Selling your business is a no-nonsense game, and can be a major challenge for an entrepreneur. There are a lot of complexities involved, one of which is increasing your brands value quotient to attract prospective sellers or even investors. Taking half-hearted measures or making cosmetic changes to maximise the value of any business can prove futile over the long haul.
To start off with, it is important to seek the advice of an experienced outside advisor who can set the tone for sale, including business valuation. This is because only a professional consultant can throw light on the valuation aspect of the business. Now, if you are looking to break even, don’t expect high offers. This also means not expecting too much value of out of your sales. Good retained earnings on your balance sheet, which means the portion of the net income that has not been distributed to the shareholders, indicates the buyers that the financial health of the business has been quite healthy and profitable.
A good way to start can also be to analyse your existing process, invent ways to increase operational efficiency, identify eliminate business process gaps, and connect the different dots leading towards process efficiency. Again, this requires professional expertise with industry experience that can set process goals and measure outcomes and results periodically. Business owners here may need to cut costs, control inventory, revisit their marketing plan, boosts sales including entering new markets or geographies or offering disruptive products or solutions—all these and more without affecting business operation.
Failure to increase investment—especially in the area of operation, maintenance, sales & marketing, purchasing new equipment, tools & software and finding the right resources—in the long run can affect the brand value of a business. Investment is a means of accelerating your business operation and ideally it is a situation of “no pain, no gain!”
Identifying and developing new business revenue areas to maximise value will help attract better sales opportunities and the right candidates too. It is also important that any business has a well- charted out plan for the future for generating sales prospects. A business that has a sound vision and clarity or belief system can attract more potential buyers. Finally, any business owner has to create a self-sustaining business process which is iterative and works on the principle of “faceless leader”. Regardless of whether you are actually into the selling process, or just looking to maximize your business value, the aforementioned steps can steer you towards the right direction.
