Whether you’re selling what you’ve created, handing it on to the family or to your business partners, selling your business and getting value for your life’s work creates both highs and lows.
Our approach is designed to minimise our clients exposure to stress and risk.
Company Sale
Ever since their first sale or contract, since the doors first opened, the ultimate goal of most entrepreneurs or business owners is to someday hand over day to day running of the operation and then sell the business immediately or sometime later.
This is a weighty matter, though. A personal endeavour that for two key reasons must be handled with care, including considerable amounts of respect and sensitivity.
Firstly, your business is an adventure to which you’ve lent time, energy, money and of course, sweat and tears. You’ve taken your business through test tube phase, reactive growth, and then explosive profitability. Selling is as much a personal journey as one that’s become a necessity.
Secondly, you want all that chemistry you’ve created, to keep boiling, bubbling and popping, toward the next reactive phase in your business’s life – the continued growth toward the legacy you’ve always envisioned, but without you.
So, as you plan your departure, and leave your business in the capable hands of a knowing family member, business partner or trusted third party, Regent Evolution will help you minimise your stress, for an exit that recognises the value you’ve created.
What is the Best Way to Sell a Business?
Before a sale can be negotiated, the journey from decision to sell, finding a seriously interested party, to ink on paper must be meticulously mapped.
We truly believe we can help you with what, for many owners, is the greatest of business tasks; to sell successfully sell their business.
Many of our partners have been down this path already. They have sat on your side of the table.
Through our step-by-step advisory process and business sale advice we can set you and your business on parallel paths to continued growth.
This is our 5-step mantra to a company sale that benefits all involved:
Prospective buyers will seek this number first. They’ll use it to determine whether your business’s value, added to theirs, may create the business alchemy they, in turn, seek. An easy rule of thumb is that a business is always worth a certain multiple of its profit. That may differ, depending on size and market, but it’s a relatively reliable formulaic approach.
When it comes to the numbers, no obfuscation, no smoke and mirrors, must be near the deal. Your business will be valued on its profit, so precise financials must be disclosed, like profit and loss statements. It’s time to bare all, show your business’s inner workings to the market, and show it with pride.
Business 101 – the science of marketing. Get your business in front of potential buyers as soon as you can.
It’s a matter of opening your business operations and financial standing up to the probing eyes of others. But it’s a matter that shouldn’t feel too invasive. If you’ve put together honest and clear financials, there’s nothing to be worried about. So, let your buyer verify the numbers you’ve concluded – and never fear, Regent is here to facilitate, and make it easy for all.
Finally, the deal is closed. And Regent Assay will still be there, to help you celebrate, and then start handing over.
Do you want to sell your business? Talk to us today.
How do you Negotiate the Sale of a Business
One last thing, though. What about that final number?
It’s a vital part of the chemistry that will yield success.
And it’s a part of the business alchemy between you and your seller, and of course, you and Regent. We’ll help you determine the number that’ll suit all parties. Here’s how:
Know your buyer, and perhaps their reason for buying. Then let them do their due diligence in a candid environment. It’ll open the forum up to trustful and fair negotiations for all.
Set your starting offer first, then work to your ideal number. If things go too far beyond there, it’s okay to walk away from the deal.
As the seller, you’ll want the terms of a deal to be clearly and pointedly detailed. There are a few that may come up, like how will the payout happen? What are the futures of the employees left behind? Is the sale structured around an earnout, and how will that be going ahead?
The sale of your business, and your exit from it, can be emotional, reactive, and even fiery. But with us, and our sound business alchemy, it’ll never be chaotic. We’ll help you determine how to sell, who to sell to, when to sell, the value of your business, negotiations for a beneficial deal, and then deal structure and a profitable sale.
Speak to one of our several Partners who has successfully exited from a business they’ve owned.
Many of us have sat on your side of the desk and understand how momentous a decision to sell can be and the high’s and low’s you will experience during the process.