Selling Your Business -

Preparation and Process Knowledge are the Keys to Success

When an entrepreneur is thinking about selling a business getting advice is a truly smart business move. Unfortunately it’s not a move most business owners make. M&A (mergers and acquisitions) knowledge and preparation set the scene for an equitable way to part with the hard work you put into building your business.

Here’s a scary statistic for you. 80% of the businesses that are purposely put on the market to be sold don’t sell. They either get taken off the market, sell off assets in pieces in a fire sale or just fold up completely.

The 20% that do sell often take a year plus to find a suitable buyer. Most of these sold businesses are also typically not prepared to be sold and therefore sell for much less than the seller expects. You can’t just decide to sell your business and put it out there. That’s really not how it works. Or at least it doesn’t work effectively in that manner.

Why do I say “purposely put on the market”? Because the majority of the businesses out there that have sold for full value or better were the ones the were built on my “run it like you’re gonna sell it” principle and were made an unsolicited offer. Operating a business in a fashion conducive to maximizing the owner profits set the stage for maximum value and it gets the business on a lot of potential acquirers’ radar.

When you look to my expertise in selling a business, the advice I give depends on where you are in the process. I can only hope you have at least a 3 year timeline before you want to sell or you have been prepping for the sale the last 3 years or more as a 3 year timeframe is typical to look at from a buyer’s perspective.

Preparation can be done in a matter of a few months if necessary, but getting top dollar becomes difficult and the time to find a suitable buyer typically becomes longer.

The key to a high valuation is to think like a buyer. See your business as they do, know what is perceived as important to a business’s value and adjust the operation accordingly. What most business owners don’t know is that business value is not just about the valuation of numbers. It’s also a function of an evaluation of the business as a whole.

We know personally what it’s like to be in both the buyer and seller shoes as well as being in the advisor role delivering mergers and acquisitions advice and services. You are also in excellent hands in finding suitable buyers as we have our finger on the pulse of businesses and individuals looking to buy.

Here are the different stages and scenarios to engage our services in:

• You want a valuation for your business as it is right now
• You want to build business value to sell the business in 3 or more years
• You are fully prepared to put the business on the market for sale and need an intermediary on your side to find suitable buyers and help with deal flow
• You have been targeted for an acquisition and need deal and negotiation advice

Ready to make a move? Below are two roads you can take (save this page and do both if you wish):