3 Keys to Expanding Your Company Vision

Working with successful entrepreneurs is a blast.  Yet if I step back a moment and reflect on the #1 thing that most entrepreneurs fall short – it is vision.  Entrepreneurs often need to expand their company vision. Let me explain.  When running a business, what is the focus of the CEO when he/she wakes up?  We think about what needs to be done today.  We prioritize in our mind, or on paper … these are the 5 or 10 things that we need to accomplish today. Is there any vision for the future on that list? No.  The vision for the business is typically something focused on at the early stages, and from time to time over a glass of wine.  It’s more dreaming than vision.  It’s a little like, “what do you want to be when you grow up” vision. Entrepreneurs rarely set aside serious time to think … strategize … or consider a vision for the future that hasn’t been pre-determined in the past. Example: I talked recently with a CEO who has built a nice company with a couple of retail locations.  His desire is to add a couple more offices – maybe double the business.  As …

Is a 9 to 1 Increase in Company Valuation Acceptable?

If we could work with you to increase the value of your company by $1,000,000, would it bother you if we were paid $100,000? And we don’t want to get paid until you get paid, so we’re not asking to get paid on some theoretical increase in value, but an increase that comes from a recapitalization or sale transaction. In fact, if we increased your value by $10,000,000 – would you really care about the $1,000,000 we would be paid. If you’re smart, wouldn’t you want us to get paid $5,000,000? The way we look at this is that you get 9x what we get, yet we are in a joint venture / partnership where we assist your company. If we yield zero value, we get zero. If we help you create value, we get 10% of the increase – not 10% of what your company is already worth – that’s all yours – but 10% of the increase in value. Can we do this for anyone? No. We need to be highly selective about the companies we work with for the simple reason that we still only have 24 hours in a day, so we can only take on …

#1 Mistake Business Owners Make When Ready to Sell

You’ve built a nice business, congratulations. Now you’re ready to sell.  Would you like to receive the full value for your business, or would you rather just get 60-80% of the value? Stupid question, right?  Not really. Please allow me to let you in on a secret … entrepreneurs are typically horrible at getting their business ready for sale!! Don’t believe me?  Ask M&A attorneys who get the call from their client that they want to sell, and would like the process completed in 4 months and want to maximize value in an all cash sale. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked with a CEO/Owner and they want to start the process today.  Sometimes they tell their lawyers.  Sometimes their accountants.  But more times than not, owners who want to sell start with the assumption that the business is ready for sale … and even worse, that the CEO is really ready to sell the business. Let’s ask a few very basic questions: Is the corporate structure ready for a transaction?  We worked with one client for over a year, just to get the corporate structure in such a form that a transaction was possible.  We obtained …