Do These Things and You’ll Maximize Your Sale Price and Cruise Your Way Through the Process

In my previous blog article, I shared my first 3 great tips to selling your IT services company. Here’s my next 3 tips, but first to recap…

Many IT business owners have the dream of selling their business for millions of dollars one day. Unfortunately for many of these business owners, their dream will never become a reality because their business will struggle and won’t achieve the value they hope or worse, their business will go bankrupt. But there is definitely a way you can build your business properly so that it becomes attractive to potential buyers, not to mention that it’s extremely empowering knowing that you have a company that is desirable and ready to be sold on your timeline, not someone else’s.

After 9 successful years, I sold the Toronto-based IT services company that I founded to j2 Global, an $800 million US-based cloud services company. Subsequently, I was personally involved with eight more MSP acquisitions while working for j2. From my first-hand knowledge, I’d like to share my final 3 great tips to make sure your company is poised for a successful acquisition.

• Identify potential suitors and get friendly with them
  • Determine what the ideal suitor looks like. You should determine:
    • Whether a local competitor or a competitor who is not currently in your geographical area is most likely
    • Is it possible that you already know this company? It may be one of your current business partners or vendors
    • Is it someone in your industry or someone in a complementary industry?
    • Once you’ve identified the perfect suitor, you should reach out to build and strengthen that relationship
• Don’t lose focus on your day-to-day business
  • Once you engage in an acquisition process, don’t take your eye off of your existing business. Beware of:
    • Your business suffering while you jump through the hoops of the due diligence phase
    • The process dragging out longer than expected or worse, if the deal falls through altogether, the damage to your business may be fatal.
    • Never take your eye off the ball with your day-to-day responsibilities
• Get a rock-solid administrative team in place
  • Having a strong administration department makes a world of difference before and during the acquisition process. Understand that:
    • When your books are up-to-date, your cash flow is strong, your receivables are healthy, etc., your business becomes that much more attractive to the buyer.
    • The acquisition process will put a huge burden on your admin team and it’s important that they do a thorough job during this process while maintaining the current business workload

Selling your business will be one of the most important events in your life. You want it to go smoothly and you want to be satisfied with the outcome. Take the time to get it right.

For more helpful IT tips and tricks, reach out to our team of technology professionals at info@numberswise.ca or (416) 918-9397 .