Is Your Company Built to Sell?

John Warrillow wrote a book titled Built to Sell that is designed to help you see how to add true value to your company. I gave this book to our CEO Peer Advisory Group members here in DFW and they have taken the Value Builder Assessment to help them see areas to focus their resources and add the most value to their business. This is a book all business owners and CEO’s would enjoy and find tremendous value in.

Built to Sell presents a fictional story to illustrate the principles John learned from his research of over 7,000 small business owners who received an offer to buy their business. He found that companies who focused on eight key areas received an offer that was almost three times higher than most offers. He used this data to create the “Value Builder System” and the online assessment tool. If you have built a successful business with over $5 million in annual sales, click this photo to take this assessment and I’ll meet with you to explain the results.

“Create a business that can THRIVE without you.”

Here are a few key points the book makes that I think will be of most value to you as you read Built to Sell:

1. Focus on one thing you can do really well and build your business around that. This will build loyal customers, improve margins, and allow you to scale your business.
2. Do not allow one key customer, business partner, or employee to be the key to your success. This reduces risk and increases the value of your company to a future buyer.
3. Build written systems and procedures that increase consistency and profit.
4. Let your team run the business while you lead it. This makes it easier for a future buyer to take over after you leave.
5. Offer products and services that reduce the number of days you wait to get paid.
6. Choose your customers and projects wisely and say NO to things that are not your core business.
7. As you grow, build a management team that can work WITHOUT you. Again this makes your company more valuable to the future buyer.
8. When you do get ready to sell, find a strategic buyer who will see the potential growth opportunities after the purchase.
9. Start now. It takes years to get the business to have the value that others will pay for. Even if you don’t plan to sell your business, or not any time soon, now is the time to build value into your company. This will increase profits and free you up to enjoy your life more while you still own the company.

I hope you will read this book and see how these principles can help you build true value into your business. If you own a business with over $5 million in annual sales, take the Value Builder Assessment and see areas you can work on now to get the value you want into your company. If you want to talk about this further fill out this form and I’ll contact you in the next few days.

Robert Hunt