Starting the preparations to sell your business is never easy. Selling or buying a business comes with mixed emotions and hard decisions. There are a lot of variables to consider. One action item to discuss early is the process of due diligence. In order for you to attract a buyer to your company, you must engage in the pre-sale due …
Ingredients to Jumpstart the Planning Process
Taking on any large project can be manageable when you have a reliable process in place. When deciding to exit your business, for example, you will need a proven process in place to ensure you have covered all the bases. Just like baking, without following the specific process or recipe, you could end up setting off the fire alarms. There …
The Process of Selling Your Business Has Already Begun
When you started your business, it was probably obvious that you needed a plan. It may be less obvious, though, that when you leave your business, no matter how you do it, you’ll also need a plan. The reality is that every action you take during the life of your business has an impact on your departure down the road. …
Not All Strategies Are Created Equal
Succession planning, Exit Planning, and business planning may seem interchangeable in most people’s eyes. However, each type of planning plays a very different role in the process of designing, and then implementing, a strategy for leaving your business and planning for the future. You can’t use one strategy without the others when it comes to running, growing, operating, and eventually …
Find Your Best Path to the Future
You can’t get anywhere if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s also obvious that once you know where you’re going, you need to lay out a path that will take you there. But things that are obvious are not always easy. It can be helpful to adopt a process that is customized to your needs but is based on …
Funding a Sale to “Insiders”
When imagining the future of their businesses, and possibly a future that involves different ownership at some point, owners may wonder if it’s really possible to consider “insiders” (employees, children, or co-owner) as viable successor owners. Insiders are often a great match for company culture, leadership style, and vision. But they may lack one very important element – money to …
Rethinking Cash Flow
While there are many uncertainties when planning for the future, one factor that is almost always essential to the success of your future plans is cash flow. Measuring your company’s cash flow and knowing what aspects of your business can be affected by the health of your cash flow are even more crucial in today’s economy. Having an accurate representation …
Where to Start
When we start any important project, it is common to choose to plan in phases. Sometimes we choose to plan in phases because there is a certain aspect of the project that we consider to be more urgent than others. Maybe it can be overwhelming to try to focus on the big picture. Regardless of the reason, a phased planning …
Planning When You’re Too Busy to Plan
As an owner of a successful business, it’s likely that you got where you are today through efficient planning. You may have planned out your business model, your competitive advantage, or your target customers and how you’d get them to use your products or services. However, you didn’t get where you are today overnight. It most likely took many hours of …
Where Transferable Value Comes From
One of the most important elements of a successful business transition is transferable value. No matter what an owner sees for the future of the business, transferable value can be the common denominator that makes all goals more achievable. What is Transferable Value Transferable value, for a closely-held business, is most simply what a business is worth to someone else …