You're ready to sell your business.

But wait – YOU are your business. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve built a business that would collapse without you at the helm.

How do you remove yourself from your baby? You spent countless hours creating, grooming, building networks, establishing the business from the ground up. You are the planner, the bookkeeper, the strategizer, the problem solver.

The goal: Make your company more independent.

Here are 5 things you can do to prepare your company for your eventual exit:

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1. Identify Tasks

Identify your daily tasks, including the ones that seem simple or mundane. Write it all down. You need an accurate list of your day-to-day operations so you’re able to clearly discuss and distribute them to the right people.

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2. Create Your Leaders

There’s only one way to be less integral within your business – give more responsibility to other people. Take time to train or hire new managers to take on your role(s). Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a motivated and empowered team ready and waiting to take over your business’s day-to-day operations.

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3. Transition Key Clients

It’s common for the owner to be the face of the business, therefore the point-person for sales. Transitioning key clients to other managers or sales members is delicate, and doesn’t need to happen overnight. But creating these relationships ahead of time will help tremendously with the business transition.

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4. Automate Systems

Utilize technology. Smart technology and automation continue to boom, and there’s likely an easier way to complete your processing. Many tech companies have created niche products designed to expedite quotes, sales, project management, invoicing, customer service management etc.

Complete a detailed search and see how much work and time can be saved by automating processes. When systems are automated, it not only takes up less of your staff time, but allows for ease of transition to a new owner.

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5. Implement a Gradual Absense

This can be difficult, so start slowly. Begin with not checking emails after 5pm. Then progress by leaving for a long weekend. Then a week.

Ultimately, your end goal here is to get your staff used to the fact you’re no longer running things, and how to solve day-to-day issues without you at the helm.

To make this easier, tell your staff expectations up front: that they shouldn’t come to you with day-to-day issues anymore, pointing them in the direction of who’s going to handle those issues from now on instead.