Cash is Queen

Becca used to flinch when she heard the word distribution.

It sounded indulgent. Unsophisticated. Like something founders did when they’d given up on ‘real’ growth.

Her previous advisors praised her discipline—how she reinvested everything, how lean she stayed, how committed she was to building something meaningful.

What they never said out loud was this: her business was profitable, respected, and quietly starving her...

Today’s BlockbustHER BrainteasHER:

Where are you deferring wealth in the name of being ‘responsible’?

Patty’s Perspective . . .

Becca hadn’t taken meaningful cash out in years. Not because she couldn’t—but because she’d been taught not to. Profit, in the corporate imagination, is something you delay. Something you subordinate to scale and building value.

She told herself she was being strategic, responsible. She absorbed the lesson early: good leaders reinvest. Serious founders sacrifice. Wealth comes later—at the end.

The problem is that ‘later’ keeps moving.

Every year, there’s a new justification. A new hire to make. A new system to install. A new initiative that promises leverage someday. Meanwhile, the business grows more complex, more fragile, more dependent on the very person who isn’t being paid like the asset she is.

• A Different Center of Gravity

It wasn’t burnout that changed her mind. It was grief.

At a dinner with peers, someone casually mentioned selling their firm—how the headline number sounded large, until the fees, taxes, and contingencies stripped it down to something sobering and small.

Becca went home and did the math. Not the fantasy math—the real math.

What she realized stunned her: if she extracted just a portion of the profit she’d deferred over the past decade, she would already have exceeded the net proceeds of a hypothetical sale.

When Becca shifted the business to cash-flow first, nothing flashy happened.

Revenue stayed steady. Clients didn’t leave. The firm didn’t lose prestige. But the orientation changed.

Decisions are no longer filtered through the question, Will this increase valuation someday? Now she asks, Does this justify the life it’s costing me?

• Why This Model Feels Radical
  
  

The cash-flow first business unsettles people because it refuses the moral hierarchy we’ve been taught: that reinvestment is noble and extraction is selfish.

But this model doesn’t reject ambition—it rejects martyrdom.

It acknowledges something women in expertise-based firms already know in their bones: value is being created now. Not at the point of sale. Not in a far-away theoretical transaction. Now—through judgment, relationship, discernment, and trust.

Why should that value only be realized by a future buyer?

Now What?

The exit process is complicated, technical, and often biased—especially for women, who are regularly rushed, undervalued, and pressured into damaging compromises.

Your transition will, quite literally, change your life. You’ll experience a broad range of emotions, from fear and doubt to pride and joy.

And it will be complex. And challenging. And stressful.

I specialize in this work because you deserve better. I’ll help you design an Elegant Exit™—one grounded in dignity, clarity, and self-respect.

When she started working with me, Jill was clear: “On paper, everything works—but I feel stuck. I need an advisor who can help me see options I can’t see on my own. Should I evolve, exit, or redesign the business entirely?”

What shifted wasn’t burnout or crisis. It was clarity.

Feeling stuck used to be her default mode. “I don't think I realized the level of dissatisfaction I was living in and where that was seeping into all areas of my life, until the curtain got pulled back a bit. Because for 99.9% of us, we just keep going and it becomes our next normal.”

Now, she says “I don’t see the way out, but I see the why out.”

That awareness changes everything. Because exit transitions don’t begin with buyers or valuations. They begin with honesty.

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/