Why should someone acquire your company rather than one of the thousands of other available businesses for sale, or rather than organically start a new venture? If you want to sell your business, it will be important to be clear about its features and benefits as they pertain to an owner, which may be quite different from the features and benefits to the business’ customers.
The following questions may trigger thoughts about what features of your business may be important to buyers:
What features make your business preferable to own rather than a business in another industry?
What features of your company are differentiated from your competitors?
What have you liked the most about owning your business?
What are the reasons you chose to start or buy your business rather than another business whether in the same industry or another?
Examples of features that may be appealing to buyers include: stable, long-term staff; greater demand than the business has been able to meet; the business is virtual, enabling the owner to live and travel anywhere; flexible work schedule; high systematization that makes it easier to manage; no receivables to be collected; proprietary patent-protected products; recurring revenue; a high growth rate; etc.
After you understand the features of the business that may be appealing to a buyer, turn them into benefits by asking, “why is the feature important to the business buyer? What’s in it for them?”
When Codiligent represents business sellers, part of its role in packaging the business is to help identify and communicate the buyer benefits to position the company in the best possible light, but this is much easier if there is already clarity on this from the person who understands the business most intimately: the business owner.