Most Business Owners Don’t Know What Their Business is Worth On average, 75% or more of a business owner’s wealth is in their business – but most business owners don’t know what their business is worth. This issue is addressed in “Most Small Business Owners Don’t do the Math on Their Most Valuable Asset”…Read Full Article
Some Business Owners Exit Rich – But Many Can’t Exit While most publicly traded companies are operated with a focus on company value as represented by stock price, most entrepreneurial and family-owned companies are operated to optimize profits and support the owner’s lifestyle – not to maximize the company’s value. This issue is addressed…Read Full Article
Five Reasons Why Every Business Owner Should Have a Succession Plan National studies find that less than 20% of business owners have succession and exit plans. From our experience, the 20% estimate is high. In reality, very few business owners have plans in place. There are five reasons why every business owner should have…Read Full Article
A Critical Mistake Business Owners Make We find that most business owners focus on profitability and cash flow – but don’t focus on the market value of their business until they begin thinking about retiring or selling their business. That is a big mistake. Coaching Point: Owners need to begin preparing for exiting and selling…Read Full Article
This Is a Good Time to Sell a Business You’ve probably read about the price of used cars going through the roof because of pent-up demand and supply problems with new cars. Pent-up demand combined with a limited supply of companies is doing the same thing for the price of good companies. A seller’s…Read Full Article
What’s Your Business Worth If You Died 90 Days Ago? As a business owner, ask yourself what your business would be worth today if you died 90 days ago. The answer for a lot of business owners is “not very much.” The owner of most small and mid-sized companies is typically the driving force in…Read Full Article
What is Your Business Worth? I’ve been providing strategic, business, and M&A advisory support to business owners for more than 40 years. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had a conversation similar to this with a business owner: Me: Do you know what your business is worth? Business Owner: I think I have…Read Full Article
One Metric Every Business Owner Should Track Most business owners monitor at least a few metrics regularly. Their metrics might include financial, sales, operational, employee, or economic metrics – but very few business owners track what we believe is the most critical metric. From our experience in helping hundreds of business leaders build successful and…Read Full Article
Recovery – Getting Back to Abnormal Recovery Challenge One of the questions we have been hearing from our clients is some variation of “When will things get back to normal after COVID and the crash in oil prices?” I’ve heard economists and other “experts” predicting that we won’t get back to “normal” until early in…Read Full Article
Recovery – Getting Everyone on the Same Page ASAP Recovery Challenge Economists are predicting a surge in bankruptcies of small and middle market companies tied to the double whammy of the COVID-19 pandemic and destabilization of oil prices. Since companies are going to be have to learn how to operate in a very different business…Read Full Article