Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

If you decide to sell your business to an outside acquirer, you’re going to have to decide between a financial and a strategic buyer—understanding the different motivations of these two buyers can be the key to getting a good price for your business.

A financial buyer is acquiring your future profit stream, so they will evaluate your business based on how much profit it is likely to make and how reliable that profit stream is likely to be. The more profit you can convince them your company will produce, the more they will pay for your business.

But there is a limit to how much they will pay, because financial buyers are playing the buy-low, sell-high game. They do not have a strategic rationale for buying your business. They don’t have an army of sales reps to sell your product or a network of retailers where your product could be merchandised. They are simply trying to get a return on their investors’ money, so they tend to buy small and mid-sized businesses using a combination of this investment layered on top of a pile of debt, and they want to buy your business as cheaply as possible with the hope of flipping it five or ten years down the road.

Because financial buyers are usually investors and not operators, they want you and your team to stick around, so they rarely buy all of a business. Instead, they buy a chunk and ask you to hold on to a tranche of equity to keep you committed.

A strategic buyer is a different cat—usually a larger company in your industry, they are evaluating your business based on what it is worth in their hands. They will try and estimate how much of their product or service they can sell if they added you into the mix. Because of their size, this can often lead to buyers who are willing and able to pay much more for your business.

Tom Franceski and his two partners had built DocStar up to 45 employees when they decided to shop the business to some Private Equity (PE) investors. The PE guys offered four to six times Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA), which Franceski deemed low for a fast-growing software company.

Franceski was then approached by a strategic acquirer called Epicor, which is a global software business with a lot of customers who could use what DocStar had built. Epicor offered DocStar around two times revenue—a much fatter multiple than the PE firms were offering.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

If you’re wondering what your business might be worth to an acquirer, there is a simple calculation you can use.

Let’s call it “The Build vs. Buy Equation”.

At some point, every acquirer does the math and calculates how much it would cost to re-create what you’ve built. If an acquirer figures they could buy your business for less than they would spend on both the hard and soft costs of re-deploying their employees to build a competitive product, then they will be inclined to acquire yours. If they think it would be less costly to create it themselves, they are likely to choose to compete instead.

The key to ensuring that what you have is difficult to replicate is focusing on a single product or service and building on your competitive point of differentiation. When you create a product that is unique and pour all of your resources into continuing to differentiate it from the pack, you can dictate terms, because re-creating your business becomes harder the more you focus on one thing.

The worst strategy is to offer a wide range of services and products only loosely differentiated from others on the market. Any acquirer will rightly assume they can set up shop to compete with you by simply undercutting your prices for a period of time and driving you out of business.

C-Labs Focuses On Building An Irresistible Product

Chris Muench started C-Labs in 2008 to go after the burgeoning opportunities presented by the Internet-of-Things (IOT). He began by writing custom software applications that allowed one machine to talk to another. In 2014, he got the industrial giant TRUMPF International to acquire 30% of C-Labs, which gave him the cash to transform his service offering into a single product.

By the end of 2016, Muench’s product was showing early signs of gaining traction but C-Labs was running out of money.

In the end, TRUMPF acquired C-Labs in a seven-figure deal that could stretch to eight figures if Muench is successful in hitting his future targets. Why would a large, sophisticated company like TRUMPF acquire an early-stage business like C-Labs? Because they knew that re-creating Muench’s technology would cost much more than simply writing a seven-figure check to buy it outright.

In other words, TRUMPF used The Build vs. Buy Equation and realized that buying C-Labs was cheaper than trying to reproduce it.

Selling too many undifferentiated products or services is a recipe for building a business that—if it is sellable at all—will trade at a discount to its industry peers. By contrast, the trick to getting a premium for your business is having a product or service that is irresistible to an acquirer, yet difficult for them to replicate.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

John McCann sold The Bolt Supply House to Lawson Products (NASDAQ: LAWS) at the end of 2017.

McCann’s strategy involved learning from the acquirers who knocked on his door. He invited would-be buyers into The Bolt Supply House and listened to what they had to say. He was not committed to selling, but instead wanted to know what they liked and what concerned them about his company.

One giant European conglomerate, for example, approached McCann about selling, but after a thorough evaluation, they backed out of a deal, worried about McCann’s central distribution system.

McCann thanked them for their time and set to work turning his distribution system into a masterpiece. Eventually, Lawson cited this as one of the many things that attracted them to The Bolt Supply House.

When it finally came time to sell, McCann commanded a premium, arguing that he had built a world-class company he knew would be a strategic gem for a lot of businesses. He ended up getting five competing offers for The Bolt Supply House and eventually sold to Lawson.

When a big sophisticated acquirer approaches you about selling, the temptation is to decline a meeting if you’re not ready to sell, but hearing what they have to say can be a great way to get some superb consulting, for free. The investment bankers and corporate development executives who lead acquisitions for big acquirers are often some of the smartest, most strategic executives in your industry and—provided you don’t get sucked into a prop deal—hearing how they view your business can be an inexpensive way to improve the value of your company.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

If your goal is to grow your business fast, you need a positive cash flow cycle or the ability to raise money at a feverish pace. Anything less and you will quickly grow yourself out of business.

A positive cash flow cycle simply means you get paid before you have to pay others. A negative cash flow cycle is the direct opposite: you have pay out before your money comes in.

A lifestyle business with good margins can often get away with a negative cash flow cycle, but a growth-oriented business can’t, and it will quickly grow itself bankrupt.

Growing Yourself Bankrupt

To illustrate, take a look at the fatal decision made by Shelley Rogers, who decided to scale a business with a negative cash flow cycle. Rogers started Admincomm Warehousing to help companies recycle their old technology. Rogers purchased old phone systems and computer monitors for pennies on the dollar and sold them to recyclers who dismantled the technology down to its raw materials and sold off the base metals.

In the beginning, Rogers had a positive cash flow cycle. Admincomm would secure the rights to a lot of old gear and invite a group of Chinese recyclers to fly to Calgary to bid on the equipment. If they liked what they saw, the recyclers would be asked to pay in full before they flew home. Then Rogers would organize a shipping container to send the materials to China and pay her suppliers 30 to 60 days later.

In a world hungry for resources, the business model worked and Rogers built a nice lifestyle company with fat margins. That’s when she became aware of the environmental impact of the companies she was selling to as they poisoned the air in the developing world burning the plastic covers off computer gear to get at the base metals it contained. Rogers decided to scale up her operation and start recycling the equipment in her home country of Canada, where she could take advantage of a government program that would send her a check if she could prove she had recycled the equipment domestically.

Her new model required an investment in an expensive recycling machine and the adoption of a new cash model. She now had to buy the gear, recycle the materials and then wait to get her money from the government.

The faster she grew, the less cash she had. Eventually, the business failed.

Rogers Rises From The Ashes With A Positive Cash Flow Model

Rogers learned from the experience and built a new company in the same industry called TopFlight Assets Services. Instead of acquiring old technology, she sold much of it on consignment, allowing her to save cash. Rogers grew TopFlight into a successful enterprise, which she sold in 2013 for six times Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) to CSI Leasing, one of the largest equipment leasing companies in the world.

Rogers got a great multiple for her business in part because of her focus on cash flow. Many owner think cash flow means their profits on a Profit & Loss Statement. While profit is important, acquirers also care deeply about cash flow—the money your business makes (or needs) to run.

The reason is simple: when an acquirer buys your business, they will likely need to finance it. If your business needs constant infusions of cash, an acquirer will have to commit more money to your business. Since investors are all about getting a return on their money, the more they have to invest in your business, the higher the return they expect, forcing them to reduce the original price they pay you.

So, whether your goal is to scale or sell for a premium (or both), having a positive cash flow cycle is a prerequisite.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

Where do you sit on the doer vs. dealmaker continuum? On one hand, you have business owners who are really good operators. They have a plan, know their numbers and work that plan. They look for small improvements every day and hesitate to entertain new strategies because they know what works.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the dealmakers. They quickly bore of the doing and are constantly on the prowl for the next big idea. They are always on the lookout for a business they can buy, a new concept they can negotiate the rights for or a partnership they can forge.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs can be equally good at being both doers and dealmakers, and most business owners have a little bit of both personalities, with a tendency to tilt in one direction or the other. However, problems occur when you lean too far in one direction.

Let’s take for example, U.K.-based Jonathan Jay, a twenty-year veteran of the start-up world. Jay got his start publishing magazines, but quickly wanted out, and he sold his publishing company by the age of 27. He then started a coach-training business which competed with one other provider. His competitor ran into trouble and Jay decided to buy his business after less than a week of diligence. Jay then sold the combined entity for a seven-figure payday.

Bored after a week or two of retirement, Jay started a digital marketing company. He found client acquisition a challenge, so he partnered with a marketing guru who had a pre-existing following of customers. Jay gave his new partner 50% of his company in exchange for access to the marketing guru’s list, but he skimped on writing the partnership agreement because he was resentful of the legal bills he was paying to defend an unrelated claim.

Soon after merging, the partners fell out and Jay had to wrestle his shares back without the help of a formal partnership agreement. Unbowed by partnerships, he then found another distressed marketing agency to buy, which he did by assuming its debt and putting virtually nothing down. He put the business into bankruptcy after carving out the one piece that had value and merging it with his marketing company. Within a year of buying the business, he sold the combined entity for another seven-figure exit.

Jay’s story is exhausting. It’s a high-wire act of high-stakes negotiation, success, mistakes and eventual triumph. You can’t help but wonder if he would have been even more successful—and a lot less stressed—if he had been a little more of a doer and little less of a dealmaker.

Whether you are more dealmaker or doer, it’s worth asking yourself whether you’re tilting too far in one direction.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

A great business is bought, not sold, so, if you look too eager to sell your business, you’ll be negotiating on the back foot and look desperate—a recipe for a bad exit.

But, what if you really want to sell? Maybe you’ve got a new idea for a business you want to start or your health is suffering. Then what?

As with many things in life, the secret may be a simple tweak in your vocabulary. Instead of approaching an acquirer to see if they would be interested in buying your business, approach the same company with an offer to partner with them.

Entering into a partnership discussion with a would-be acquirer is a great way for them to discover your strategic assets, because most partnership discussions start with a summary of each company’s strengths and future objectives. As you reveal your aspirations to one another, a savvy buyer will often realize there is more to be gained from simply buying your business than partnering with it.

Facebook Buys Ozlo

For example, look at how Charles Jolley played the sale of Ozlo, the company he created to make a better digital assistant. The market for digital assistants is booming. Apple has Siri, Amazon has Alexa and the Google Home device now has Google Assistant built right in.

Jolley started Ozlo with the vision of building a better digital assistant. By 2016, he believed Ozlo had technology superior to that of Apple, Amazon or Google. Realizing his technology needed a big company to distribute it, he started to think about potential acquirers. He developed a long list, but instead of approaching them to buy Ozlo, he suggested they consider partnering with him to distribute Ozlo.

He met with many of the brand-name technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Facebook, which wanted a better digital assistant embedded within its messaging platform. They took a meeting with Jolley under the guise of a potential partnership, but the conversation quickly moved from “partnering with” to “acquiring” Ozlo.

Jolley then approached his other potential partners indicating his conversations with Facebook had moved in a different direction and that he would be entering acquisition talks with Facebook. Hearing Facebook wanted the technology for themselves, some of Jolley’s other potential “partners” also joined the bidding war to acquire Ozlo.

After a competitive process, Facebook offered Jolley a deal he couldn’t refuse, and they closed on a deal in July 2017. Jolley got the deal he wanted in part because he was negotiating from the position of a strong potential partner, rather than a desperate owner just looking to sell.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

How do you avoid not being disappointed with the money you make from the sale of your company?

Perhaps you’ve heard that companies like yours trade using an industry rule of thumb or that companies of your size sell within a specific range, and you want to get at least what your peers have received.

While these metrics can be useful for tax planning or working out a messy divorce, they may not be the best ways to value your company.

The Only Valuation Technique That Really Matters

In reality, the only valuation technique that will ensure you are happy with your exit is for you to place your own value on your business. What’s it worth to you to keep it? What is all your sweat equity worth? Only when you’re clear on that will you ensure your satisfaction with the sale of your business.

Take Hank Goddard as an example. He started a software company called Mainspring Healthcare Solutions back in 2007. They provided a way for hospitals to keep track of their equipment and evolved into a slick application that hospital workers used to order supplies.

Goddard and his partner started the business by asking some friends and family to invest. The business grew, but there were challenges along the way: Goddard had to fire his entire management team in the early days, product issues needed to be solved and operational issues needed to be resolved.

At times, it was a grind, so when it came time to sell in 2016, Goddard reasoned that he had invested more than half of his career in Mainspring and he wanted to get paid for his life’s work. He also wanted to ensure his original investors got a decent return on their money.

He was approached by Accruent, a company in the same industry, who made Goddard and his partners an offer of one times revenue. Accruent had recently acquired one of Goddard’s competitors for a similar value, so presumably thought this was a fair offer.

Goddard brushed it off as completely unworkable. Goddard had decided he wanted five times revenue for his business. Even for a growing software company, five times revenue was a stretch, but Goddard stuck to his guns. That’s what it was worth to him to sell.

A year after they first approached Goddard, Accruent came back with an offer of two times revenue and, again, Goddard demurred.

Mainspring had developed a new application that was quickly gaining traction and he knew how hard it was to sell to the hospitals he already counted as customers.

He told Accruent his number was five times revenue in cash.

Eventually Goddard got his number.

Being clear on what your number is before going into a negotiation to sell your business can be helpful when emotions start to take over. Rather than rely on industry benchmarks, the best way to ensure you’re not disappointed with the sale of your business is to decide up front what it’s worth to you.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.

Republished with permission from Built to Sell Inc.

If you’re trying to figure out what your business might be worth, it’s helpful to consider what acquirers are paying for companies like yours these days.

A little internet research will probably reveal that a business like yours trades for a multiple of your pre-tax profit, which is Sellers Discretionary Earnings (SDE) for a small business and Earnings Before Interest Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) for a slightly larger business.

Obsessing Over Your Multiple

This multiple can transfix entrepreneurs. Many owners want to know their multiple and how they can jack it up. After all, if your business has $500,000 in profit, and it trades for four times profit, it’s worth $2 million; if the same business trades for eight times profit, it’s worth $4 million.

Obviously, your multiple will have a profound impact on the haul you take from the sale of your business, but there is another number worthy of your consideration as well: the number your multiple is multiplying.

How Profitability Is Open To Interpretation Most entrepreneurs think of profit as an objective measure, calculated by an accountant, but when it comes to the sale of your business, profit is far from objective. Your profit will go through a set of “adjustments” designed to estimate how profitable your business will be under a new owner.

This process of adjusting—and how you defend these adjustments to an acquirer—is where you can dramatically spike your company’s value.

Let’s take a simple example to illustrate. Imagine you run a company with $3 million in
revenue and you pay yourself a salary of $200,000 a year. Further, let’s assume you could get a competent manager to run your business as a division of an acquirer for $100,000 per year. You could safely make the case to an acquirer that under their ownership, your business would generate an extra $100,000 in profit. If they are paying you five times profit for your business, that one adjustment has the potential to earn you an extra $500,000.

You should be able to make a case for several adjustments that will boost your profit and, by extension, the value of your business. This is more art than science, and you need to be prepared to defend your case for each adjustment. It is important that you make a good case for how profitable your business will be in the hands of an acquirer.
Some of the most common adjustments relate to rent (common if you own the building your company operates from and your company is paying higher-than-market rent), start–up costs, one-off lawsuits or insurance claims and one-time professional services fees.

Your multiple is important, but the subjective art of adjusting your EBITDA is where a lot of extra money can be made when selling your business.

For more free information on Creating A Business Owner’s Dream Financial Plan, you can listen to a free, eight part series we did exclusively for business owners. The show is also available to subscribe to for free via iTunes.