When is the right time to sell your business?

As an accredited adviser of Succession Plus, I find it so rewarding to help business owners improve their business and its value, by getting clarity around their vision, improving employee engagement and productivity, introducing systems, processes and a performance dashboard, and then ensuring they achieve their goals and objectives, both business and personal – effectively get their business ready for sale, whenever that may be.

I have been working with a client where we started a journey towards exit, by undertaking the Business Insights Report, where gaps were identified in addition to providing him with a valuation.

Shortly thereafter, he got approached to sell his business and as a result of understanding the value of the business, he was able to negotiate from a position of strength. He has now deferred a sale for at least 12 months to build the value, in fact, he now feels less pressure to sell and is more motivated to keep operating the business – he has more choices.

We also challenged their financial reporting, which has led to more accurate and timely reporting with a focus on targets for the key drivers of the business. His profit target for FY20 is 3 times the FY19 profit, and very achievable!

Michael Denehey

Succession & Strategic Business Advisor | Collins SBA

Michael is an owner of Collins SBA based in Hobart, where he specialises in providing proactive, focused and strategic advice for business owners in Australia, using unique Intellectual property and processes to manage Strategic Business Succession and Exit Planning for business owners. He has assisted many business owners over the last ten years to identify, protect, and maximise the value contained within their business and achieve their goals and objectives.