
Some of the specific things that will tend to make a business attractive to buyers include:
- Recurring, repeat, or strong referral business from stable, diverse clients, with no single client representing more than a small percentage of overall revenue.
- A growing or mature potential customer base.
- Stable and redundant suppliers and vendors.
- A strong, defensible differentiator for the products or services being offered.
- A durable competitive advantage, or barrier to entry that will make it difficult for new market entrants to successfully compete.
- Strong systems, policies, and procedures.
- Stable, quality, well-trained, long-term staff with redundancy of skills and knowledge.
- Accurate and complete financial and business records that unambiguously verify financial performance of the business. Ideally these will be prepared in accordance with G.A.A.P. and will be audited, reviewed or compiled by a CPA (with audited strongly preferred, followed by reviewed, then compiled).
- Above-average financial performance, and trends that show a history of improvements in that financial performance.
- A lack of significant legal issues, claims, or unresolved regulatory compliance issues.
- Unexploited opportunities for growth, or to improve operations.
- Quality equipment and facilities that are in good repair.
If you would like to better understand what issues may be impacting marketability and value of your business, Codiligent business brokers invites you to schedule a Marketability Assessment appointment. This is provided as a free service to businesses that have been in operation for at least three full years and that have a minimum of $2 million in annual revenue.