Are You Ready for Retirement? Great Advice from Kane McGukin, Wealth Management Specialist
Vonda has spent the past year fielding the same conversation over and over: shop owners asking her to help value their business because they're ready to retire — some to spend more time with grandkids, many just plain tired after the pandemic years. So she brought in an expert. Kane McGukin is a wealth management specialist, an Auburn finance grad, a fellow podcaster — and the son of designer and How We Bloom host Sharon McGukin, which means he grew up in and around a flower shop and understands exactly what a "lifestyle business" is. This episode is a plain-math walkthrough of the question every owner eventually faces: how much is enough?
Start with your top three, then work backward
Kane's foundation is simple: most retirement regrets come from never defining what you actually want the next five or ten years to look like, so your daily choices never point in that direction. His fix is a running list — the top three to five things you really want to do — reviewed regularly, with every decision measured against it. Want to travel? Get specific: where, how often, at what cost. Then do the cocktail-napkin math backward: travel budget plus living costs plus a cushion for the what-ifs equals your monthly "burn rate." Pair that with your balance sheet, and the retirement question stops being emotional and starts being arithmetic.
The lifestyle-business trade-off
Kane named something florists rarely hear said out loud: owning a shop gave you a different — often better — life than your W-2 peers from 25 to 55. You set your hours, made it to the ball games, ran the phone and vehicle through the business. The flip side shows up at retirement: no big 401(k) that compounded for 30 years, and lower Social Security because there was no fat W-2 padding the record. When the business turns off, so does the lifestyle subsidy — cell phone, fuel, and all those expenses move onto your personal budget sheet. You'll suddenly have two burns and two balance sheets to reconcile into one.
The math mistakes that sink sellers
The biggest shock Kane sees: assuming you keep the whole sale price. Sell your shop for $500,000 and after taxes — plus legal and advisory costs — your walk-away may be closer to $300,000. If your five-year travel plan needs $400,000, you're suddenly $100,000 in the hole. Other classic errors: assuming every investment grows, assuming top dollar for the business, and forgetting that a market dip loves to arrive right when your biggest expenses do. His counsel: inventory every asset, know your liquidation pecking order, and look for substitutions — do you really get $300 of value from the $300 TV package, or $100?
Don't sell on an emotional low
"Senioritis" is real, but Kane's warning is blunt: if you're emotionally at a low, your business is probably at a low too — which means your valuation is at a low. The profitable move is the one that fights human psychology: when things feel great, that's when to think about selling; when there's blood in the streets, that's historically when buyers win. If you're three to ten years out, start grooming a successor now — even a structured sweat-equity deal with a young florist who loves the industry but can't get a full loan can extend your runway and your income. And consider "re-tiring" rather than retiring: retread into something part-time instead of watching traffic from the porch.
The six-month test
The most practical tool in the episode: before you sell, live the retirement. Turn off your income on paper — pay yourself only what Social Security would be — for six months, banking the rest where you can't touch it. If you're freaked out at month six, don't do it, because retirement isn't six months; it's 30 years. As Kane put it, you may be mentally done and physically done — the question is whether you're financially done. And whatever the shop owner next door is doing, don't keep up with the Joneses: their next 20 years aren't yours.
Key takeaways
- Define your top three retirement goals first, then calculate your burn rate and balance sheet backward from them.
- Expect to lose 40-50% of a business sale to taxes and costs — plan on the net number, not the sticker price.
- Never sell on an emotional low; low morale usually means low valuation.
- Build your coaching team — accountant, attorney, and financial advisor — years before the sale, not the week of.
- Run the six-month test: live on your projected retirement income before you commit to it forever.