exit plan
Exit Plan is the roadmap for how and when a business owner will eventually leave a business, whether by sale, merger, handover, or closure.
In plain English
Nobody plans a wedding without at some point, even calmly, wondering how the marriage might end if it must. That sounds morbid, but it is actually wise, and business works the same way. Most Nigerians who start a business are consumed with getting it off the ground, finding customers, paying rent, keeping light on, that they never once ask themselves how this thing ends, or how it should end.
An exit plan answers that question early, before emotions or emergencies force an answer on you. It is the written or at least well thought out answer to, when I am ready to leave this business, or when this business can no longer continue, what happens to it, who takes over, who gets paid, and how.
Say you run a thriving fashion brand in Lagos that you built from your bedroom. An exit plan might mean deciding that in ten years you will sell to a bigger retail group, or hand it to your daughter who has been learning the ropes, or simply shut it down gracefully if the market changes. Without that plan, a sudden illness, a family dispute, or even a good offer from a buyer can catch you completely unprepared, and decisions get made in panic instead of clarity.
In the United Kingdom, many small business owners build their exit plan around retirement, often selling the business to fund their pension, which is why accountants there ask new business owners about their exit almost as soon as they register the company. For a Nigerian in the diaspora who has built a side business back home, an exit plan might simply mean deciding who manages it if you eventually settle abroad permanently and cannot run it day to day.
The exit plan is not pessimism. It is the calm discipline of building something valuable enough that leaving it well is actually possible.
A poultry farm owner in Ibadan worth ₦30,000,000 decides her exit plan is to sell 60 percent of the business to a larger agribusiness in seven years, keeping 40 percent as a passive stake so she still earns from it after stepping back from daily work.
Questions people ask
Is an exit plan only for people who want to sell their business?
No. It also covers handing over to family, closing down responsibly, or merging with another company. Selling is just one of several ways to exit.
When should a business owner start thinking about an exit plan?
Ideally from the early years, not when trouble or old age forces the question. A plan made in calm times is always clearer than one made in crisis.
How is an exit plan different from an exit strategy?
They are closely related. An exit strategy is often the specific method you choose, such as selling to investors or going public, while the exit plan is the fuller roadmap covering timing, people, and money around that choice.
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