are you building a lifestyle business? Listen to this episode to find out. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. Every once in a while, somebody contacts me about wanting to sell their business. And this crosses all different things within the wedding and event industry. Entertainment companies, planners, venues, caterers, you name it. Every once in a while, somebody. Somebody contacts me with that, and the conversation we need to have is whether or not they actually have something to sell.

Now, there's very often there's physical stuff to sell. You might have inventory, you might have equipment, things like that, but of course, you have depreciation if it's not the newest equipment, right? Is somebody going to want it? Are they going to want to pay for it and stuff like that? You might have a building to sell, right? These are physical assets, but most of the time what you're trying to sell is your name, your, your brand, your goodwill, things like that. So if you're gonna want a business to sell, you have to be intentional about that. When I started my business in 2011, when I left the knot, I made a conscious decision I was not building a business that I was going to sell. And that's why I made it alanberg.com as my website and not weddingbusinesssolutions.com even though I have that and it redirects, I made the business around me. Now, there are pluses and minuses of that. You certainly know who the business is about because of my URL and my email address and all those things. But I'm also exchanging my time for money.

That's what I do, that, that I. I'm involved in everything that I do. So if I'm speaking, it's me there. If I'm consulting, it's me either on Zoom or in person. If I'm doing sales training, it's me either in person or on Zoom. So it involves me. I have no other trainers, I have no other speakers, I have no other cons. And that was an intentional thing.

Now, had I been wanting to build a business that I might want to sell or a business that would not be exchanging my time necessarily for money, I would have probably just called it Wedding Business Solutions. And then I could have other speakers, consultants, trainers, and things like that under my umbrella, and they could be going out as part of my business and build something bigger. I chose not to do that. And there were a lot of reasons why I chose not to do that from, you know, where I was in my Life and my age and health and all these things, I said, that's I'm going to do. And one day I'm going to turn off the lights and the business is done. I'm not going to sell it. There's nothing there. And physical inventory, I'm going to be left with books and computers and things.

Again, not a significant thing. The computers keep anyway. And the books, I don't know, will just. They'll always be available on Amazon even after I'm gone, right? They'll be available. So what about your business? If you're thinking about someday wanting an exit strategy, what is that exit strategy and what is there going to be to sell? Because if you are integral to your business, and this is typically what I find, you're the one that has all the relationships with the other vendors, right? So if you're not a venue or a caterer, you're the one that has the relationships with those people, with the industry people. So people are referring you, not necessarily your business. How can you get past that to the point where the reputation is the business's reputation? And then when you go to sell, if you're not there, the business is still running. So one of the indicators is can you take a vacation and are you still making money? Right.

If you're on vacation, are you still earning money? Because the business is running without you? And that's a good indicator that you might have something of value to sell down the line, right. If you are doing all of the sales yourself and then you're performing all of the things, what is there when you're gone? Right. When you're not there, who's going to do the sales and who's going to do the producing of the events, right? So that's what you have to think about. And a lot of people that come to me, it's a hard reality that they don't have a lot to sell. Because without them, are those referrals going to come in, Right. Somebody else is going to have to go out and do the networking and things like that or the contracts, are they with you per, you know, are you doing all the contracts or other people already taking care of that kind of stuff. So if you're going to want to sell your business at some point, whether you do or not, but you want to position it for that, right. What do you have to sell? And if you haven't read the E.

Myth, I think I read the E. Myth revisited, which was a newer version of it, Right. Your systems and processes is something that's got value that somebody else could step into. And there's already these great systems there between your advertising, your marketing, your accounting, your sales and all those kind of things. But these relationships are going to take time to develop with somebody else. So is somebody going to come into your business and work with you for a number of years? So that that halo effect that it's going to rub off and now they're going to get introduced to these people. They're going to start the one. The ones that are going to the networking and getting referred and all.

But it's hard for that to just be a hard switch because so much of what we do is relational. So if you already built a bigger business where that business is running, whether you're in the building or not, or whether you're physically doing the work or not, you're positioned much better for that. But if you're doing all the work and doing the sales and making all the decisions, that's going to be something that's harder. And it's okay to have a lifestyle business. That again, that's what I've created my. For myself. And. And this year we're going to do something crazy.

We're actually going to take vacation three times. I don't know we've done that in our lives. I think we did that last year. And I don't mean an extended work trip, I mean vacation. So I'm not as concerned that when I'm not physically doing speaking, training, consulting or whatever, I'm not earning money. There's. We know we're going to be okay for the year. Other people are on vacation and they're still earning money even better.

That's a great thing. Making money in your sleep is a wonderful thing. Having other people doing the work, treating them well, compensating them well, that's a good thing if everybody wins on that. But if you're going to want to sell your business, you have to position it right. You want to be talking to your accountant, talking to your attorney. You want to be thinking about the structure of your business and then the people you bring into it so that there is something of value to sell that doesn't involve you physically doing the work. Hope it gave you something to think about. Thanks.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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