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August 2018

4 Steps To Finding Your Sell-By Date

August 5, 2018
by chinookmabb

Most business owners think selling their business is a sprint, but the reality is it takes a long time to sell a company.

The sound of the gun sends blood flowing as you leap forward out of the blocks. Within five seconds you’re at top speed and within a dozen, your eye is searching for the next hand. Then you feel the baton become weightless in your grasp and your brain tells you the pain is over. You start an easy jog and you smile, knowing that you did your best and that now the heavy lifting is on someone else’s shoulders.

That’s probably how most people think of starting and selling a business: as something akin to a 4 x 100-meter relay race. You start from scratch, build something valuable, measuring time in months instead of years, and sprint into the waiting arms of Google (or Apple or Facebook) as they obligingly acquire your business for millions. They hand over the check and you ride off into the sunset. After all, that’s how it worked for the guys who started Nest and WhatsApp – right?

But unfortunately, the process of selling your business looks more like an exhausting 100-mile ultra-marathon than a 100-meter sprint. It takes years and a lot of planning to make a clean break from your company – which means it pays to start planning sooner rather than later.

Here’s how to backdate your exit:

Step 1: Pick your eject date

The first step is to figure out when you want to be completely out of your business. This is the day you walk out of the building and never come back. Maybe you have a dream to sail around the world with your kids while they’re young. Perhaps you want to start an orphanage in Bolivia or a vineyard in Tuscany.

Whatever your goal, the first step is writing down when you want out and jotting some notes as to why that date is important to you, what you will do after you sell, with whom, and why.

Step 2: Estimate the length of your earn out

When you sell your business, chances are good that you will get paid in two or more stages. You’ll get the first check when the deal closes and the second at some point in the future — if you hit certain goals set by the buyer. The length of your so-called earn out will depend on the kind of business you’re in.

The average earn out these days is three years. If you’re in a professional services business, your earn out could be as long as five years. If you’re in a manufacturing or technology business, you might get away with a one-year transition period.

Estimate: + 1-5 years

Step 3: Calculate the length of the sale process

The next step is to figure out how long it will take you to negotiate the sale of your company. This process involves hiring an intermediary (a mergers and acquisitions professional, investment banker or business broker), putting together a marketing package for your business, shopping it to potential acquirers, hosting management meetings, negotiating letters of intent, and then going through a 60 to 90-day due diligence period. From the day you hire an intermediary to the day the wire transfer hits your account, the entire process usually takes six to 12 months. To be safe, budget one year.

Estimate: + 1 year

Step 4: Create your strategy-stable operating window

Next, you need to budget some time to operate your business without making any major strategic changes. An acquirer is going to want to see how your business has been performing under its current strategy so they can accurately predict how it will perform under their ownership. Ideally, you can give them three years of operating results during which you didn’t make any major changes to your business model.

If you have been running your business over the last three years without making any strategic shifts, you won’t need to budget any time here. On the other hand, if you plan on making some major strategic changes to prepare your business for sale, add three years from the time you make the changes.

Estimate: + 3 years

Figuring out when to sell

The final step is to figure out when you need to start the process. Let’s say you want to be in Tuscany by age 50. You budget for a three-year earn out, which means you need to close the deal by age 47. Subtract one year from that date to account for the length of time it takes to negotiate a deal, so now you need to hire your intermediary by age 46. Then let’s say you’re still tweaking your business model – experimenting with different target markets, channels and models. In this case, you need to lock in on one strategy by age 43 so that an acquirer can look at three years of operating results.

It certainly would be nice to make a clean, crisp break from your business after an all-out sprint, but for the vast majority of businesses, the process of selling a company is a squishy, multi-year slog. So the sooner you start, the better.

Credit: http://www.enterprisevaluators.com/blog/4-steps-to-finding-your-sell-by-date

July 2018

What’s so special about the million-dollar mark?

July 14, 2018
by chinookmabb

If you’re wondering when is the right time to sell your business, you may want to wait until your company is generating $1 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).

What’s so special about the million-dollar mark?
The million-dollar mark is a tipping point at which the number of buyers interested in acquiring your business goes up dramatically. The more interested buyers you have, the better multiple of earnings you will command.

Since businesses are often valued on a multiple of earnings, getting to a million in profits means you’re not only getting a higher multiple but also applying your multiple to a higher number.

For example, according to research by ValueBuilderSystem.com, a company with $200,000 in EBITDA might be lucky to fetch three times EBITDA, or $600,000. A company with a million dollars in EBITDA would likely command at least five times that figure, or $5 million. So the company with $1 million in EBITDA is five times bigger than the $200,000 company, but almost 10times more valuable.

There are a number of reasons that offer multiples go up with company size, including:
1. Frictional Costs
It costs about the same in legal and banking fees to buy a company for $600,000 as it does to buy a company for $5 million. In large deals, these “frictional costs” become a rounding error, but they amount to a punitive tax on smaller deals.

2. The 5-20 Rule
More often than not, an acquiring company is between 5 and 20 times the size of the target company.

If an acquiring business is less than 5 times your size, it is a bet-the-company decision for the acquirer: If the acquisition fails, it will likely kill the acquiring company.

Likewise, if the acquirer is more than 20 times the size of your business, the acquirer will not enjoy a meaningful lift to its revenue by buying you. Most big, mature companies aspire for 10 to 20 percent top-line revenue growth at a minimum. If they can get 5 percent of organic growth, they will try to acquire another 5 percent through acquisition, which means they need to look for a company with enough girth to move the needle.

3. Private Equity
Private Equity Groups (PEGs) make up a large chunk of the acquirers in the mid-market. The value of your company will move up considerably if you’re able to get a few PEGs interested in buying your business. But most PEGs are looking for companies with at least $1 million in EBITDA. The million-dollar cut-off is somewhat arbitrary but very common. As with homebuyers who narrow their house search to houses that fit within a price range, or colleges that look for a minimum SAT score, if you don’t fit the minimum criteria, you may not be considered.

If you’re close to a million dollars in EBITDA and getting antsy to sell, you may want to hold off until your profits eclipse the million-dollar threshold, because the universe of buyers—and the multiple those buyers are willing to offer—jumps nicely once you reach seven figures.

Credit: Inc.com

June 2018

Will your business be more valuable this time next…

June 27, 2018June 27, 2018
by chinookmabb

For many, June is a time to take a vacation, as well as a time to reflect on this year’s achievements and set goals for the year ahead.

Most company owners will set business goals that focus on hitting certain revenue or profit milestones. But if your goal is to own a more valuable business in 2018, you may want to make one of the following resolutions:

Take a two-week vacation without checking in with the office. When you return, you’ll see how well your company performed and where you need to make a key hire or create a new system.
Write down at least one process per month. You know you need to document your systems, but you may be overwhelmed by the task of taking what’s inside your head and putting it down in writing for others to follow. Resolve to document one system a month and by the end of the year, you’ll own a more sellable company.
Offload at least one customer relationship. If you’re like most business owners, you’re still your company’s best salesperson, but this can be a liability in the eyes of an acquirer, which is why you should wean your customers off relying on you as their point person. By the time you sell, none of your key customers should think of you as their relationship manager.
Cultivate a new relationship with a new supplier. Having a “go to” group of suppliers is great, but an over-reliance on one or two suppliers can create a liability for your business. By spreading some of your business to other suppliers, you keep your best suppliers hungry and you can make a case to an acquirer that you have other sources of supply for your critical inputs.
Create a recurring revenue stream. Valuable companies can look into the future and see where their revenue is going to come from. Recurring revenue models can vary from charging customers a small amount for a special level of service to offering a warranty or service contract.
Find your lease (and any other key contracts). When it comes time to sell your company, a buyer will want to see your lease and understand your obligations to your landlord. Having your lease handy can save time and avoid any nasty surprises at the eleventh hour in the process of selling your company.
Check your contracts and make sure they would survive the change of ownership of your company. If not, talk to your lawyer about adding a line to your agreements that states the obligations of the contract “surviving” in the event of a change of ownership of your company.
Start tracking your Net Promoter Score (NPS). The NPS methodology is the best predictor that your customers will re-purchase from you and/or refer you, which are two key indicators of a healthy and successful company. It’s also why many strategic acquirers and private equity companies use NPS as a way to measure the health of their acquisition targets during due diligence.
Get your Value Builder Score. All goals start with a benchmark of where you’re at today, and by understanding your company’s Value Builder Score, you can pinpoint how you’re doing now and which areas of your business are dragging down your company’s value.

A lot of company owners will set resolutions around their revenue or profits for the year ahead, but those goals are blunt instruments. Instead of just building a bigger company, also consider making this the year you build a more valuable one.

Credit: csuite advisors

June 2018

Six ways to profit from your vacation this summer

June 2, 2018
by chinookmabb

Summer is here, and although it may seem strange, now may be the perfect time to increase the value of your company.

The most valuable businesses are the ones that can survive without their owner. A buyer will pay a premium for a company that runs on autopilot and levy a steep discount for a business that is dependent on its owner.

This summer, consider taking an extended break from your business to see how things will run when you’re not in the building. It’s likely that some things will go wrong, but use those errors as the raw material for making your business operate more independently of you – and therefore more valuable.

Here is a six-step plan for profiting from your vacation time this summer:

Step 1: Schedule your vacation plus one day

Whatever day you plan to start working again after your holiday, tell your staff you’ll be back one day later. That way, you’ll have a full day of uninterrupted time to dedicate to understanding what went wrong in your absence.

Step 2: Bucket the mistakes

When you return, make a summary of the things that went wrong and categorize them into one of three buckets:

Mistakes: errors where there is a right and wrong answer;
Bottlenecks: projects that had difficulties because you weren’t there to provide your feedback;
Stalled projects: initiatives that went nowhere while you were gone because you’re the person leading them.

Step 3: Correct the mistakes

The first and easiest place to start is to simply correct the mistakes that were made. Usually, mistakes are due to a lack of training rather than outright negligence. The right answer may be crystal clear in your head but not immediately obvious to your staff. Write up some instructions for next time the employees face the same situation. Make sure your instructions are clear and share them with your team so everyone has them (a file sharing service like Google Drive or DropBox can be a helpful repository for your instructions).

Step 4: Unblock your bottlenecks

If you’re being asked for your personal input on projects, there’s probably going to be a bottleneck if you’re not around. Make sure your staff is clear on the projects where you need to have a say and the projects where you don’t. Some employees may wrongly think that you need to approve all decisions. Make it clear when you want them to act alone and when you still need to have a say.

Step 5: Re-assign stalled projects

The hardest part of making your business less dependent on you is dealing with projects that get stalled when you’re away. Start by asking yourself if you’re the right person to lead the project in the first place. As the owner of your business, projects often fall in your lap by default, rather than because you’re the best person to lead them. Categorize your stalled projects into two groups: a) strategic projects you need to lead; and b) non-strategic projects you are leading by default. Hang on to the strategic projects, but delegate the non-strategic projects to someone on your team who is better suited to drive them forward.

Step 6: Give every employee a blank check

At Ritz Carlton Hotels, they give every employee discretion to spend – without approval from their general manager – up to $2,000 on a guest. The $2,000 figure is a large enough number to make the message clear: front-line employees should act first, make the customer happy, and ask questions later. Many employees know how to make a customer happy but lack the confidence to act. Giving employees some spending authority will speed up the resolution of customer issues and empower your team to do the right thing when you’re not there.

The sunshine is beckoning, so go ahead and take a vacation – if you follow the six steps here, you may end up with a tan and a more valuable company.

Credit: SWP Connect

May 2018

Thinking Vs. Doing: The Owner’s Dilemma

May 5, 2018
by chinookmabb

There’s a steady breeze from the northwest, which cools the warm Caribbean afternoon. Framed between a palm tree and the turquoise water, you notice a man reading. He appears to be working, which seems strange given his appearance: shaggy blonde hair, linen shirt, surf shorts and flip-flops.

You squint and realize the man is Richard Branson and he just happens to be running Virgin Group Ltd., a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. He is working where he usually does, at Necker Island, a 74-acre retreat he owns in the British Virgin Islands.

Branson, of course, is far from a negligent founder, he has managers running the various businesses that make up the Virgin Group and visits his companies regularly, but he does not manage the day-to-day operations of any of his businesses, which frees up his time to think.

The train conductor vs. the thinker

Your role as a CEO can be divided into two buckets: one for managing and the other for thinking.

The managing bucket is where, metaphorically speaking, you ensure the trains all run on time. In this role, you’re establishing goals for your employees and holding them accountable for achieving their targets. You’re making sure your products and services are of a high quality and that your biggest customers are happy.

When you’re wearing your manager hat, you’re scouring your company looking for small enhancements every day. This obsession with continuous improvement is what big companies call “six-sigma thinking,” but you probably just think of it as building a great company.

The other bucket is reserved for thinking and it’s where you create the future of your company. In this visionary time, you get to design new products, imagine new ways of serving customers, or contemplate where you could take your business in the years ahead.

Your visionary hours are spent dreaming and imaging what your business could be, instead of worrying about what it is today.

The most valuable companies

The question is, how much of your time should you devote to each role? If your goal is to create a more valuable business—one that someone might like to buy one day—our data reveals that you should start gradually increasing the time you spend on thinking and hire someone else to do the managing.

For example, after analyzing more than 20,000 businesses who have received their Value Builder Score, we have discovered that companies of owners who know each of their customers by first name (i.e., managers) trade at just 2.9 times their pre-tax profit, whereas the companies of owners who do not know their customers’ first names (i.e., thinkers) trade at closer to 5 times pre-tax profit.

Further, companies that would suffer if their owners were unable to come to work for three months, receive significantly lower offers when compared to companies that would not feel the absence of the owner for a month or two.

Finally, in a recent survey of merger and acquisition (M&A) professionals, we asked who they like to see an owner hire if they can only afford one “C-level” executive. The M&A professionals overwhelmingly identified a general manager/second-in-command as the most important role a founder can fill ahead of a chief revenue, marketing or financial officer.

In short, the owners of the most valuable businesses have found managers to ensure the trains run on time while they spend an increasing amount of their energy thinking about what’s next for their business.

Credit: Built to Sell Inc.

April 2018

Does Your Business Have Curb Appeal?

April 18, 2018April 18, 2018
by chinookmabb

Let’s say you’re in the market for buying a house and you go to view one that looks appealing in the ad. How does it look on the inside? The outside? What about the location? What is your general impression?

Like your house, your business projects an image to potential buyers. When they come to see your business for the first time, your “curb appeal” can attract a buyer to your business—or cause them to walk away from it.Do you need to improve your curb appeal? Here’s a three-step plan:

1. Fix Your Leaky Faucets
Perhaps, like many other business owners, you started your business from scratch with one or two employees and now you have 20 people working for you. But do you have the appropriate HR infrastructure in place for that size of a company? Perhaps you even take pride in your informal management style, but it can prove to be a liability when it comes time to sell.

Make sure your human resources policies are at least as stringent as those of the company you hope will buy your business. Some basics to have in place:

A written policy making it clear you forbid any form of harassment or discrimination;
•    A written letter of employment for each staff member;
•    A written description of your bonus system;
•    Written policies for employee expenses, travel, and benefits.

2. Assemble Your Binder
When you go to buy a house, it will give you confidence if the owner has the instruction manuals for the appliances, information on where they were purchased, and who to call if one of them breaks down.

Similarly, when a potential buyer looks at your company, he wants to see that you have your business information in order. Documenting your office procedures, core processes, and other intellectual capital can help you attract more bidders and a higher price for your company, while also lowering the chance of the deal falling apart during diligence.

If you want to attract a buyer one day, your business needs a binder with instructions for basic functions, such as:

Opening up in the morning and closing down at night;
Forms and step-by-step instructions for routine tasks;
Templates for key documents;
Emergency numbers for service providers;
Billing procedures for customers;
How your company is positioned in the market and your marketing tools.

3. Document Your Intangibles
Intangibles for house buying might include: Is the house near a good school or daycare? What kind of neighborhood is it? What kind of commute are you looking at to get to work?

Your business also has intangible, often intellectual, assets that a potential buyer needs to be made aware of, such as:

The proprietary research you’ve conducted;
A formula for acquiring new customers;
Criteria you use to evaluate a potential new location;
Your unique approach to satisfying a customer.

As with selling a house, your company’s curb appeal can go a long way toward closing a deal.

Credit: Inc.com

April 2018

6 Reasons Not To Diversify Your Business

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018
by chinookmabb

Diversification is a sound financial planning strategy, but does it work for company building?

How does Vitamix get away with charging $700 for a blender when reputable companies like Cuisinart and Breville make blenders for less than half the price?

It’s because Vitamix does just one thing, and they do it better than anyone else.

WhatsApp was just a messaging platform before Facebook acquired them for $19 billion US. Go Pro makes the best helmet mounted video cameras in the world. These companies stand out because they poured all of their limited resources into one big bet.

The typical business school of thought is to diversify and cross sell your way to a “safe” business with a balanced portfolio of products – so when one product category tanks, another line of your business will hopefully boom. But the problem with selling too many things – especially for a young company – is that you water down everything you do to the point of mediocrity.

Here are six reasons to stop being a jack-of- all-trades and start specializing in doing one thing better than anyone else:

It will increase the value of your business
When you sell one thing, you can differentiate yourself by pouring all of
your marketing dollars into setting your one product apart, which will
boost your company’s value. How do we know? After analyzing more
than 13,000 businesses using The Value Builder Score, findings showed
companies that have a monopoly on what they sell get acquisition offers
that are 42 percent higher than the average business.
You can create a brand
Big multinationals can dump millions into each of their brands, which
enable them to sell more than one thing. Kellogg can own the Corn
Flakes brand and also peddle Pringles because they have enough cash to
support both brands independently, but with every new product comes
a dilution of your marketing dollars. It’s hard enough for a start-up to
build one household name and virtually impossible to create two
without gobs of equity-diluting outside money.
You’ll be findable on Google
When you Google “helmet camera,” Go Pro is featured in just about
every listing, despite the fact that there are hundreds of video camera
manufacturers. It’s easy for Go Pro to optimize their website for the
keywords that matter when they are focused on selling only one
product.
Nobody cheered for Goliath
Small companies with the courage to make a single bet get a bump in
popularity because we’re naturally inclined to want the underdog –
willing to bet it all – to win. When Google launched its simple search
engine with its endearing two search choices “I’m feeling lucky” vs.
“Google search,” we all kicked Yahoo to the curb. Now that Google is all
grown up and offering all sorts of stuff, we respect them as a company
but do we love them quite as much?
Every staff member will be able to deliver
When you do one thing, you can train your staff to execute, unlike when
you offer dozens or hundreds of products and services that go well
beyond the competence level of your junior staff. Having employees
who can deliver means you can let them get on with their work, freeing
up your time to think more about the big picture.
It will make you irresistible to an acquirer
The more you specialize in a single product, the more you will be
attractive to an acquirer when the time comes to sell your business.
Acquirers buy things they cannot easily replicate themselves. Go Pro (NASDAQ: GPRO) is rumoured to be a takeover target for a consumer electronics manufacturer or a content company that wants a beachhead in the action sports video market. Most consumer electronics companies could manufacturer their own helmet mounted cameras, but Go Pro is so far out in front of their competitors – they are the #1 brand channel on You Tube – that it would be easier to just buy the company rather than trying to claw market share away from a leader with such a dominant head start.

Diversification is a great approach for your stock portfolio, but when it
comes to your business, it may be a sure-fire road to mediocrity.

Credit: Inc.com

March 2018

7 things to do before signing a Letter of…

March 17, 2018
by chinookmabb

You may be years away from selling your business, but it’s never too early to understand what the process involves.

If you have ever promised your child a treat in return for good behavior, you know all about negotiating leverage. When selling an attractive business, you also have leverage—but only up to the point where you sign a letter of intent (LOI). An LOI almost always includes a “no shop” clause requiring you to terminate discussions with other potential buyers while your suitor does due diligence.

After you sign the LOI, however, the balance of power in the negotiation swings heavily in favor of the buyer, who can then take their time investigating your company. At the same time, with each passing day, you will likely become more committed to selling your business. Savvy buyers know this and can drag out due diligence for months, coming up with things that justify lowering their offer price or demanding better terms.

With your leverage diminished and other suitors sidelined, you are left with the unattractive options of either accepting the inferior terms or walking away.

Here are seven things you can do—before you even put your business up for sale, and before signing an LOI—to minimize the chances of your deal dragging on for months and becoming watered down:

Make sure your customer contracts have “successor” clauses. Have customers sign long-term, standardized contracts, including a clause stating that the obligations of the contract survive any change in company ownership.
Nurture and prepare a group of 10 to 15 “referenceable” customers. Acquirers will want to ask your customers why they do business with you and not your competitors. Before you sign the LOI, cultivate a group of customers to act as references.
Ensure your management team is on the same page. During due diligence, acquirers will want to interview your managers without you in the room. They want to find out if everyone in your company is pulling in the same direction.
Consider getting audited financials. An acquirer will have more confidence in your numbers and will perceive less risk if your books are audited by a recognized accounting firm.
Disclose the risks up front. Every company has some risk factors. Disclose any legal or accounting hiccups before you sign the LOI.
Negotiate down the due diligence period. Most acquirers will ask for a period of 60 or 90 days to complete their due diligence. You may be able to negotiate this down to 45 days—perhaps even 30 with some financial buyers. If nothing else, you’ll alert the acquirer to the fact that you’re not willing to see the diligence drag out past the agreed-to close date.
Make it clear others are at the table. Explain that, while you think the acquirer’s offer is the strongest and you intend to honor the “no shop” agreement, there are other interested parties at the table.

If you take all seven of these steps, you will protect the value of your business as the balance of power in the negotiations to sell your company swings from you to the buyer.

Credit: Forbes

March 2018

What a Study of 14,000 Businesses Reveals About How…

March 3, 2018
by chinookmabb

In an analysis of more than 14,000 businesses, a new study finds the most valuable companies take a contrarian approach to the boss doing the selling.

Who does the selling in your business? My guess is that when you’re personally involved in doing the selling, your business is a whole lot more profitable than the months when you leave the selling to others.

That makes sense because you’re likely the most passionate advocate for your business. You have the most industry knowledge and the widest network of industry connections.

If your goal is to maximize your company’s profit at all costs, you may have come to the conclusion that you should spend most of your time out of the office selling, and leave the dirty work of operating your businesses to your underlings.

However, if your goal is to build a valuable company—one you can sell down the road—you can’t be your company’s number one salesperson. In fact, the less you know your customers personally, the more valuable your business.

The Proof: A Study of 14,000 Businesses

We’ve just finished analyzed our pool of Value Builder Score users for the quarter ending December 31. We offer The Sellability Score questionnaire as the first of twelve steps in The Value Builder System, a statistically proven methodology for increasing the value of a business.

We asked 14,000 business owners if they had received an offer to buy their business in the last 12 months, and if so, what multiple of their pre-tax profit the offer represented. We then compared the offer made to the following question:

Which of the following best describes your personal relationship with your company’s customers?

I know each of my customers by first name and they expect that I personally get involved when they buy from my company.
I know most of my customers by first name and they usually want to deal with me rather than one of my employees.
I know some of my customers by first name and a few of them prefer to deal with me rather than one of my employees.
I don’t know my customers personally and rarely get involved in serving an individual customer.

2.93 vs. 4.49 Times

The average offer received among all of the businesses we analyzed was 3.7 times pre-tax profit. However, when we isolated just those businesses where the owner does not know his/her customers personally and rarely gets involved in serving an individual customer, the offer multiple went up to 4.49.

Companies where the founder knows each of his/her customers by first name get discounted, earning offers of just 2.93 times pre-tax profit.

When Value Is the Enemy of Profit

Who you get to do the selling in your company is just one of many examples where the actions you take to build a valuable company are different than what you do to maximize your profit. If all you wanted was a fat bottom line, you likely wouldn’t invest in upgrading your website or spend much time thinking about the squishy business of company culture.

How much money you make each year is important, but how you earn that profit will have a greater impact on the value of your company in the long run.

Credit: Foresight CFO

February 2018

6 little things that make a big difference to…

February 1, 2018
by chinookmabb

With the Pyeongchang, South Korea Olympic Games taking place this month, it is interesting to reflect on some of the big events of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver; when it was in our backyard.

In the Men’s Downhill race at Whistler, for example, the winning time of 1:54:31 was posted by Didier Défago of Switzerland. The time among medalists was the closest in Olympic history. While Mario Scheiber of Austria posted a time of 1:54:52 – just two tenths of a second slower than Défago – he finished out of the medals in fourth place.

In ski racing, one fifth of a second can be lost in the tiniest of miscalculations. And when it comes to selling your business, markets can be equally cruel. Get everything right, and you can successfully sell your business for a premium. Misjudge a couple of minor details and a buyer can walk, leaving you with nothing.

Here is a list of six little details to get right before you put your business on the market:

Find your lease. If you rent space, you may be required to notify your landlord if you intend to sell your company. Read through the fine print and ensure you’re not scrambling at the last minute to seek permission from your landlord to sell.
Professionalize your books. Consider having audited financial statements prepared to give a buyer confidence in your bookkeeping.
Stop using your company as an ATM. Many business owners run trips and other perks through their business, but if you’re planning to sell, these treats will artificially depress your earnings, which will reduce the value of your company in the eyes of a buyer by much more than the value of the perks.
Protect your gross margin. Oftentimes, when leading up to being listed for sale, companies grow by chasing low-margin business. You tell yourself you need top-line growth, but when an acquirer sees your growth has come at the expense of your gross margin, she will question your pricing authority and assume your journey to the bottom of the commoditization heap has begun.
Secure your contracts. If you have formal contracts with your customers, make sure they include a “survivor clause” stipulating that the obligations of the contract “survive” the change of ownership of your company. That way, your customers can’t use the sale of your company to wiggle out of their commitments to your business. Have a lawyer prepare the language to ensure it is valid in your jurisdiction.
Get your Value Builder Score. Take 13 minutes to answer the Value Builder questionnaire now. You’ll see how you performed on the eight key drivers of company value and you can identify any gaps you need to fill before taking your business to market.

Like competing in the Olympics, selling a business can be an all-or-nothing affair. Get it right and you will walk away a winner. Fumble your preparation, and you could end up out of the medals.

Credit: Foresight CFO