The 6 P’s of Selling Your Business & Exiting Rich

January 19, 2023 Mimi Torrignton

CEO in the process of selling business

Selling your business is a long process, full of ups and downs. But most business owners — 80%, in fact — fail to ever sell their business. When you're looking to be one of the 20% that do succeed, you'll need all the help you can get. This episode of CFO Weekly offers some tips for selling your business the right way.

To help you get there, we invited Michelle Seiler Tucker, Founder and CEO at Seiler Tucker, Inc., who literally wrote the book on exiting rich, onto the show to share the secrets to getting the most out of the business you built.

We talk about a lot of different things on the show, but in particular, we focus on The 6 Ps of Selling Your Business. What do you need to focus on when selling your business?

  1. People

  2. Product

  3. Processes

  4. Proprietary

  5. Patrons

  6. Profits

People

michelle seiler tucker quote

The reason people is the first P is because it’s the biggest problem in every organization. You don’t build a business, you build people. The problem is that most entrepreneurs are control freaks and want to do everything themselves.

Entrepreneurs really need to start focusing on their strengths, start working ON the business not IN it, and hire the right people and put them in the right seats.

Product

Michelle mentioned in the episode that 70% of businesses are going out of business. And the reason they’re going out of business is because they stop innovating. They stop pushing the envelope.

Look at Toys R Us, or Blockbuster. The problem with these companies, and quite frankly the reason they went under, is they never innovated. They got good at one thing and refused to look at different or innovative ways of doing that thing.

Blockbuster had the chance to purchase Netflix twice, and instead of going all in on innovation, sat back and faded into oblivion.

Processes You Need to Know When Selling your Business

Let’s face it. Processes aren’t sexy. They’re incredibly important, but nobody thinks about them until something is on fire — until something is catastrophically wrong and needs to be fixed — then, they’re all about the processes.

You don’t need a process when something catastrophic happens, you need a process way before it happens. Processes should be designed from the beginning, but always open to tweaking and corrections.

Proprietary

Selling your business tips quote

This is the highest value driver. This is the thing that’s going to get you the highest multiple of EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, & amortization). Businesses other than SaaS with over $100M for EBITDA trade one to three and a half multiples depending on their synergies.

Companies with $1M in EBITDA typically start at 5 and up depending on their synergies. Proprietary can take you from a 5 to an 8 to a 10 and above. Proprietary is the number one value driver. There are 6 pillars to proprietary:

  • Branding

  • Trademarks

  • IP

  • Contracts

  • Databases

  • Celebrity Endorsements

Patrons

how to sell your business quote

Patrons are your customer base. Your clients. WIthout customers you run out of gas; they’re the fuel to your business. Most businesses run on the 80/20 rule, where 80% of their revenue comes from 20% to their clients.

Profits - How Do They Affect the Process of Selling Your Business?

The reason profits are the last P is because a profit is never the problem. It’s always a symptom. If profit is struggling, it’s likely because one of the other 5 Ps is lacking and needs some attention.

Most business owners, according to Michelle, are running off about 3 of the Ps. You can’t help but be profitable if you’re firing all of the other five Ps.

If you want to hear more from Michelle, make sure and check out the full interview and her amazing resources at www.exitrichbook.com & www.seilertucker.com.

For more interviews from the CFO Weekly podcast, check us out on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player!

Presented by Personiv

https://insights.personiv.com/cfo-weekly

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