How to Grow Your Business While Trying to Sell your Business, with Robbie Hardy

 

 

In summary, Robbie Hardy’s podcast outlined the process of expanding your company while preparing for a sale as hard labor that requires both right-hand business development and left-hand sale preparation.

Let us dive into the different strategies you can take to scale your business while preparing your exit plan without sacrificing its operational efficiency.

Business Growth Strategies

You cannot go into business with the only goal of eventually selling it because a successful sale is the one where you have maximized its full potential as evidenced by the maximum value potential buyers are willing to pay for. It is good to have an exit strategy and while the sale does not happen yet, focus on growing your business.

To grow your business, these different strategies will help:

1. Understand Your Target Market

Conducting market research will help you identify the needs of your potential customers and what their needs are.

2. Product Diversification and Innovation

Attracting new customers includes introducing a new product or service that compliments your existing offerings. This can also increase your sales and potentially increase your customer base.

Market leadership also means investing in new products and services. Innovation will be able to help your business stay competitive.

3. Leverage Social Media Platforms

Enhancing your online presence will help you reach your target audience easier and faster. Digital marketing has helped businesses increase engagement through content marketing such as blogs, videos, infographics, etc.

4. Form Strategic Alliances

Strategic partnerships will help your business tap into new markets, increase your market share, and create new opportunities.

5. Enhance Customer Service

One way of increasing revenue is increasing customer loyalty by ensuring that you provide excellent customer service at all times by understanding customer pain points and addressing them promptly.

6. Adapt Continuous Improvement

Making sure that your business runs on optimum efficiency means that you are taking away time-consuming tasks that do not add value to your business. This includes automating processes and adapting lean practices.

7.Budget and Forecast

Cash flow is important to keep a business running. Good financial management and having a clear financial plan will keep the business owners focused on achieving their goals.

Knowing how to leverage these strategies can better position your business for success and establish a strong exit strategy.

Selling A Business

Knowing how to grow a business to sell in the future is a key element in becoming a successful entrepreneur that ensures the long-term continuity of the business. There are key elements in play here:

• Strengthening Financial Performance 
• Optimizing Operations
• Building a Strong Team
• Preparing for Due Diligence
• Maximizing Business Value
• Implementing an Exit Strategy

 

With all these combined, selling a business to potential buyers will make it an attractive investment endeavor.

Maximizing Business Value

The key element of how to grow a direct selling business in a retail environment involves implementing strategies that are effective and work to enhance customer service and having a strong marketing plan. These steps to scale your sales company include the following:

• Knowing your target audiences and customizing your product and services to meet their needs through innovation or enhancing existing offerings.
   
• Enhancing marketing efforts such as providing free samples and creating a brand that your existing and potential customers can identify with. This also includes creating a social media presence and being consistent with your brand messaging.
   
• Build a strong sales team. Hire and train talented and determined sales representatives to succeed in your business. A sales representative with proper training sells products quickly and builds a loyal customer following.
   
• Focus on your customers and improve the products and services offered, as well as the customer service offered to your customers. This increases the likelihood of repeat business and customer loyalty.
   
• Spend time optimizing your sales process. Invest in CRM software and design a sales funnel for customer awareness and increased sales conversion.
   
• Spend time preparing and following through on your financial budgets and forecasts. Financial management is key for every business that wants to scale and sell it eventually.
   
• Regularly monitor the financial performance of the business through KPIs and data analytics. Look at sales conversion rates, customer satisfaction, or CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).

Entrepreneurship And Exit Planning: Due Diligence Focus

When it is time to sell, there is one highly important exercise that you should have already completed beforehand: Due Diligence. This is the key to making sure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible. Underneath this is the connection between running a scalable business and preparing an exit strategy.

Focusing on due diligence means ensuring that all aspects of your business are carefully and thoroughly checked. It also involves working on these different areas:

• Keep complete and accurate financial records and other documentation. The financial statements that should be up-to-date include the Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, and Statement of Cash Flows that should preferably be audited. It would also be helpful if a projection is prepared.
   
• Keep an updated record of legal business documents. These are business licenses, supplier and customer agreements, Registrations of Intellectual Property (IP), and other legal agreements.
   
• Keep a regular assessment of operational processes. This means conducting a review and documentation of the structure and processes in place. An organizational chart must be prepared and the roles and responsibilities reviewed.
   
• Keep an updated inventory of the company’s assets. List down all of the company’s tangible and intangible assets.
   
• Keep a complete employee record. Make sure all employee agreements are complete and signed, as well as an updated employee personal and contact information.
   
• Do a business valuation. Know how much the worth of your business is and hire professionals to do the job.

Work-Life Balance During Business Transition

The process of ownership transitioning is long and demanding. As entrepreneurs, it can affect your personal life and it needs to strike a balance with your work life for the continuity of the business and the people working in it.

Here is how you can strike this balance and it is important that you stick to this:

• Make a clear transition plan. 
• Learn to delegate important tasks to key people. 
• Communicate with the transition team regularly. 
• Make sure you do not take your health for granted – exercise and eat healthy. 
• Seek the help of transition experts to help you navigate through the whole process. 

Achieving a balance during transition is making sure that you give your best in all aspects of your life.

Small Business Succession Planning

The continuity of small businesses relies heavily on an effective succession plan. This includes creating goals to be achieved within a specific time frame, conducting business valuation, identifying potential successors and their readiness to take on the role, documenting and communicating the transition plan to the stakeholders of the business, and choosing the type of ownership transfer.

With family-owned businesses, it is imperative to involve the other family members in the succession planning process. Some employees fear transitions but with careful planning, it can set the tone for the business to thrive in the future.