A business ready for sale is well worth keeping!
I'm going to give you three reasons, in addition to the one above, why you should be getting your business ready for sale all the time. I'm going to give you three tips on how to get started on that process right now.
Some years ago, I had a leadership management training business and at the seven year point, I decided it was time to think about exiting. I merged my business with another business of similar type and size and together with the owner, we became business partners with the goal of "exit with equity in three years". Towards the end of the three years, we ourselves came up with a value for the business. We put it on the market and having come from sales backgrounds, we tried to sell the business ourselves. After a six month emotional rollercoaster, which was not very pleasant at all, we failed to sell the business.
I told this whole sorry story to a good friend of mine who had bought, built and sold a lot of businesses and he referred us to his recommended business broker. The broker told us selling a business is a process and you need to be ready and stick to the process. He also added, "You need to get the price right and by the way, you've priced your business too cheaply". Consequently, we put the price up 25%, went through the process, sold the business and got the full value for it. We happily paid the broker's fee!
As a result of going through that process, I realised how little most business owners know about putting a value on their business, how to have it ready for sale and what is involved in the sale process. As I was starting up a coaching business I decided to use this experience to niche my services. Shortly after the sale, the broker who sold our business offered me training and a job as a broker with their firm. Over the next twelve years as a business broker, I sold many different types and sizes of business. Experience which I now use with all my clients.
Three good reasons to have your business ready for sale.
NUMBER ONE: Know that your business is saleable. You don't want to get to the point where you have to sell, or someone comes along, want to buy and find out that it's not saleable. So be working on it all the time.
NUMBER TWO: You need to know how businesses are valued and what yours is roughly worth all the time so that you can work on increasing the value, but also so that you don't try to sell it too, cheaply.
NUMBER THREE: A business that's ready for sale is well worth keeping. So if you've got your business ready for sale, you have the option to keep it forever or sell it tomorrow.
Three tips to get started.
- get your financials up to date. They need to be clean. They need to be structured to show you the business owner what's happening in the business and to show a buyer what's happening in the business. And they need to be to date, ready to go.
- When you're selling the business, you need to get the business owner out of the business as much as possible. This requires delegation and great systems. You need to know if you have a business or a practice. A business is built around systems and a practice is built on an expert. A business is more easily sold than a practice.
- You need to track and document everything. You need to know the numbers in your business, not just the financials, but everything that's happening in the business, track everything. And over time you'll find out which are the most important things to know for growing the profit. Then, you can show a potential buyer how the business works and what a great buy it will be.
What I recommend now is that you complete my short quiz. It takes just 3 or 4 minutes, and you'll get a personalised report on the key areas of your business. The report will highlight areas that are good and the ones where you need to improve.
Want to turn your business into a valuable and saleable asset that you can sell at any time for the best price, quickly and easily? Then complete the Free Saleability Quiz and Schedule A Call for a follow-up chat about your results and your situation.
