In the work we do, we are agnostic as to how an owner exits. We want to help the owner, or owners, first clarify and establish their financial and values-based goals for exit and then identify and plan for the exit route that will best attain their goals.

It’s not unusual for us to hear from clients or prospective clients that they want to “test the waters” in selling their business. In other words, take it to market “as is” and see what happens. This is one of the areas, where the phrase “I don’t know what I don’t know” can result in a bad idea…

The problem that we're going to be discussing today is your business continuing if you are no longer available to run it…

If you’ve been a regular listener, you’ve heard our consistent exhortation to “start planning now! Because it takes longer than you think to get ready for a successful exit -- if you wait to begin planning until you’re quote ‘ready to exit’ then you and your business won’t be ready!”

An issue that is important but often overlooked by business owners when preparing their business for a sale is working capital with owners we’ve worked with there has been at least confusion as to how working capital should be considered or treated if not total neglect due to ignorance until the sale is being negotiated.

Today we want to talk about how accelerating business value and creating streams of revenue with your intellectual property or IP – this can easily be overlooked by small business owners…or if not overlooked completely, perhaps not prioritized as it should be.

In building value, of course a steady increase in revenues is a key driver of value, and increasing revenues always involves some level of marketing strategy. Perhaps your strategy has been word-of-mouth and referrals, or mailers, or email campaigns and you have a website that you also consider to be instrumental in marketing your business

In his book The Boutique, author Greg Alexander describes a Boutique professional services firm as being past the start-up stage but pre-scale. Examples being found in consulting, marketing, advertising, IT, etc. Basically, anyone that sells their expertise, maybe even an accounting or exit planning firm.