3 Lies We're Sold

She didn’t cry when she told me the number. She laughed.

A sharp, hollow laugh—the kind that comes when your nervous system finally accepts what your intellect has been trying to ignore.

After thirty-two years of building a nationally respected accounting firm, Laura sold it. The headline number looked impressive. She got loads of congratulations at dinner parties and champagne-soaked posts online.

What actually landed in her bank account—after deal fees, earn-outs she may never see, holdbacks, and taxes—was less than what she makes in three good years…

Today’s BlockbustHER BrainteasHER:

What part of your life is being deferred in the name of a future payoff?

Patty’s Perspective . . .

Somewhere along the way, women like Laura were sold a very specific story:

Work, work, work, and sacrifice along the way. That’s what business owners have to do—it’s the nature of the beast. Then, when you feel ‘done’, sell your business to a stranger for gobs of money. The guys have been doing this for years and years—and you can too!

At first, I thought talking about these lies would undermine the work I’ve done for almost 20 years.

Sure, I’ve helped women founders build their revenue and streamline their companies, so they are more profitable and less stressed. Sure, I’ve guided women to exit and often, to sell, their businesses.

But more and more, I’ve been plagued by doubt about the truth of the matter. Is there really a big payday (for any founder)—or is this just another lie we’ve been sold?

These are the 3 biggest lies—repeated so often that many women internalize them, keeping brilliant owners from building the companies (and exits) they deserve.

• Lie #1: The Big Payday Is Waiting at the Finish Line

We’ve been told a story that goes like this: Build. Sacrifice. Delay gratification. Exit. Finally exhale.

But selling a business is not a lottery ticket. It is a complex financial event where the risks do not disappear—they simply change hands.

Deal fees.
Legal costs.

Accounting expenses.
Quality of earnings.
Escrows.
Earn-outs tied to future performance you may no longer control.

And selling your company is a taxable event. Even with careful planning, taxes will take a far bigger bite than you might imagine.

For many women, the ‘life-changing’ exit nets out to a number that feels…underwhelming. Especially when measured against decades of postponed life.

• Lie #2: If You Don’t Exit Big, You’re Doing Something Wrong

This lie is particularly cruel.

It tells women that if their business doesn’t command a premium multiple, it must be because they didn’t systematize enough, detach enough, or ‘think like a buyer’.

But the truth is simpler—and harder to accept: Your business can generate extraordinary wealth, but not necessarily through a single liquidity event.

And when women try to retrofit their businesses for a fictional dream buyer, they often diminish the very cash flow, control, and satisfaction that originally made the business worth owning.

• Lie #3: Selling Is the Only ‘Successful’ Ending

You have the exclusive right to define success. Lie #3 implies that a business only becomes legitimate once it’s handed off to someone else.

So women endure stress and frustration. They postpone redesign. They stay ‘just a few more years’ chasing a finish line they’re not even sure is real.

Because stopping without selling feels like quitting—even when staying is the smarter economic move.

Here’s what no one says out loud: Most expertise-based service businesses were never meant to be sold. They were meant to be harvested.

Harvested through cash flow. Through flexibility. Through gradual shifts in role, pace, and identity. Through choice.

But that kind of ending doesn’t photograph well. There’s no champagne toast. No press release. No congratulatory headline announcing you successfully walked away with your autonomy intact.

Selling is often possible—but it’s not the only successful ending.

A business can wind down gracefully. It can be partially sold. It can fund a decade of lighter work. It can become an asset instead of an obligation.

A business that reliably funds your life, your optionality, your investments, your generosity, and your nervous system is not a consolation prize. It is a power structure.

Because the most damaging lie is not that you couldn’t sell—it’s that selling is the point.

Now What?

What if your real power-move is designing a company that pays you extraordinarily well while you own it?

What if your business can become a wealth-building tool so you don’t have to wait for some imagined, high-risk reward for endurance? This is what I call Living Capital™.

The corporate growth-and-exit paradigm rewards aggression, detachment, and delayed fulfillment. It assumes someone else is carrying the emotional, domestic, and relational load while the founder builds ‘enterprise value’.

We didn’t opt into that model because it was a good fit—we adapted because it was the only one offered.

So we contorted our businesses—and ourselves—to match a definition of success that constantly requires us to hide behind ‘everything is fine!’

That corporate growth-and-exit model was never designed for women, and what about the promised payday at the end of your business? For most women, it’s a mirage.

Exiting your business is complex and confounding. Since 2006, I’ve seen women get harassed, hurt, and hustled. All. The. Time.

That’s why I help women founders achieve an Elegant Exit™—because you deserve better.

In fact, for women running companies under $5M in annual revenue, I’ve come to believe that you have more control, better focus on your real priorities, and better odds of building wealth when you build Living Capital™, instead of trying to sell your business to a stranger (what I call Latent Capital™).

An exit is elegant only if it increases your personal wealth while decreasing the stress required to maintain it.

Anything else is just endurance with better branding.

The Elegant Exit™ is how you convert business success into real wealth—without sacrificing your nervous system to get there.

As your advocate, I’m looking out for your best interests, guiding you to discover right-fit options, execute critical decisions, and cultivate personal wealth.

Contact me to learn more.

What are your biggest blind spots in crafting an exit? Find out at: http://she-exits.com/