Preparing your business for sale and maximizing its value can’t be boiled down to a few simple metrics. Rather, there are scores of factors that can affect your business’s value depending on its size, industry, location, employees, and myriad other variables. In The Exit Strategy Handbook, I walk you through dozens of factors to consider when planning the sale of your company and specific actions you can take to turn them to your advantage.

Planning to sell is all about building a business that buyers want. By preparing well in advance, you help ensure you’ll sell your business for the highest price possible. The Exit Strategy Handbook shows you how to:

• Increase the value of your business
• Enhance the chances of a successful sale
• Accelerate the entire sales process
• Strengthen your negotiating position
• Improve your business operations and profitability

I’ve seen many a deal die a preventable death. Why? It’s simple – lack of preparation. The more risk factors present in your business, the harder it will be to sell, and the less buyers will pay for it. Investing the time to prepare your business for sale helps you eliminate problems long before a buyer sees them and dramatically increases your odds of success. By examining real-world case studies of businesses that didn’t sell, I provide insight into the salability of your own business. This includes what can potentially go wrong, and the steps you can take to help ensure your company sells for top dollar when you decide to put it on the market.

The Exit Strategy Handbook also explores how long it takes to sell a business, what variables can affect the timeframe, and what you can do to speed up the process. The smoothest sales happen quickly. The good news is that most of the factors that increase the value of your business also reduce the amount of time it will take to sell, so if you want to increase the value and speed up the timeframe, the steps are often the same. This comprehensive handbook offers you powerful tools to prioritize which actions to take when preparing your business for sale that will both speed up the process and increase your business’s value. 

Preparing your business for sale allows you to be ready to sell at any time. Why is that important? Because the best offers are often unsolicited. The advice outlined in this book helps ensure you maximize your company’s value regardless of when the sale takes place. 

The value of your business can vary widely depending on the buyer and their specific reason for acquiring you. Most entrepreneurs aren’t sure what buyers are looking for or who the most likely buyer will be. Still, there’s a common set of value drivers that buyers within an industry tend to prioritize. In this book, I help you identify the type of buyer most likely to buy your business and help you focus on the value drivers most important to them. Understanding the type of buyer for your business and what they’re looking for is essential to maximizing your business’s value. 

There are hundreds of ways to make your business more appealing to the right buyer. That’s where this book comes in. My goal is to arm you with simple steps you can take to increase your company’s value and dramatically increase its marketability. I then help you prioritize these actions to create the greatest impact on your specific business. Join me as I boil down my 20 years of experience into this concise guide.

Jacob Orosz

President & Founder of Morgan & Westfield