I am a recovering powder coating shop owner, and this industry is in my blood.
Sandee KaplanI’ve been doing it for half my life, and finishing and manufacturing have a way of staying with you. After nearly 25 years running a manufacturing business from the inside, I knew the pace I had been living at couldn’t continue forever. I made a deliberate decision to step away for a year, travel with my husband and our mountain bikes, and give us space to think clearly about what we wanted next. It wasn’t an escape from the industry.
It was a pause. And, as it turns out, a short one. Even during that year away, I didn’t really disconnect. I stayed in touch with my network of peers, vendors, and clients, and the same themes kept surfacing. Businesses were busy, often profitable, yet many owners carried an invisible weight. They were proud of what they had built, but uncertain about what came next.
In some cases, there was an opportunity for growth, but the structure to support it hadn’t kept pace. Underneath nearly every conversation was the same question: how do I keep my company going forward without carrying it all myself?
Editor's Note: Read more about Sandee's expertise HERE.
Running a Prominent Metal Finishings Firm
For almost 25 years, I served as COO, CFO, and co-CEO of a prominent metal finishing company on the West Coast. During that time, I helped take the business through meaningful growth and scale, implemented the operational discipline required to support it, and ultimately managed a successful sale of the company. That process was deliberate. It was the result of years of decisions around cash flow, systems, risk, people, and execution, many of which were learned the hard way.
I didn’t learn operations from a textbook. I learned it the same way most of us experience it- by survival. I was living inside the business day after day, navigating waves of growth, business ebbs, diversifying, labor shortages, compliance requirements, equipment investments, customer pressure, taxes, insurance, team building, payroll, rent, tight margins- the list goes on and on. I learned it by fixing what broke, seeing what drained energy and money, and understanding how seemingly small and insignificant operational choices compound over time.
One of the most important lessons I took from that experience is that most businesses don’t have a revenue problem. They have a visibility problem.
From the outside, a shop can look healthy. Work is flowing. Machines are running. Customers are calling. People are doing. But underneath that activity, money, time, and energy can leak through purchasing habits, inventory decisions, payment terms, workflow friction, and unmanaged risk. None of it feels big enough to even pay attention to in the moment. Over the years, though, it adds up to pressure, fatigue, a business that feels heavier than it should, and tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars lost to oblivion.
My role is to bring clarity to complex operations, identify where money, time, and energy are being lost, and help build practical systems that actually get used.
I see how dependent many operations remain on the owner long after they’ve outgrown that model. Decisions, approvals, customer relationships, and problem-solving all funnel back to one person. That level of involvement often feels necessary, even responsible, until it becomes exhausting. It also limits growth, flexibility, and future options, whether those options involve stepping back, building a leadership bench, or preparing for a transition.
Thinking About Succession or Exit
When owners begin thinking about succession or exit, they often assume the conversation starts with valuation, attorneys, or bankers. It actually starts much earlier. It starts with operational readiness- the kind that allows a business to run consistently, communicate clearly, and demonstrate stability without relying on one individual to hold everything together.
Readiness is what creates options. It’s what allows a business to scale without chaos, weather change without panic, and attract serious buyers or successors when the time is right. It’s also what gives owners breathing room long before any transaction ever occurs.
Today, I work as an operations leader, partnering with business owners who need senior-level operational leadership but don’t want or need a full-time executive. I don’t suggest how you spray powder or calibrate your ovens. I help you run the business side of your business.
If you’re a shop owner who feels like the business runs you, you’re not failing. You’re just at a point where the business needs a different structure than the one that got it here.
My role is to bring clarity to complex operations, identify where money, time, and energy are being lost, and help build practical systems that actually get used. I don’t turn a shop into something theoretical or unfamiliar, with clunky, hard-to-implement procedures. Still, I apply simple practices to help it run better and put less strain on the owner. As a former business owner in this space, I understand how businesses really run, not how consultants wish they did.
The Operational Side of Readiness
Over the next few months, I’m going to use this column to talk about the operational side of readiness. Not the legal side. Not the financing side. The reality side.
We’ll cover topics like:
- The difference between a busy shop and a scalable shop.
- Where owner dependency hides, and how to reduce it.
- Why most businesses are worth less than owners think, and what changes to make.
- The few systems that matter most when you want to step back or sell.
- How to build a path for the next generation of leadership, even if you don’t have a successor today.
If you’re a shop owner who feels like the business runs you, you’re not failing. You’re just at a point where the business needs a different structure than the one that got it here.
And if you’re in that five to six-year window, or even just starting to think about what “next” looks like, there’s a lot you can do now that will pay you back later in money, options, and peace of mind.
Sandee Kaplan is an Operations Leader and a former manufacturing and finishing business owner. Visit her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeekaplan/ or email her at sandeelkaplan@gmail.com.
