You already know that your company’s turnover and profits play a big role in how much your business is worth. Are you also aware of the role cash flow plays in your valuation? Cash vs. Profits Cash flow is different from profits in that it measures the cash coming in and out of your business rather than an accounting interpretation of your profit and loss. For example, if you charge £10,000 upfront for a service that takes you three months to deliver, you recognize £3,333 of turnover per month on your profit and loss statement for each of the three months it takes you to deliver the work. But since you charged upfront, you get all £10,000 of cash on the day your customer decides to buy. This positive cash flow cycle improves your company’s valuation because when it comes time to sell your business, the buyer will have to write two cheques: one to you, the owner, and a second to your company to fund its working capital – the cash your company needs to fund its immediate obligations … [Read more...]

The value of your company is partly determined by your industry. For example, cloud-based software companies are generally worth a lot more than printing companies these days. However, when we analyse businesses in the same industry, we still see major variations in valuation. So we dug through the data available to us and we found 10 things that will make your company more valuable than its industry peer group. 1. Recurring Turnover The more turnover you have from automatically recurring contracts or subscriptions, the more valuable your business will be to a buyer. Even if subscriptions are not the norm in your industry, if you can find some form of recurring turnover it will make your company much more valuable than those of your competitors. 2. Something Different Buyers buy what they cannot easily replicate on their own, which means companies with a unique product or service that is difficult for a competitor to copy are more valuable than a company that sells the same commodity … [Read more...]

One of the most intimidating aspects of selling your business can be facing the barrage of questions during the various management presentations you’ll be doing for potential acquirers. Be prepared to be grilled on all facets of your operations. Of course every meeting will be different, but here are some questions you can expect to be asked when you’re in the hot seat: 1. Why do you want to sell your business? It's a slippery question because if your business truly does have a bright future and you want the buyer to believe that's the case, the obvious question is: ‘Why do you want to sell it, and why do you want to sell it now?’ 2. What is your cost per new customer acquired? The potential acquirer wants to find out if you have a predictable, economical and scalable formula for finding new customers. 3. What is your market penetration rate? The acquirer, with an eye to future growth, is trying to understand how big the potential market is for your product or service and what … [Read more...]

When you look ahead to next year, will your growth come from selling more to your existing customers or finding new customers for your existing products and services? The answer may have a profound impact on the value of your business. Take a look at the research coming from a recent analysis of owners who completed their Sellability Score questionnaire. We looked at 5,364 businesses and found that the average company that had received an overture from an acquirer was offered 3.5 times their pre-tax profit. When we isolated just the businesses that had a historical growth rate of 20 per cent or greater, the multiple offered improved to 4.3 times pre-tax profit, or about 20 per cent more than their slower growth counterparts. However, the real bump in multiple came when we isolated just those companies that claim to have a unique product or service for which they have a virtual monopoly. The niche companies enjoyed average offers of 5.4 times pre-tax profit, or roughly 50 per cent … [Read more...]

Summer is nearly here, and although it may seem strange, now may be the perfect time to increase the value of your company. The most valuable businesses are the ones that can survive without their owner. A buyer will pay a premium for a company that runs on autopilot, and levy a steep discount for a business that is dependent on its owner. This summer, consider taking an extended break from your business to see how things will run when you’re not in the building. It’s likely that some things will go wrong, but use those errors as the raw material for making your business operate more independently of you – and therefore making it more valuable. Here is a six-step plan for profiting from your vacation time this summer: Step 1: Schedule your vacation plus one day Whatever day you plan to start working again after your holiday, tell your staff you’ll be back one day later. That way, you’ll have a full day of uninterrupted time to dedicate to understanding what went wrong in your … [Read more...]

Asking customers to pay to join a special group of your best patrons can increase your turnover; encourage customers to buy new products and services from you, and provide a healthy boost to your cash flow. Just ask Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and the chief architect behind Amazon Prime. In exchange for £49 a year, Amazon Prime customers get: FREE One-Day Delivery with no minimum order size on millions of items. Upgrades to Express Delivery (before 1pm) for just £4.49 per item and Evening Delivery to all eligible addresses for just £7.48 per item. Over 350,000 popular Kindle Books to borrow for free, with no due dates. According to TIME Magazine, more than 10 million people have signed up for Amazon Prime programs worldwide. If you do the maths, that makes Prime a five hundred million pound business for Amazon. And like most programs, members pay upfront, giving Amazon a big injection of positive cash flow. But what is even more interesting is what being a … [Read more...]

To grow a valuable business – one you can sell – you need to set up your company so that it is no longer reliant on you. This can be easier said than done, especially when, like a PR consultant or plumber, what you are selling is your expertise. To scale up a knowledge-based business, you first have to figure out how to impart your knowledge to your employees, so that they can deliver the goods. However it can be difficult to condense years of school and on-the-job learning into a few weeks of employee training. The more specialised your knowledge, the harder it is to hand over work to juniors. The key to scaling up a service business can often be found by offering the service that prevents customers from having to call you in the first place. You have to shift from selling the cure to selling the prevention. Fixing what is broken is typically a hard task to teach; however, preventing things from breaking in the first place can be a far easier task to train others to do. For … [Read more...]