As you may have guessed a “Buyable business” is a company that others find valuable and would want to buy.
Doesn’t that seem redundant? Why should anyone want to build an “unbuyable’ business? Why would they want a business that does not come across as valuable and desirable to others? Who would want to own such a thing?
Sadly, over 90% of small businesses (i.e. having 10-250 employees) never find a buyer during their short life span. They remain stuck as an extension of their owners’ personal practice. At other times they overextend themselves and go out of business, sending their owner back to paid employment with a second mortgage or as a bankrupt renter.
I have recently finished a book on this subject, which will be coming out next year, and in the meantime, I will be sharing ideas from it through this blog.
Six Areas of business Buyability
In general terms, there are six areas you would need to consider to make your business Buyable:
- Your personal vision of what makes you happy and what it would take for you to get to that place permanently.
- Figuring out and orchestrating the management of your business so that it can run in your absence.
- Increasing the profitability of your business, so that it approaches the top 20% of your industry.
- Creating a sustainable and consistent growth momentum in your business.
- Grooming your business so that it puts its best foot forward towards potential buyers or investors.
- Develop your transaction savvy, so that you can maximize your opportunity to “harvest” equity from your business.
I counted almost 50 areas that you can work on to make your business more Buyable and in the coming weeks and months I will be sharing many of these ideas from my book.
Let me know which of the above topic is most interesting to you in the comments and I will prioritize those on this blog.
Get Buyable,
Steve
Hi Steve. Number 5 is most interesting for me and one I feel a lot of companies don’t focus on.
Thanks Richard and good timing as I was about to publish a new blog on the topic and will do it on your selected section.