We recently spent a long weekend cleaning out our family cabin, which recently sold. As we thought about all we did over the years, we realized it was about a five-year project, which ties very well to what business owners should do when planning their exit.
It was about five years ago when we made an effort to get rid of junk. The cabin’s been in the family for almost 60 years and my dad was a hoarder. If one tool was good, three of the same were better. We got rid of five winches, and I don’t recall seeing one in use for decades. We estimated at least one ton of stuff went to the dump.
In my ACTION Plan* ™ to sell a business the “A” stands for arrange all the affairs of the company. Like with our cabin, it starts with cleaning. Cleaning the facility so it looks like you care. Cleaning up the books so they paint a true picture of the company’s performance. Making everything (operations, finance, marketing, etc.) look as presentable as possible to a pair of (skeptical) buyer eyes.
Once we decided to sell it was a full effort to “have it ready.” This meant quasi-staging (there’s only so much you can do in 700 square feet). This meant getting rid of glasses, plates, area rugs, furniture, and anything else that made the place look cluttered or smaller (it’s small already). We cut and trimmed the grass a lot more often, touched up the paint, removed an old storage building, and kept it clean and tidy.
What we learned is no matter what you do, a buyer will find things you didn’t do. And believe me, a home inspector will find even more of those things. Just like business buyers approach companies with a skeptical eye. And the bank looks at it with a completely different set of eyes, given they really want to get paid back. (Given we don’t live near the cabin, we really didn’t have the time to get to the little things, like we all should at our homes and owners should do in their business).
The “C” in my ACTION plan stands for counsel the company, its people, and processes. This means keep everything up-to-speed, like we did with the cabin once we put it on the market. In a business this means pay attention to the non-financial factors. Its customers, employees, suppliers, market conditions, and anything else that influences the numbers.
I learned some interesting lessons selling a cabin in a soft market, from 2000 miles away, and not having the ability to be there enough to manage the little things. Given owners are around their business daily it’s not a good excuse to not pay attention to the things making a business more attractive to a buyer.
“Don’t ever think you’ve succeeded. Always try to do better – otherwise, drop dead.” Arturo Toscanini
* Arrange all the affairs of the company
Coach and counsel the company; its people, process and systems
Transmit and teach all the good “things” about your firm
(and those “things” are)
Intricacies that make your company special
Operations and management systems in place that will make a transition smooth
Numbers, all the financials in understandable form, straightforward with no “tricks”
