Business Transition

Step One: Building the Transition Plan

Many business owners either haven’t taken the time — or don’t know how — to define what they’d like to do after selling their business, and that stops them from moving forward. Confusion and uncertainty about your post-sale life and the post-sale future of your business can produce paralyzing anxiety that delays important exit planning.

For many owners like you, this is a once-in-a-lifetime financial and emotional deal — one you may have little or no experience with and one with considerable long-term consequences. In our experience, having a structured, 360 degree process is key to preparing for this momentous change.

It is important to consider not just the transaction, but also the holistic process, the person behind the sale, or what is important in the deal. Questions can be overwhelming.

• What do I want for myself and my family?
• What are my values, and how do I build them into the sales process?
• Can I sell?
• Why should I sell?
• What are my goals for the business for the sale?
• What will I do after the sale?
• How does the market value my business compared to what I believe it’s worth? Am I being realistic?
• Is the timing right? If I wait or make changes, will I get more?
• Do I want to invest the time and resources to get a higher price?
• Where will I find buyers who share my vision for the business?
• What can I do to assure a smooth transition and my business’s long-term success after I’ve left?
• What about my employees? When and how do I tell them of the sale? How do I involve them in the process?
• How can I reward those people that have helped make this business a success?
• How will my clients and suppliers react to the news?

These are only a few of many questions that will surface during the selling process.

How we can help

We partner with business owners using a structured yet flexible approach designed to capture the nuances of each business and person. Key elements of defining success and the roadmap to it include determining:

• Your business, personal and financial goals for the exit
• Potential bottlenecks and barriers to the transition
• Key elements such as:
  • Business dependence – how dependent is the business on you and you on the business? What needs to be done to create independence?
  • Business attractiveness – what are the value drivers of the business that the market will reward? What can you do short and long term to enhance the value of the business? What kind of buyer do you want for your business? What kind of buyer would find it attractive?

The transition roadmap that results is a customized and realistic action plan that maximizes your success and minimizes business disruption. This transition plan is the first step in preparing your business for sale, and preparing you for moving into a new phase of your life.

Step Two: Preparing your business for sale

Selling your business can be a sprint or a marathon, depending on your motivations and time frames for selling and the receptivity of the marketplace. Owners sprinting for the exit can still benefit from quick adjustments and improvements to their businesses that may increase their selling price. Those with a marathon journey — looking to sell in two to three years — can invest more time and reap greater rewards.

It’s a matter of weighing benefits, time, resources, and, perhaps most important, will. There are actions you can take now to increase the value of your business when you offer it for sale no matter what your timeline.

We work with you to evaluate your business as a buyer would, and improve business profitability and transferability of ownership based on your top priority for increasing the price quickly.

Steps include strengthening your bottom-line performance, getting finances in order, addressing known problems, emphasizing strategies and business lines attractive to the buyer market, and ensuring a strong management team is in place.

How we can help

Bringing experienced advisors on board at any point in the process will pay dividends. We have been brought in as early as three years before a sale to uncover the values and goals of the owner and to develop, manage and execute on positive, value-enhancing opportunities that strengthen the business and correct negative issues.

This proactive planning and prioritized execution of changes give the business owner a tremendous boost in achieving the sale on his or her terms. Diversifying a customer base, cleaning up pending litigation, and rectifying known issues as well as dozens of other ways to improve the business can take time.

And since you still have a business to run, having an exemplary and dependable team on board will help drive progress towards your goals. All investments of money, energy, and time are weighed for their ability to provide a high and fast return and positioning you to act quickly if a buyer appears sooner than anticipated.

Once you’ve decided to sell, we work together to create a plan for making your business more valuable, less risky, and more attractive as the buyer would see it.

Initiatives could involve one or two large projects, but they most likely will be a group or portfolio of smaller, prioritized ones — a series of sprints we can execute as the sale’s time horizon permits. The goal is to situate your business to attract the largest group of desired buyers in the shortest amount of time. Elements of the plan could include:

• Preparing a preliminary business valuation benchmark
• Creating a formal business plan
• Strengthening the talent on your board of directors and your management team
• Improving financial performance
• Improving and documenting your business strategy, processes, policies, structures, intellectual property and assets
• Improving physical assets such as facilities and technology, and virtual assets such as your business’s online presence and capabilities

Energy and resources you expend in preparing your business for sale has many payoffs. They will, of course, boost the price you receive and help you protect those employees that made your business valuable, but your early efforts also may reduce time to complete the sale and transfer ownership.

Business Improvement

Most simply put, Business Transition Experts can help prepare your company for sale if you need:

• Business Transformation
• Merger Integration
• Business Process Design and Outsourcing
• Business Expansion and Innovation Research,
• Reports and Analysis
• System Selection and Implementation
• Human Network Innovation
• Strategic Initiative Leadership

Business Transition Experts will help you…

Business Transformation

…manage change on an enterprise level. Maybe you see an opportunity to steer your company down a new and potentially profitable road, and you’d like someone to help you smooth the ride. Perhaps you are undertaking multiple projects to prepare your business for sale and need strategic expertise and manpower.

Merger Integration

…join two or more companies into one bigger, more streamlined machine. You’re trying to bring together new (and different) teams, new (and different) products, and new (and different) systems under one roof. When you merge, the point is to multiply your muscle – not your headaches. Just as critical: making it look to the outside world that the merged companies are meant to be together.

Business Process Design and Outsourcing

…run a leaner, meaner outfit. How can you do more with what you have? You need to establish better links between business units, and find synergies and efficiencies. Or you may want to consider outsourcing and make it single line item on your books. Business Transition Experts helps reduce waste and overhead, increase focus on the core business, and improve the bottom line.

Business Expansion and Innovation

…grow in to a new geography, new products or services, or new partnerships. You are looking for new markets to enter and develop in a profitable manner. We provide practical assistance to expand your business, particularly the steps involved in developing a proactive international expansion, new product or partnership development strategy, and implementing it.

Research, Reports and Analysis

…empower executive decision-making with customized research and analysis. As the pace of business quickens, you are being asked to make critical decisions under pressure and frequently without the right information. As a business owner looking to sell, Business Transition Experts can put the right, succinct and high-quality information on markets, competitors, customers or potential buyers in your hands when it is needed.

System Selection and Implementation

…get a new enterprise-level system selected, up and running. You’re considering investing in new enterprise-level applications, and you want to ensure a significant return. You must efficiently determine requirements, develop the case for change, select the right applications, and implement them in a way that achieves the targeted ROI. Threading these elements together warrants experienced project management, from concept to reality.

Human Network Innovation

…focus premier thinkers on your business opportunities and issues. Business Transition Experts designs, builds and manages human networks to solve complex business problems and stimulate innovation. Some examples include Advisory Boards, Peer Executive Forums, Alliance Networks, Mentoring Circles, Leadership Development Forums and Corporate / Non-Profit Councils.

Strategic Initiative Leadership

…getting the right things done means understanding the business needs, prioritizing them to get the required results, and providing the leadership to lead the team successfully across the finish line. Business Transition Experts’ experienced team can take a strategic initiative from start to finish, turn a troubled effort in to a success story, or create the Program Management Office to provide insight, discipline and results for all initiatives. It is diligent project management combined with senior leadership presence and influence.

Business Owner Coaching

An integrated and personalized program that combines our experienced consultants with the proprietary systems and tools needed to work with you to design your exit strategy and your business to support it.

Three Approaches to Transition Coaching:

• One on One – Individual Business Owner Transition Coaching
• Business Owner Peer Group – Group Business Owner Transition Coaching
• Single Business Management Team – Transition Leadership Team Coaching

Our Transition Coaching is built with the business owner’s end goals in mind. Many business owners either haven’t taken the time — or don’t know how — to define what they’d like to do after selling their business, and that stops them from moving forward. Our structured, 360 degree process is key to preparing for this momentous change.

We partner with business owners using a structured yet flexible approach designed to capture the nuances of each business and person. Key elements of defining success and the roadmap to it include determining:

• Your business, personal and financial goals for the exit
• Potential bottlenecks and barriers to the transition
• Key elements such as:
  • Business dependence – how dependent is the business on you and you on the business? What needs to be done to create independence?
  • Business attractiveness – what are the value drivers of the business that the market will reward? What can you do short and long term to enhance the value of the business? What kind of buyer do you want for your business? What kind of buyer would find it attractive?

The transition roadmap that results is a customized and realistic action plan that maximizes your success and minimizes business disruption. This transition plan is the first step in preparing your business for sale, and preparing you for moving into a new phase of your life.

Our Transition Coaches will be there with you, customizing our tools and methodologies to your goals and your business. We can engage with you in several ways. Our coaches and methodology is flexible and can adapt to your needs. We can meet with you– and can include your leadership team, if that is appropriate - at your location, or regularly via the telephone and internet technologies.

Approach 1: Individual Business Owner Transition Coaching

This one on one program is customized to your transition needs.

• Working with your coach, you will build a strategic exit plan. This will identify the areas where improvement will have the highest impact to your business valuation and exit plan.
• After this initial strategic planning and assessment meeting, you will meet weekly with your coach for mentoring, accountability and implementation of action plans, tools and templates through our transition curriculum.

Approach 2: Peer Power - Business Owner Transition Group Coaching Program

No one knows the triumph and hardships of business ownership – and the challenges of leaving a life’s work for something new - better than other business owners. Peer Power is a 12 month structured and facilitated coaching program for select busines owners that includes a transition curriculum and an additional element of peer mentorship and support.

Group members provide one another objective, high quality, relevant professional counsel and direct insights. They hold each other accountable to their stated goals, are committed to supporting each other's unique visions and cheering their achievements.

• The program begins with individual assessments and building a customized strategic exit plan for each business owner.
• The group then meets every week or month, depending on the curriculum desired, with a Transition Coach for mentoring, accountability and implementation of action plans, tools and templates.

Approach 3: Transition Leadership Team Coaching

This program takes your senior executives through a planning and implementation process that focuses on key opportunities, barriers and frustrations to successful business management, performance and transition. It includes:

• Optimizing business strategy, performance and valuation
• Creating a business that is ready for sale and can run without you
• Developing your leadership team

A strong management team is one of the top criteria for potential buyers. This program combines leadership development and optimizing the performance of your business for you prepare it for sale.

• For four to six members of your executive leadership team, the program begins with individual assessments and building a customized business optimization and transferability plan.
• The group then meets every week or month, depending on the curriculum desired, with a Transition Coach for mentoring, accountability and implementation of action plans, tools and templates.

Seminars, Events and Education

To celebrate the February 2010 publication of our founder’s book, Selling Your Business For More: Maximizing Returns For You, Your Family and Your Business (Macmillan), all of our seminars, events and education are being updated with new versions available in February. These include:

Seminars:

• Business Owner Readiness Seminar
• Business Readiness Seminar
• Building Your Exit Plan
• Building Your Management Team

On-line Classes:

• Exit Planning
• Estate Planning
• Designing Your Post Sale Life

Custom Workshops:

• Building Your Management Team

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites