How to sell anything
Forget selling ice to eskimos, in a feature that first appeared in Encore, the best in the business tell you how to sell things that really matter like your business, yourself, TV formats and ad space.
Part1. HOW TO SELL… YOUR BUSINESS
Thinking of offloading your business? Venture Consulting’s Sue Klose tells you what you need to know to make the sale.
When it comes to selling businesses, the highest prices are often attached to entire businesses and so it can be tempting to consider the path of building up your business as big as you can with the goal of finding the right buyer. But not all businesses are candidates for acquisition. How can you make yours one of the few that is too good to pass up?
About Sue’s piece on selling your company. Studies indicate that between 83% and 97% of acquisitions do not end up generating any value for shareholders. One of the reasons is that synergies get over-estimated and are in fact smaller and much harder to achieve than in the original acquisition strategy. There are scores of examples of supposed synergies that didn’t eventuate at all, for example the famed AOL Time Warner AOL acquisition. So buyers should throw a healthy dose of cynicism on any synergy estimates. More generally, the buyer is often desperate to buy something to offset problems in their core business, so looks at the acquisition through rose tinted glasses. Beware overconfidence and untested assumptions in acquisition.
very true
business are sold to offset declining sales; impact of technology; changing market conditions; returns not living up to investor expectations for all that effort expended ;incompetent business management — going in into deep and not understanding the business in the first place.
I think the valuable ones ( but rare) to buy are the: “going concerns” – due to heath issues of business owners — or simply owners wish to retire — but that presupposes skill in taking it over and running soundly again.
There are many business for sales and equally many eager to buy who think that they can do better than previous owners. Just a business for sale, doe snot guarantee above avergae returns — why would do that if it is not better than being a wage slave ?