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Business Owners

Does the value of your business reflect your time and investment?

Business Challenges

Growth Stage

1. Stalled Growth and No Sales Engine

As the owner, have you transferred your sales responsibilities or are you still selling?
Are you driving sales that add or detract from your most profitable and repeatable revenue?
Have you experienced the differences between good and bad growth?
Are you aware of the growth plateaus?
Is there more work to be done operationally before considering growth?
Is there more work to be done strategically before considering growth?
Are you in tune with the relationship between sales and the rest of the business?
Would it be wiser to grow sales with existing personnel, new hires, or outsourced sales?
Are you comfortable evaluating sales vendors?
Have you defined and prioritized your sales targets?
Are you happy with a viable lifestyle business that does not need to grow further?

2. No Clear Marketing Differentiators

Do you invest in marketing or is new business mostly by referral or opportunistic?
What have you tried in the past and what were the results?
Are you able to stand out? Is your uniqueness clear?
Do your differentiators matter to customers?
Do your differentiators add value to your business?
Do your differentiators make your business more predictable?
Do you have an ideal customer profile?
Is that customer profile the same as your competitors' ideal customer profiles?
Can your differentiators be summed up in an elevator pitch?
Does marketing lead with your capabilities, or the customers' problems?
Do your differentiators make it easy for others to refer your company?

3. Lack of Dependable Cash and Cash Reserves

Do you have a system to contain expenditures?
Do you have a process for vetting initiatives and investments?
Do you know your working capital requirements?
Do you know the relationship between working capital and the value of your business?
Have you leaned into and listed all of the potential risks to your business?
Do you have the proper margin of safety?
Do you have a system of bank account allocation that helps organize, protect and grow cash?
Do you have a group of metrics around cash?
Do you understand the place that cash has on the hierarchy of metrics?
Do you have an aversion to financial management or wish you could master finances simply?

4. Hiring & Retention Are Difficult

Do you know how happy your employees are?
Can you measure it?
Do you know if they see a future at your company?
Are you aware of their career interests and aspirations?
Do you know their full set of skills?
Are you open to making your employees happier and your business more enjoyable?
Do you know the best ways to establish a valuable culture?
Do you have a way to attract great employees?
What do you do to keep them?

5. Too Many Ideas and No Priorities

Do you filter and prioritize ideas?
If so, how? Do you have sufficient sounding boards for your ideas?
Do you know how to assess risk?
Do you know how an idea will impact the value of your business?
What are the main barriers to implementing the best ideas: time, money, skills, uncertainty?

6. Big initiative - Should I Do It?

Do you have a process to make go-no go decisions?
Who else is involved in this process?
How effective is this process?
Do you know what really matters when you evaluate new initiatives?
Do you have data to drive these decisions?
Do you know where to get the data to support these decisions?
Do you keep score once you commit?
Do you debrief regularly and at the conclusion of an initiative?

7. Working More Than I Prefer

Are you able to let go after work?
Are you able to let go on vacation?
Have you inventoried all your activities?
Can you place all your activities into distinct buckets?
Are you aware of opportunities to automate?
If so what is stopping you?
Do your employees also work long hours?
Are you comfortable delegating?
Do you know how to best transfer activities to others?

8. Busy Spinning and Not Advancing

Do you spend most of your time on firefighting, daily operations, or thinking strategically?
Where are your skills best suited?
Which of these do you enjoy most?
Are you unsure which activities will move the needle?
Are high impact activities being delayed?
Are delays due to a lack of certainty about ROI or because it is less urgent than the fires?
Are high impact activities delayed due to a lack of cash, experience, or skills?
Are you spinning due to indecision?

9. Need More From Masterminds & Events

Do you leave conferences or masterminds feeling you did not get enough out of them?
Do you find value in conferences and mastermind groups, but have problems implementing?
Do you feel these experiences simply add to the to-do list?
Are you contributing and maximizing relationships or do are you passive?
Do you feel masterminds and industry events are a reward, a break, or an excuse to procrastinate?
Do you have too little time or interest to follow-up after events or meetings?
Are you being held accountable in a way that works for you?

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Exit Planning

1. Irrelevant - I'm In Growth Mode

How can you protect yourself as you build a valuable company?
Can you build a business to attract a company that will pay more?
Would defining this ideal company help drive your growth strategy?
What do you need to do prepare for the ideal company?
How long will that take?
How does your risk change the larger you get?
Do you know your number - the number you need to hit before you can walk away?

2. When is the Best Time to Exit?

Do you have views about the current economy?
Will the economy improve or decline?
Do you consider presidential elections when you consider your exit timeline?
Will your timeline be more heavily influenced by business or personal goals?
Is your timeline affected by your lease?
Do you feel it is better to exit before, during, or after a good growth run?
Where will the proceeds go after you exit?
What is your life plan after you exit?

3. Is My Business Valuable?

Have you seen industry data on business value?
Does your CPA have an opinion of the value of your business?
Have you heard from business owners who have exited?
Do you trust this information?
Have you had interested parties contact you?
Has anyone looked at your business in depth to assess its value?

4. When Do I Have To Start Preparing?

Have you thought about your ideal transition?
Do you know how much time it takes to prepare for an exit?
Do you know how many years of consistent financials and documentation are needed?
At what age would you like to be completely out of this business?

5. What is My Role in a Transition?

Would you prefer to stay with the new owner or leave soon after you train them?
If you stay, would you prefer to be an employee or consultant?
Have you considered a fair pay rate?
Have you considered which scenario is most valuable to a new owner?
If you own the real estate, will you sell it or would you be a landlord to the new owner?

6. How do I Become Valuable to a Strategic Company?

Do strategic companies contact you? Would they always pay more?
Besides competitors, who else would be strategic?
What is the likelihood of gaining interest from a strategic versus a financial or PE firm?
How do you position your company to be attractive to strategics?
How is your company more attractive to strategic companies than their other targets?

7. What Information Do I Need to Prepare and Organize?

Have you had a consistent tax preparation service?
Do you use an outside bookkeeper?
Can you access financials within days after a month ends?
Have you ever filed amended tax returns?
Do you know your working capital?
Does your accountant provide balance sheets on a regular basis?
What accounting software do you use?
Do you have operations manuals, employee manuals, product guides, service guides, contracts, and agreements?
Are they current, centrally located or easy to obtain?
Would you be able to share business credit card statements if asked?
Do you have a business plan or projections?
Is there growth potential that you have not pursued?
If so, do you have research or have you taken steps to validate this potential?
Do you have a list of physical assets and inventory that you keep current?
Do you have lease history including addendums and amendments?
Do you have sales reports by customer, geography, industry, revenue, contract type, etc.?
Do you have an employee roster with dates, rates and job descriptions?

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3 Steps to Value

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Business Owners

Does the value of your business reflect your time and investment?

Business Challenges

3 Steps to Value

Value Builder Score

You Deserve Support On Your Path to Freedom

Get the eBook
Essential Topics for Valuable MSPs