Is it time for you to sell your business, or at least think about it? Well, it all depends. If you know you don’t want to be running your company 5 or 6 or 8 years from now, and you know your family won’t be taking it over, and you know you don’t want to sell it for rock bottom prices, the answer is a resounding YES.
In fact if you don’t already have an exit plan in place, you may be late, maybe dangerously so. And since we already know that 75% of privately-held business owners don’t have such a plan, the odds are you’re among them. So now what?
First some validation: According to recent research, 80% of the privately owned businesses in the US are owned by baby boomers, those in their 50s to 60s. If you remove the firms with no employees – the really small ones – that number is still estimated at 66% of all privately owned companies. So, how many of those business owners will want to be running their businesses when they’re in their 70s? Virtually none would be a good guess. And that means they’ll ALL want to sell in the next decade. Does that sound like heavy competition for the buyer’s dollar?
If your company is a 5-star, superbly successful enterprise, you’ll have little trouble standing out from the crowd and getting top dollar – with the right team, of course. Of course, if your company is only (gasp) 4-star or less, you might have trouble getting noticed, let alone getting a decent offer.
But if you were willing to think ahead, plan ahead, get some advice ahead of the dreamed-of exit day, that’s where we can help. We’re not investment bankers. We go to work before they do, because we know how to make your company perform better in the 6 factors that determine enterprise value in the eyes of the smart buyer. We know how to guide you in raising that single number that drives the much bigger number that will appear in your hoped for Letter of Intent. When our work is done, that’s when the investment bankers can make your retirement really comfortable.
Wanna talk about it? The number is 888.788.6534. Your CFO for Rent®
