Built to Sell

Are you brave enough to make your business less and less reliant on you?

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Are you brave enough to step away from simply working IN your business to working ON your business?

What happens to the future of your business when it can function better without you?

Should your business be reliant on you?

Stop thinking that your business success is reliant on your involvement…

Build a better business, one that is less reliant on you…
How to build a future for your business that does not involve you…

If you want your business to have a future, you need to be less involved…

Secure the future of your business by working ON it, not IN it…

How do you step away from your business and secure its future?

Stop thinking that your business success is totally dependent on you…

When it comes to running your business, give yourself the freedom you deserve

Make time to prepare your business for sale, before you actually need to sell it…

How to prepare your business for sale and create options for you and your team

Build security for yourself and your team by planning for the future sale of your business

Because your business and team matter to you, make time to plan for its future sale

Stop thinking you will live forever and start preparing your business for sale

What happens when you start building the capital value, revenue and profits of your business?

How planning to be less involved in your business makes its future look brighter

Build a business that can thrive without you

Stop waiting until your business is ready to sell to take its future seriously

You build the value of your business when you are more than strong and stable

How to build a more secure and certain future for your business

Should you build the capital value, revenue and profits of your business?

Make your business ready to sell before you want to sell it

How to prepare your business future with this 8-step road map

Manage the complexity out of your business and secure its future

Time to find the ‘sweet spot’ in your business and increase its value

When you focus on one thing in your business, you make it more attractive to buyers

Why 8 steps are all it takes to increase the value of your business

Bring focus and clarity to your business by finding your ‘sweet spot’ product or service

What happens when you focus on one thing for a simpler way of working in your business?

Stop trying too many things in your business and start to focus on just one

Watch the profits of your business grow when you manage the complexity out

How to make your business less reliant on you by managing out the complexities

What happens when you say no to customers to protect the future of your business?

Be brave when it comes to turning down orders from your customers to ensure your business is ready to sell

Stop accepting non-standard orders from your customers and build the value and profits of your business

Should you say no to customers to build the capital value of your business

Saying ‘no’ to customers creates options, security and clarity in your business

Manage out the complications that make your business reliant on you

Make your business more appealing by preparing it for sale

Increase the options for your business by getting it ready to sell

Should your business always be ready to sell?

Start taking the future of your business seriously by preparing for it to be sold

LinkedIn Updates

1. Running your business is demanding and probably takes all of your time – dealing with products and services, customers, suppliers, your team, recruitment, marketing, accounts – the list goes on and on. But taking time to plan for the future of your business is critical to it actually having a future. Click here to learn more.

2. How often do you think about the future of your business – the future for you, your team, your customers? How often do you wish that the business was less reliant on you and how often do you wish that you could step away and plan for a time when you are not involved in the business? Click here to learn more about the benefits to you of preparing your business for sale…

3. When you first started your business, it’s unlikely that you gave any thought to exiting or selling it but the key is to prepare your business for sale before you actually need to sell it – click here to discover the pay-off to your business of preparing it for sale.

4. Running your business takes time and energy and involves highs and lows on an emotional rollercoaster. It is therefore only natural that when you start to think about stepping away from your business or selling it, more time, effort and emotion will be involved… BUT click here to discover that the pay-off is significant.

5. Running your business can and probably is an overwhelming and time-consuming affair. You probably have given little or no thought to the time when you would want or even need to sell it. But if you had to sell your business tomorrow – is it ready? Are you ready? Are your team ready? Click here to learn more.

6. You might have a strong, stable and successful business, but if you want to build capital value and increase the long-term options for your business, strong, stable and successful often isn’t enough. Click here to discover why…

7. To ensure that you build a ‘sellable business’, John Warrillow, author of Built to Sell has provided an 8-step roadmap for creating a business that is less reliant on you, the business owner. Click here to learn what these steps are and how they can help you prepare your business for sale.

8. Click here to discover John Warrillow’s 8-step road map that puts you on the path to simplifying your business, managing out the complexity, building the value of your business, improving its profits and getting it ready to sell should you want to.

9. Click here to discover how to manage the expectations of your customers, your team, your suppliers and other stakeholders by creating a Standard Service Offering that means you can start to make your business less reliant on you and prepare it for sale.

10. When you switch your focus to capital value growth AND revenue and profit growth (the two are not mutually exclusive), you find what John Warrillow calls your ‘sweet spot’ product or service, your Standard Service Offering (SSO), click here to discover what this is and how it can determine the future of your business.

11. Click here to learn how to be brave when it comes to turning down orders from your customers to ensure your business is ready to sell, by not accepting non-standard orders from your customers you will build the value and profits of your business

12. John Warrillow suggests that if you are serious about eventually selling your business, you need to turn down non-standard orders. This may mean saying goodbye to large contracts with regular customers – NOT EASY! Click here to learn more…

13. Getting your business ready for sale is primarily about increasing its capital value, maintaining profits and making it less reliant on you (the business owner). Click here to learn more.

14. When it comes to preparing your business for sale you want as many people bidding for your business as possible, so you’ll need to build the appeal of your business as much as you can. Click here to learn more about the steps you can take to make your business more attractive to potential buyers.

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13. Getting your business ready for sale is primarily about increasing its capital value, maintaining profits and making it less reliant on you (the business owner). Click here to learn more.

Blog Posts

Blog 1 – Build a better future for your business by making it less reliant on you

Your business – you started it, you are invested in it and a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into making it the success it is today. You have managed to steer it through the toughest of times.

However, you probably don’t have much time to think about the future of your business – you are busy being busy with the here and now of running it.

Right now, the running of your business probably takes all of your time – dealing with products and services, customers, suppliers, your team, recruitment, marketing, accounts – the list goes on and on.

But taking time to plan for the future of your business is critical to it actually having a future.

How often do you think about the future of your business – the future for you, your team, your customers?

How often do you wish that the business was less reliant on you?

How often do you wish that you could step away and plan for a time when you are not involved in the business?

How often have you thought about preparing your business for sale?

That last statement may make you gasp, and it’s perhaps something that you have not seriously contemplated, but preparing your business for sale does not necessarily mean you have to sell it.

By preparing your business for sale, you create more options for yourself as an owner, as well as for all the people you care about in your business. This process allows you to run a simpler business and build its capital value, revenue and profits.

Click here to learn how to plan a secure future for you and your team by making your business less reliant on you…

Blog 2 – Be brave when it comes to planning the future of your business

When you first started your business, it’s unlikely that you gave any thought to exiting or selling it.

When you set your business up, you invested a great deal of time, energy and effort, and you likely rode a rollercoaster of emotions – fear, bravery, worry, excitement, panic…

Actually running your business takes even more time and energy and involves even greater highs and lows on that emotional rollercoaster.

It is therefore only natural that when you start to think about stepping away from your business or selling it, more time, effort and emotion will be involved…

BUT the pay-off is significant.

The reward for creating a more valuable business is greater security, continuity and certainty for you, your team and your customers, as well as a future buyer.

It’s unlikely that the author and philosopher Eckhart Tolle was considering the future of your business when he said: “The contemplation of one’s mortality... is a liberating act that makes life feel considerably less heavy.”

But Tolle’s words point to the reality that you, the business owner, won’t live forever. It therefore pays to work out the future options for you and your business.

Your options increase when you start to prepare your business for sale. Even though it’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever want to leave the business you’ve worked so hard to build, it makes a lot of sense to prepare your business for sale:

Your business may be your best chance of having a worry-free, financially secure retirement
You may want the freedom to start another business or become involved in other projects or businesses, or you may have new investments planned
You may want more time for yourself and your family or you may want to spend your hard-earned retirement traveling
You may just want to sleep better at night knowing that you could sell your business if you wanted or needed to

Even if you are not thinking of selling your business right now, there is real value in simplifying the way you run it, making it less reliant on you and building its capital value.

Click here to discover a simpler way of running your business, while at the same time making it more attractive to potential buyers when you do want to sell it.

Blog 3 – Should you be preparing your business for sale even if you don’t want to sell it?

Running your business can and probably is an overwhelming and time-consuming affair.

You probably have given little or no thought to the time when you would want or even need to sell it.

But if you had to sell your business tomorrow – is it ready? Are you ready? Are your team ready?

Even if you know that the actual sale of your business is a long way into the future, it pays to build a business that is always ‘sale ready’.

You might have a strong, stable and successful business, but if you want to build capital value and increase the long-term options for your business, strong, stable and successful often isn’t enough.

Many businesses provide a strong and stable income for their owners but would fail to appeal to an external buyer because the future financial success of the business relies too heavily on the business owner (you!).

Even strong businesses with good revenue and profits can be unattractive to buyers because of their reliance on the owner.

To ensure your business has a future, for you, your team and your customers, you need to start working ON your business and not IN your business, to make it less reliant on you and to build its capital value.

John Warrillow, creator of ‘The Value Builder System™’ and author of ‘Built to Sell’, shares an 8-step road map for building a company that can thrive without you.

Click here for more detail about each of the steps in John’s roadmap and why it pays to prepare your business for sale before you need to sell it.

Blog 4 – Eight steps to build a business that can survive and thrive without you

John Warrillow is a successful author and creator of ‘The Value Builder System™. He has also started and exited four businesses, selling one to a listed company, and has conducted radio interviews with hundreds of entrepreneurs. He has helped many business owners get their businesses ‘sale ready’.

In his book, Built to Sell, he states:

Have an “options strategy”, as opposed to an “exit strategy”. The idea is to have as many choices in the future as possible. When you follow an options strategy, you build systems and a management team around you so that if a buyer comes along, or if you decide it’s the right time to get out, you have a sellable business.

To ensure that you build a ‘sellable business’, John has provided an 8-step roadmap for creating a business that is less reliant on you, the business owner.

Here are these steps:

Step 1 – Develop a Standard Service Offering (SSO) – focus on one thing
Step 2 – Develop positive cash flows – get ‘cash positive’
Step 3 – Hire a sales team – get others to sell for you
Step 4 – Commit fully to your SSO – stop accepting non-standard projects
Step 5 – Retain the key manager – launch a long-term incentive plan for your managers
Step 6 – Find a suitable broker
Step 7 – Tell the team – especially your management team
Step 8 – Convert the offer(s) into a binding deal

By following these steps, you put yourself on the path to simplifying your business, managing out the complexity, building the value of your business and improving its profits. All of these things not only make your business a more pleasurable place to work for you and your team, but they also make it ready to sell should you decide to.

There is obviously a lot more to each of these steps, and they are expanded on in the Business Breakthrough report linked to this blog, with even more detail in John’s book, Built to Sell.

Click here to read more about the 8-step roadmap and how preparing your business for sale, even if you choose not to sell, creates options, clarity and security for you and your team.

Blog 5 – Should you be focusing on just one thing for a simpler way of running your business?

I am sure running your business is complicated. You probably have many different things going on all at the same time and your product and service lines may have become increasingly complicated as you try to please all of your customers, all of the time.

This is normal – most businesses naturally want to do more and more for their customers as demands and expectations change and increase., creating more products and services for their customers to buy.

But this can make your business complicated – and a complicated business is heavily reliant on its business owner and, therefore, unattractive to a potential buyer.

For example – a flower shop opens to sell flower arrangements. They may then start doing weddings and funerals, then begin selling planters and vases and silk flowers. Next, they may decide they could sell coffee and cake while customers wait and may choose to become a café.

This means more people, more shifts, possible 7-day working, deals for regulars, maybe a contract with a wedding planner or a funeral home, bigger premises…the list goes on and on.

Complexity builds as revenue and profits build, making the business more and more reliant on you, the business owner. The complexity of the business you now run as opposed to the business you started means it’s harder for you to step away, even for a short period of time.

BUT when you switch your focus to capital value growth AND revenue and profit growth (the two are not mutually exclusive), you find what John Warrillow calls your ‘sweet spot’ product or service, your Standard Service Offering (SSO):

a service your customers find valuable
a service that your business does really well, giving you a competitive advantage
a service that can be taught to others (in your team)

Finding your SSO and teaching the other members of your team how to produce, create, market and deliver it means that the business becomes less reliant on you, making it much more attractive to potential buyers as well as maintaining its profit levels.

Click here to discover more about the importance of finding your business’s ‘sweet spot’ and how creating a Standard Service Offering will enable you to focus on the capital value of your business.

Blog 6 – Get serious about the future capital value of your business and start to say ‘no’ to customers

Saying no to customers is hard, and turning work down probably goes against everything you believe in as a business owner.

But saying yes to customers all the time increases the complexities that exist within your business as you manage the different products and services to meet expectations and keep everyone happy.

If you want to make your business less reliant on you AND build its capital value, then be brave and say ‘no’…

So, to what are you saying ‘no’?

To get your business ‘sale ready’, you need to find its ‘sweet spot’ or Standard Service Offering (SSO). This is a service that you do well, one that clients find valuable and that can be taught to your team.

You need to fully commit to your SSO if you are serious about building a simpler business model and making your business less reliant on you.

But what do you do when you get a large, valuable order from a customer for a service that is not part of your SSO?

John Warrillow suggests that if you are serious about eventually selling your business, you need to turn down non-standard orders. This may mean saying goodbye to large contracts with regular customers – NOT EASY!

John believes that this is most difficult at the start of the process of preparing your business for sale because you are in the transition phase of moving from a multi-service/product business to an SSO business.

But you need to commit to your SSO even when customers and team members are pushing you with their expectations. It requires bravery, and if you don’t start, you never will…

As you build your sales, profits, cash and, therefore, capital value whilst only selling your SSO, you will start to see the benefits to you and your business.

Click here to learn more about the importance of sticking to your SSO and that saying no to non-standard orders will show you are committed to the future of your business and will increase its value.

Blog 7 – Build the appeal of your business by getting it ready to sell

John Warrillow believes:

“There’s an art to selling a business well. It comes down to how you package it, the story you tell about it, and the feeling it gives potential buyers when they imagine owning it.”

--- The Art of Selling Your Business

Getting your business ready for sale is primarily about increasing its capital value, maintaining profits and making it less reliant on you (the business owner).

You want as many people bidding for your business as possible, so you’ll need to build the appeal of your business as much as you can.

One of the downsides (if it is one) is that by making your business more appealing, managing out the complexities, focusing on your Standard Service Offering (SSO) and making it less reliant on you, this might make you reluctant to sell.

This may sound counter-intuitive to the process, but it does actually increase your bargaining position as you would be happier to walk away from a deal you did not think was good enough or a buyer you did not think was right.

But there will come a day when you want to stop and sell, so here are the main steps from John Warrillow’s roadmap for building your business to thrive without you:

1. Commit to building the capital value of your business, not just the profits and revenue – this requires a big shift in the way you look at your business – start to work ON your business, not just IN your business, and view it as something you will sell.

2. Start making your business less and less reliant on you – if a potential buyer had to choose between a business where the business owner was heavily involved and one where they weren’t, which one would they choose? Manage out the complexities, focus on standard products and teach your team how to sell and market them.

3. Build a positive cash flow business – no one wants to buy debt. Build up the cash flow and cash reserves in your business – this makes it much more attractive.

4. Build a long-term incentive plan for your team – you want your managers and team to stay with the business as they provide the continuity a potential buyer will be looking for, so a 12-24 month reward plan for your key team members provides them with much-needed security and helps ensure they will stay.

5. Tell your team in plenty of time – you don’t want them to hear it from someone else. And they can be involved in presentations to potential buyers.

6. Get support from outside experts, brokers and solicitors – choose experts who are familiar with your market and can help navigate the frustrating process of due diligence once you have accepted an offer.

You already know how valuable your business is, but the key to a successful sale is preparing it so that it is valuable to a potential buyer. These 2 perceptions of value can often be quite different.

Starting to look at your business through the eyes of a potential buyer and building your capital value can feel like a massive shift in focus for you and your team. It is worth remembering that this shift to manage out the complications in your business, to focus on an SSO and to make your business less reliant on you means that when the time comes to sell, you and your team will be ready. It is also worth remembering that preparing your business for sale doesn’t mean you have to sell it.

Click here to dive deeper into what’s involved in preparing your business for sale and read more about John Warrillow’s roadmap and the framework he has created to help business owners everywhere.

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