I know that you have no intention of selling your business and that you can keep running it forever!  But I suspect that you will at least accept that all businesses go in cycles as does the economy.

There are good times to sell like now and bad times such as around 1987 and 2001! When are we due for a cyclical change? Not sure just yet but it’s been a while!

While we are in good times, I would suggest that you take a hard look at your business and ask, “What would need to be done if I received a good offer out of the blue to sell my business?”

It could take three years to make all these things happen and the good offer would be long gone!

Hence my message is that you should always have your business ready to sell, even if you choose not to.

These are the things that you should do now and we are willing to help you get started:

  1. Systems: your business needs to be able to run without you.
  2. What business are you in? Could technology overtake you like it did for Kodak film. Think about it.
  3. Are you over dependent on one or more customers? How can you diversify?
  4. Could a major supplier hold you to ransom?
  5. Are there growth opportunities, complementary businesses or add ons out there?
  6. Is your IT secure, mobile, well backed up and state of the art?
  7. Do you have a strong management team?
  8. Do you have timely financials and forecasts including cash flows.
  9. Are there extra ordinary items in your accounts that should be normalized?
  10. Do you receive a market salary?
  11. Remove personal expenditure from the books. Your selling price could be reduced by a multiple of say four times such expenditure.
  12. Make sure your tax is clean. A purchaser may require tax warranties.
  13. What capex requirements are there going forward? This will affect the selling price.
  14. Is your Plant and Equipment, software well documented.
  15. Have you patented your Intellectual Property?
  16. Are your property leases current? Do they require renewal?
  17. But remember, keep everything as simple as possible. Tidy up complex structures now!

It could take you three years to put all your ducks in a row!

My plea to you is to start this journey now so that you are ready for that great offer or when circumstances change.

We are always happy to talk about the possibilities. The sky is the limit!