Value Enhancement: Qualitative Factors in Selling a Business

If you’re not planning to sell your business right away, you have the opportunity to build its value. Bear in mind though, that the landscape for selling businesses has changed significantly. A majority of business owners are nearing retirement and the upcoming 5-10 years or longer will likely be a buyer’s market. This is a factor you should take into consideration when deciding when to sell. Although there’s always a market for a great business, will your value enhancement efforts pay off if businesses on the whole are devalued because of the impending buyer’s market? That’s a decision only you can make.

If you decide to wait and build more value in your business, the most effective thing you can do is hire new management.

Hire “Next-Level” Managers

If you want to take your business to the next level, the most important and efficient thing you can do is hire a manager or managers who have experience in larger companies and know what it takes to reach and operate at that level.

These managers will save you from re-inventing the wheel because they already know how to execute a number of value enhancement strategies that you and your current management team may not be able to do on your own. Your current management team doesn’t necessarily need to be replaced; they can still be valuable to the business, but in different roles.

Another extremely important advantage of hiring next-level management is that they will enable you to remove yourself from day-to-day operations. From a buyer’s perspective, a business that depends on the owner’s involvement presents a very high level of risk.

Business Consultants

If you’re not quite ready to hire next-level management, consider employing management consultants to improve your business both financially and operationally. There is no shortage of consultants who can assist you in a number of different areas.

Do It yourself

A final option is to begin implementing some value enhancement strategies on your own. All you need to do is look at the key value drivers and qualitative factors and work on the areas you feel are weaknesses.