When a potential buyer of a business first looks at his intended target, he fits somewhere in the spectrum ranging from deep distrust of everything which will be presented – even before it is shown, to wilfull acceptance of anything presented.
- The former because the buyer is either very conservative or very experienced;
- The latter because the purchaser is intent on acquiring that business, come what may, and perceives himself to have very few alternatives.
As a potential seller of a business, it is in the seller’s ambit of control to be able to still the fears and mistrust of the former by having all the facts at hand in an accessible and accurate format.
It is helpful to be able to deal with the latter by impressing him even further (and dissuade him from looking for alternatives) with the good records you have. This is in the realms of PrepareYourBusinessForSale™.
How’s about we indulge in a little bit of prepare your mind for sale.
Selling a business can be very quick, which yields poor results; or it can be slow and mellow, to yield far greater satisfaction. As an outsider to the emotion which fills the minds of business owners, who invariably become business sellers, I have the luxury of being able to stare them in the eye, knowingly, at times. With a knowing smile, sometimes.
“I don’t ever want to have partners EVER again”, says the scared and previously bitten engineering shop owner. He went into business many years back with his brother in law. Now there is a split in the family, and a missing million Rands. They could never agree on the marketing budget, nor on the terms of tying down that large order from Malawi.
“Sure I can sell some equity now, and the rest in a few years. How else will we hand over this lot?”
- The mind of a man who understands that having a bus number of 1 has always been a problem for the business, his wife, and himself.
- The mind of the child who never go to grow up, and who is having too much time to see her happiness destroyed by the search for cash flow from the 20th of the month to the 15th of the following month because her passion is causing the business to grow and grow and grow.
- The mind of the a woman who has run out of talent in the workshop, and know she will burn out without better machinery; expensive machinery.
- The mind of the guy who is running out of BEE points. And cash. And time. And who just has no more figs to give!
Pre planning, beating a drum to slightly different rhythm, and getting one’s A into G, will set you up to
- trust a new shareholder, and
- be trusted as a fellow shareholder
The paradigm of trust. Good feelings.