Business expert Gene Marks thinks that his own business has no value, and that there's nothing wrong with that. What's the value of your business?
Video Transcript
I look at my own business and I look about whether or not it has any value and my business really has, you know, no value, in my opinion. I mean, we go from project to project. I have 12 people in my company. I have other contractors as well. We have 600 active clients, but none of them are under contract to pay us for anything. I mean, so I have no – I can't go to like a buyer and say I've got this revenue stream in the future, pay me 10 times what my cash flow is going to be. 'Cause anybody who buys my business they're just gonna get basically cash and receivables and, and a customer list of people that may or may not do business with them. So, from that purpose, my business has no value. But there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I've been running this business since 1994 and I put away a lot of money from this business. It's been a livelihood for me. It has produced cash, and that's been the goal. I mean, I, I haven't felt like I'm gonna build some kind of big asset with this business. I kind of knew that when I started it. I just said, look, my goal, personally, is to generate cash from this business, grab the cash, whatever I can, and invest it, or save it somewhere else, or put it away. I got three kids going to college, so it's – you know, some 529 plans to put money into. And when we look back on it, my wife and I, over the past 20 years, we can say, wow, I mean, this, this business has been great because it has generated the cash and given us the ability to save, you know, and have that kind of financial flexibility. Even though, so, even though it, it doesn't have this like value, there's nothing wrong with, with starting and running a business for 20 or 30 years that, that has no value at the end, or doesn't have any assets because if you've been doing it for that long and it's provided a livelihood for you and your family and all the people that work for you as well, that business is as valuable as any other business.
