transcript from Brad’s business advice

One of the things we talk about internally in terms of business styles, is this idea of having a business ‘sale ready’ at all times. But people often ask me, “well Brad, I’m not thinking of selling any time soon, why would I want to have a sale ready business?”

And the context that I try and put this into with them, and as early as I can when I meet a business owner, is this idea of value protection over time. Or to ask a pretty blunt question is, what would happen if you had to sell your business tomorrow?

I mean, what would that really look like? Could you sell it? What price would you get? What price do you really need? So it’s about thinking about what’s some of the actions we can take to protect the value of your hard work, because you never know what might occur.

unexpected scenarios are the norm

We only need to look over the last COVID period. What we knew as normal got tipped on its head overnight. And if we think about that in a broader business environment, think about things that happen to businesses all the time.

The owner might have a health trigger event. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a death, it might be that something happens and you need an extended period away from the business to get yourself right. It could be a partnership dispute. It might be a divorce. Perhaps there is a structural change in the industry. Or it could be something really positive where you get an unsolicited offer to buy your business.

taking a buyer’s perspective

But in all these cases, if we haven’t taken a buyer’s view of the business to understand the risks and the key value drivers, then we haven’t done any work to mitigate those risks and to strengthen those value drivers. So we aren’t doing what we can to maximise the value of the business and protect it from unexpected events.

I’d urge you to take a buyer’s view of your business, understand those risks, understand where your value comes from. It doesn’t matter whether you want to sell tomorrow or you want to build a valuable asset for the future. Take some time to understand those elements of your business.

want our help?

We talk here at businessDEPOT about getting your ducks in a row and that’s what this is really all about. It’s about doing some planning for the future to protect the value of your hard work. So if you’re thinking about selling or you’d just like to have a chat about your future business plans, I’d encourage you to reach out.