Our good friend and colleague, Josh Patrick, penned a three-part series for the New York Times about the sale of a business that ended in disaster. Despite all of the details provided, it can still be hard to know exactly what went wrong and why for Ms. Hunter and the sale of her financial services firm.
Having written similar blog posts, I’m sure there are many nuances that readers aren’t aware of given the personalities and circumstances involved. Regardless, it’s a great opportunity to learn from someone else’s experience and avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Following are three critical things required in order to successfully sell your business.
Hire the right advisors
One thing seems clear from the series: Ms. Hunter did not hire competent professionals to help her with the process of selling. Between a friend turned coach, a business broker playing dual agent and a lawyer with no transaction expertise, her record was 0 for 3 in the advisor department. As I read the story, I couldn’t help wondering if Ms. Hunter is the type of business owner who surrounds herself with advisors who tell her what she wants to hear. Many business owners are afflicted with this condition, and it’s easy to find advisors who enable it.
Alternatively, it could be that she didn’t spend enough time researching who she would need on her deal team. As the article points out, you spend years building your business but usually get one shot at selling it. With that in mind, put together a list of multiple professionals (transaction attorney, CPA, business broker) and vet them out carefully. Ms. Hunter’s story illustrates one of the golden rules of selling a business: Good advisors pay for themselves by helping you avoid costly mistakes.
Know the value of your business
We have scant financial details about the sale, but I found myself questioning the value of the business. $1.4 million seems high for a business grossing $700,000 a year – and that was before the coach’s indiscretion caused several clients to jump ship.
A quick rule of thumb from the Business Reference Guide for firms offering investment advice is 1 times annual gross or 1.5 times Seller’s Discretionary Earnings. Regardless of what the value of the business could or should have been, Ms. Hunter may have actually ended up with a reasonable amount from the proceeds of the sale. Doing some quick calculations, she might have received around $682,000 between cash at closing and 12 months of payments she received on her note before the buyer defaulted.
If, for the sake of argument, her business was worth closer to $700K, she didn’t do too badly. The point is that business owners frequently have an inflated sense of the value of their business. It can be hard to hear the truth about what your business is worth, but starting with an accurate business valuation can go a long way towards setting realistic expectations for the sale of your business.
Make a clean hand-off
The article doesn’t say how long Ms. Hunter stayed on to transition the business to the buyer, but it sounded like she hit the eject button as soon as possible. To use Mr. Patrick’s words, “financial services practices can be the perfect microbusinesses to own — but they are not easy to sell.”
The reason, of course, has to do with client attrition. The more dependent the business is on the owner, the longer it will take to transition the business — and all its clients — to the new owner. We worked with an attorney who was planning to sell and retire. He was prepared to stay on for three to five years if that’s what it took to transition his firm to a new owner. Likewise, I wrote a post about the owner of a consulting firm who accepted a 100% earnout when she sold. She got paid in full, but was also willing to stay on with the new owners for a transition period that lasted several years.
Most deals are structured so that both the buyer and seller have a vested interest in the success of the business post-sale. Understand the nature of your business – your role in the business and the capabilities of the buyer – and stick around for an appropriate transition period. There’s always a tradeoff between money and freedom when selling your business. If you want your money, then freedom may have to wait just a little bit longer.
One more thing…
My final question on the series was how much time Ms. Hunter devoted to planning for the sale of her business. If the goal is to get “top dollar” for the sale of your business, it will most likely require some amount of time and preparation. We don’t know if Ms. Hunter’s primary goal was to build a sellable business with maximum transferrable value, but I’m assuming that wasn’t the case. If her goal was to enjoy running a successful business then put ownership behind her and start a new chapter in life, perhaps her experience wasn’t so disappointing after all.
At Allan Taylor & Co. we love working with business owners on planning for a future sale. Are you ready to start planning today? Let’s talk.
You can read Mr. Patrick’s 3-part series here:
- How the Sale of a Business Can Go Terribly Wrong
- When Your Broker Doesn’t Really Represent Your Interests
- Selling a Business? It’s the Details That Count.
Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash
