When success means knowing when to stop

About 60 per cent of Australian small businesses fail within three years.

Mine wasn’t one of them. My copywriting agency, Writers, grew steadily for 18.

Until, suddenly, it stopped.

Budgets were pulled. Invoices slowed. Our once-torrential pipeline slowed to a stagnant drip. We still had strong relationships with ASX-listed clients – but relationships don’t pay the bills.

Relevance does.

By the time I recognised the full impact of every signal, I was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted from years of unpredictable workloads and relentless pivoting.

When you run your own business, quitting doesn’t feel like an option. We’re told to hustle harder, dig deeper, eat last. We have financial, legal and human obligations – to our team, our clients, our reputations.

And because success is so often defined by growth – upward graphs of revenue, profit, awareness and “value” – many of us end up feeling perpetually behind. Never busy enough, visible enough, or paid enough.

But if you’ve simply had enough, it shouldn’t feel like failure. It takes courage to stop. To choose an ending that’s intentional – at a time that works for you and your life.

For me, that meant accepting that my dream of building a business that would outlast me wasn’t realistic in this market, right now.

Here’s what I’ve learned about finishing well.

1. Always have a Plan B

There’s only one thing you need to sell a business: a willing buyer.

After three years of preparing a succession plan, I was ready to transfer equity to a colleague who had already bought in. But for valid reasons, she couldn’t proceed.

If I’d known that six months earlier, I might have had the energy to line up an external buyer or explore a merger. But I didn’t. And in my heart, I knew there was only one real alternative.

My Plan B was the simplest exit of all: a conscious closure that I could control.

2. Embracing AI won’t save you from disruption

Writers have been wringing their hands over GPT-generated content since 2021. But all that angst about robotic prose and tell-tale punctuation misses the point.

AI is improving by the nanosecond. It’s already embedded in our clients’ systems, drawing on internal knowledge we’ll never access – and often anticipating their needs better than they can.

Yes, the world will still need strategic writers with human empathy and originality. But it might not need a copywriting agency model like Writers.

That’s OK. I’d rather use those hard-won skills on meaningful work that matters to me, than keep chasing a mirage in the desert.

3. Timing is everything

The right time to close a business is before you run out of cash — when you can still meet every obligation and give yourself a financial runway for what’s next.

Once succession was off the table, my decision was clear. I wanted my team to find stable roles before Christmas. I wanted to be transparent with clients before taking on new work. And I wanted to preserve the retained earnings we’d built.

4. Complacency is the biggest risk

For years, I described my strategy as “serendipity” – a bit of luck and a lot of hard work. The referrals kept coming, the team kept growing. I got comfortable.

But this is not a time for complacency. If you’re finding business tough right now, you can’t afford to stand still. There is no status quo – and things may never be easier than they are today.

So let’s be blunt. It’s OK to say you’ve had enough.

You took control of your life and work when you started your business. You get to decide how it ends.

And if you can do that on your terms, it’s a happy ending.