Well in advance of selling your company, you should know what your exit narrative will be
Too often company owners decide it’s time to sell and then they engage professionals that identify what the exit narrative will be to convey to potential acquirers. But this shouldn’t be how it’s done. You should first decide years earlier what exciting and compelling exit narrative you want to one day deliver to potential suitors and then build the company and performance to underpin it. This is how you command a premium valuation for your company, this is how you achieve a euphoric exit event.
What is your exit narrative? It’s your story or your message for future potential suitors to hear about what you’ve built, why it’s special and how its future is bright for them to benefit from. And there are multiple narratives you will one day develop as you will have a narrative for fellow shareholders, your employees but ultimately the one for your acquirer.
You work hard, you invest a lot of time, energy and money into your business. The last thing you want is for years to go by and then decide to sell and then hope you’ve built something you can build an attractive exit narrative around. Going this route, you have to hope you built an asset that others will want. But hope isn’t a plan, it’s not a strategy.
An effective exit preparation is to know your industry well enough to know what will attract suitors one day to pay you premium and build your narrative and then build the business to support it.
Don’t bet your future exit event on hoping you’ve built something you can then create a compelling exit narrative around. Build and bet on a plan that allows you to use time as a friend in creating the narrative and the business performance behind it. Going this route will have you well on your way to a much greater likelihood of one day getting the premium valuation that you’ve always dreamed of earning.
