How to destroy the value of a business

💣 keep messy records

💣 leave sale until the latest possible time, 64 and 9 months seems to be a popular choice

💣 have bad relationships with minority shareholders

💣 create complexity and hardship inside your premises lease

💣 do not demonstrate you have paid yourself a fair wage over time, like any employee

💣 do not establish a pattern of dividends over time (in addition to wages)

💣 be personally critical to the operations of the business

💣 be massively reliant on a couple of key staff, customers and/or suppliers

💣 occupy a sector of the market under stress and/or in decline

💣 confuse fair value with what you would like for a price

💣 keep your business plan in your head

💣 ignore risks

💣 select a broker who can’t show you a written marketing plan/strategy to sell or isn’t motivated to complete the sale

💣 get into lawsuits and trouble with the revenue authorities

💣 insult would-be buyers

💣 make sure your business is worth too much so an employee or mum and dad team can’t afford it, but also not valuable enough to be interesting to an M&A style purchaser

Obviously this is tongue-in-cheek but unfortunately it’s super easy to fail to sell.

Something like 3/4 of all attempts fail, and it’s usually because of one or more of the above.

Sometimes a good offence is a great defence.

Shore up a business’s value by working on the above as early as possible for buyers.