As your life changes, sometimes that means you need to look at changing your career, where and how you work, and even the type of business you own. If you are approaching one of those milestones in your life, there is a lot to consider. Here are five reasons to sell your FedEx Ground route, and what to do if you encounter any of them.
Retirement among Reasons for Selling Your FedEx Ground Route
Retirement is among the top reasons for selling your FedEx Ground Route. When you are approaching retirement age, selling any business often becomes a priority. This is no less true of a FedEx Ground route. Of course, you have several choices for your succession plan:
- Leave the route to your children. If they are interested, a business like a FedEx Ground route can be a great opportunity, and since your business is already established, they can take over easily.
- Sell the route either to someone new or another route owner. This is perhaps the most common choice, as you get the money out of your route, and you don’t have any additional connections or responsibility for it.
- Sell the route to one of your drivers. Often one of your employees or drivers might be looking to purchase a route of their own, and if they are already familiar with yours, this is a sensible choice.
- Become an absentee owner: You could keep your route, and retire anyway, letting someone else run it for you, perhaps until they are ready to buy it. The disadvantage? You’re still tied to the business with some responsibilities.
What option is right for you? That’s for you to decide, but when you are ready, contact a route broker to make the selling process as easy and smooth as possible.
Physical Limitations
It’s no secret that delivering packages is physical work, and if you have been doing it for any time at all, you know this is true. This is why getting sick or injured is often a reason to sell your FedEx Ground route.
While dealing with minor and short-term issues is one thing, dealing with them long-term in a job that relies heavily on your physical labor can be daunting. To be prepared:
- Have a backup plan just in case you are not able to run your route for a long time, including backup drivers and a personnel plan.
- Run your business like you could sell it at any time. Be sure your paperwork, profit, and loss statements, taxes, and all of those things are up to date and easy to access if someone else should need to do that for you.
- Have emergency savings. This can help you weather any emergency until you can take the appropriate action.
- Know what your route is worth and have an exit strategy. This is an often neglected part of business, but an essential one. Have questions? Contact a route broker who can help you be prepared, and even support you if a disaster were to strike.
Physical limitations can be one of the reasons for selling your FedEx Ground route, but being prepared can make that process less painful.
Burnout or Boredom
As with running any business, burnout is possible, and FedEx routes are no exception. While there are steps you can take to avoid burnout or boredom, it is still possible. Before you decide to sell:
- Take a vacation or time off.
- Switch up your route, either the order you run it in, or other methods to add variety.
- Consider a route swap or purchasing a different one. You may be burned out on your area and route rather than the delivery business.
If none of these things work and you are still feeling burned out or bored, be sure to follow the proper steps to get your route ready to sell. Selling quickly, before your route is ready, can result in lost revenue. But there is nothing wrong with selling your route and moving on if you are ready to do so.
Relocation
While many jobs can be worked remotely, a FedEx Ground route is not one of them. If you find yourself relocating, either due to a change in your spouse’s job, the need to be close to family, or any other reason, you will need to sell your FedEx Ground route, or become an absentee owner, as mentioned above.
But being somewhere other than where you own a route can be problematic and is not recommended. In some cases, you may want to sell your current route and purchase a new one in the area where you will live.
Either way, when you are ready to buy or sell, or a combination of the two, be sure your route is in good shape and always talk with a route broker who can help with one or both of those transactions.
A Change in Life Circumstances
Finally, a change in life circumstances can sometimes give you reasons for selling your FedEx Ground route. These can include divorce, marriage, the loss of a close family member, or one of many other circumstances.
The advice is the same though. Be sure you are prepared to sell your FedEx Ground route. That your business is in good shape and prepared for due diligence and the other aspects of selling. And as always, contact a route broker. They’ll be there for you every step of the way.
As route brokers ourselves, we at Route Advisors know there are a lot of reasons for selling your FedEx Ground route, from relocation to retirement and burnout. But we also know how important it is that you find the right buyer at the right time for your route.
So when you’re ready, we want to be your route broker. Contact us today, and we can prepare you for the next steps in the process.