Welcome back to my weekly articles on business building. In order to extract value from a business it needs to be sellable. Businesses that are efficient and deliver value to their customers are attractive to buyers. The ones that focus on continually improving, who are looking for ways to improve delivery of services or products by understanding their business processes, mapping out their workflows and who are looking for ways to improve, enhance or streamline how they do business, are the ones who can create significant additional sellable value in the business.
Most owners get one chance to get it right when they decide to sell, yet most owners cannot sell the business they built (only 1 in 10 are successful) because they did not build a salable asset. If selling your business to fund your future lifestyle is a must, ask yourself whether you are prepared or not, and then identify what you need to do to get to where you need to be.
With up to 76% of Canadian businesses reporting that they hope to exit in the next 10 years, being unprepared might cost you both your legacy and your retirement.
