This is the reason for all your long nights, for burning the midnight oil, for struggling to make payroll. It’s probably the reason you customers love you. And it’s the driving force behind the overall value of your business. We don’t think this question gets asked frequently enough.
Most people don’t know what different buyers would be willing or able to pay. Most business don’t track the key factors that drive growth, including cash flow, defined as “Owners Discretionary Earnings” or Normalized Adjusted EBITDA.
We try to structure all of our engagements so that you can see immediate return on our fees. We identify deliverables that provide immediate value in the first part of our engagement, and when we have built trust, we work on longer term goals. When possible, we like to structure our fees to include a success fee, so our fees are completely aligned with your goals. We get paid if you get the results you want.
The fastest we have ever sold a business is six weeks. Most often it can take a year or more to get a business ready for sale. The sales process itself takes 6-12 months in most situations. The only true answer is “It depends”. Every business is different, and every sales process is unique.
That’s great. Selling your business is not your only option. We try to structure every engagement to give you more options, rather than fewer. We’ve discovered that making your business more valuable to a buyer (and more likely to sell) also makes it more valuable to retain. When done right, the process of preparing a business for sale is a true no-lose scenario.