Selling Your Business

Freedom. It's the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want. It's the ultimate reward of selling your business. But selling a company can be confusing, and one wrong step can easily cost you dearly. The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top is the last in a trilogy of books by author John Warrillow on building value. The first, Built to Sell, encouraged small business owners to begin thinking about their business as more than just a job. The Automatic Customer tagged recurring revenue as the core element in a valuable company and provided a blueprint for transforming almost any business into one with an ongoing annuity stream. Warrillow completes the set with The Art of Selling Your Business. This essential guide to monetizing a business is based on interviews the author conducted on his podcast, Built to Sell Radio, with hundreds of successfully cashed-out founders. What's the secret for harvesting the value you've created when it's time to sell? The Art of Selling Your Business answers important questions facing any founder, including— • What's your business worth? • When's the best time to sell? • How do you create a bidding war? • How can you position your company to maximize its attractiveness? • Who will pay the most for your business? • What’s the secret for punching above your weight in a negotiation to sell your company? The Art of Selling Your Business provides a sleeves-rolled-up action plan for selling your business at a premium by an author with consummate credibility.

In this comprehensive guide, two specialists take the reader step-by-step through the entire process, from how to determine when the time is right to sell to negotiating the final terms.

A hands-on tool for conducting the successful, profitable sale of a business As business owners gray, trends have shown that they start thinking of cashing out. Selling Your Business For Dummies gives readers expert tips on every aspect of selling a business, from establishing a realistic value to putting their business on the market to closing the deal. It helps them create sound exit plans, find and qualify, find and qualify a buyer, conduct a sale negotiation, and successfully transition the business to a new owner. The accompanying CD is packed with useful questionnaires, worksheets, and forms for prospective sellers, as well as a blueprint for customizing and assembling information into business sale presentation materials sale presentation materials --including snapshots of revenue and profit history, financial condition, market conditions, brand value, competitive arena, growth potential, confidentiality agreements, and other information that supports the sale price. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file. Please refer to the book's Introduction section for instructions on how to download the companion files from the publisher's website.

"For close to twenty years I have observed Mr. Chalfin helping owners, business advisors, and students get a grip on the slippery issues of selling a business. This book is a valuable distillation of his expertise. " --Ian MacMillan, Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "Bob provided us with valuable outside perspective while we prepared our business for sale and during the sale process. His book is an excellent guideline for business owners thinking about selling their company." --Steve Gerlicher, Entrepreneur "Bob Chalfin's experience and intellect make this book essential reading for IT business owners. Provides thoughtful analysis and practical advice invaluable to anybody who is even considering selling their business." --Louis W. Fryman, Esq. Chairman Emeritus Fox Rothschild LLP "Bob Chalfin brings unparalleled experience to developing and executing these transactions. His insights are tempered by years of formulating these deals and then describing the methods to hundreds of students at The Wharton School." --Stephen M. Sammut Senior Fellow, Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs Managing Director, Burrill International "This book covers all the bases for someone selling an IT (or really any) business. The observations on buyer motivations are particularly insightful." --Mark Goodwin Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Pioneer Investments

Sell your business for more than its worth addresses the vital issues that add value to your business as well as increase the sales price potential of your business. This book will define industries that are desirable to buyers and it will open your eyes to discover if your industry is thriving or dying and what you can do about it. This must-read will provide valuable tips on creating congruent profit centers and diversifying your product/client mix. Most important this book is a blueprint for anyone that wants to increase market share, become more profitable and for those that want to, sell their business for top dollar! This extraordinary book will demonstrate how to increase profits, plan your exit strategy and sell your business for maximum value in the quickest time possible in an easy to understand step-by-step approach.

According to John Warrillow, the number one mistake entrepreneurs make is to build a business that relies too heavily on them. Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency. Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable: * Teachable: focus on products and services that you can teach employees to deliver. * Valuable: avoid price wars by specialising in doing one thing better than anyone else. * Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers have to repurchase often.

Joe Girard was an example of a young man with perseverance and determination. Joe began his working career as a shoeshine boy. He moved on to be a newsboy for the Detroit Free Press at nine years old, then a dishwasher, a delivery boy, stove assembler, and home building contractor. He was thrown out of high school, fired from more than forty jobs, and lasted only ninety-seven days in the U.S. Army. Some said that Joe was doomed for failure. He proved them wrong. When Joe started his job as a salesman with a Chevrolet agency in Eastpointe, Michigan, he finally found his niche. Before leaving Chevrolet, Joe sold enough cars to put him in the Guinness Book of World Records as 'the world's greatest salesman' for twelve consecutive years. Here, he shares his winning techniques in this step-by-step book, including how to: o Read a customer like a book and keep that customer for life o Convince people reluctant to buy by selling them the right way o Develop priceless information from a two-minute phone call o Make word-of-mouth your most successful tool Informative, entertaining, and inspiring, HOW TO SELL ANYTHING TO ANYBODY is a timeless classic and an indispensable tool for anyone new to the sales market.

Learn how to sell your startup from an acquisition expert Many entrepreneurs dream of the day their company is acquired and they secure a perfect exit. But information about the process of getting your business acquired usually comes from expensive investment bankers who typically advise late-stage startups. In Selling Your Startup, serial entrepreneur Alejandro Cremades delivers an accessible guide on how to sell your startup. With first-hand experience as a fully exited entrepreneur, investment banker, and lawyer, Cremades describes the tips and tricks startup founders need to sell their early-stage to growth-stage business. In this book, you’ll discover: The role that investment bankers play in the acquisition process, how they add value, and how to break down their fees Preparing your company for sale, including compiling a pitch book, putting its finances in order, and building a target list of potential acquirers How to get to a Letter of Intent, perform due diligence, and reach a purchase agreement Perfect for entrepreneurs of all kinds, Selling Your Startup is a must-have roadmap to the practical realities of company acquisition and contains proven guidance on crafting your perfect exit.