Episode Details

Episode OverviewIf you had to sell your business tomorrow, what would it actually be worth to a buyer — without you in it? Every year over 50,000 NZ businesses close and only ~2,000 actually sell. Businesses that sell are built to run without the owner as the glue. Rod Cook spent over a year pulling himself out of the critical path of Jackson's Flooring Design Commercial to make that possible.

• Origin story: Rod joined his wife Leanne's family flooring business, buying the commercial division in Hawke's Bay.
• Investing in advice early: A business coach from day one, plus a rule to always pay himself a salary — "the cost was irrelevant to the benefit I got from it."
• Weathering the cycles: The GFC and COVID — the pandemic pause pushed a systems overhaul that set up later growth.
• Delegate, don't abdicate: Early hiring mistakes taught Rod the difference, before building a nine-person team.
• "Milk the cow a little longer": An accepted sale offer was shelved on advice from friend John Hutch (Plan A Consulting) — unpopular with Leanne at the time, but the right call.
• The 2024 plan: Standalone premises, working Rod out of the day-to-day, and preparing for a future sale.
• On loneliness in business: Why an informal "board" of trusted advisors matters without formal governance.
• Sales as the engine: Ranked #1 in his franchise group for 19 of 20 years.
• Would it have run without him a decade ago? "Not a chance in hell."

"Delegate, but don't abdicate." — advice from John Hutchinson that reshaped how Rod built his team.
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