In 2011, my co-founder and I had the kind of moment that most business owners dream about — several buyers were sniffing around our 15-year-old specialty-chemicals company, Essential Ingredients. But while a sale might have ushered us off to early retirement with bags of money, we worried that our employees would suddenly be jobless.

So instead we formed an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which gives ownership of the company via stocks to the employees. Since we had always made People First a priority, the ESOP seemed like the greatest way to provide our team with job security as well as a healthy retirement fund. We made the exciting announcement at our next big employee meeting. As our employees cheered, we felt sure we had made the right decision.