Posts Categorized: Valuation

When To Hire A President To Run Things

Jim Brown had been running TerrAlign, a software company that helps clients optimize their sales territories,  for more than two decades when he decided to promote Ken Kramer to run things as the company’s President. Kramer was so good at leading the business that Brown ultimately asked him to manage the process of selling it…. Read more »

How Employees Factor into the Success of Your Business

Quality employees are essential for the long-term success and growth of any business.  Many entrepreneurs learn this simple fact far too late.  Regardless of what kind of business you own, a handful of key employees can either make or break you.  Sadly, businesses have been destroyed by employees that don’t care, or even worse, are… Read more »

What to Do When Something New Attracts your Attention

Jessica Tindel and her partner started Dream Enrichment Classes, a business offering after school programs in math and art 13 years ago. Tindel built the business to 60 part time instructors and 5 full time office staff when a new business caught her attention. Stretched thin and drawn to the potential of her new idea, she… Read more »

7 Big Questions to Ask Yourself Before Moving Forward

The first step towards successfully selling a business is finding a qualified business broker to work with.  Sellers should also ask themselves an array of important questions.  A recent article, “7 Questions to Answer Before Selling Your Business,” published by Good Men Project, has a great overview of questions sellers should answer before moving forward…. Read more »

The Other Half Of The Equation

To have a happy and lucrative exit, you need two things: 1.  A business that is ready to sell 2. An owner that is personally ready to sell …Yet so many owners fail to consider the latter and wind up crippled with depression because of their regret to exit – which is exactly what happened… Read more »

Buying a Business to Sell It

Connie Fenyo started out as an employee at Dye & Durham, a company that makes software for lawyers. She rose to Executive Vice President when she learned her boss was looking to sell the 200-employee firm. Fenyo decided to make a bid. She scraped together all the money she could find, borrowed (in return for… Read more »

How To Avoid The Hodgepodge Discount

Nobody likes paying for a hundred TV channels when all you want is a few, which is why so many people are dropping cable in favor of a subscription to only the select channels they’ll watch. Similarly, no investor wants to buy a business with a hodgepodge of product lines if they can’t figure out… Read more »

Why You Should Exit Your Business While You’re Ahead – A Cautionary Tale

The very best time to sell your business is when someone wants to buy it.  While it can be tempting to continue to grow your business forever – particularly when things are going well — that decision comes with a significant downside. Take a look at the story of Rand Fishkin who started his entrepreneurial… Read more »

How To Avoid The Idiot Tax

Kenan Hopkins spent 7 years paying what he calls “the idiot tax”, until he learned the more efficient way to run a business. Kenan Hopkins founded his delivery food service company, Blue Ridge To Go, with no real management skills, no idea how to run a business, a lump of personal credit card debt, and… Read more »

How to Lose $200 Million

You’ll never know the ideal time to sell your company — but in many cases, it’s when someone’s willing to buy it. Rand Fishkin, the bestselling author of Lost & Founder, learned this lesson the hard way when his company Moz received a $25 million dollar offer from HubSpot despite only expecting to do around… Read more »