Closing is the exit you choose by waiting
When an owner has had enough, the only exits open are the ones they prepared. Why tired owners close instead of selling, and how to keep a sale open.
Writing.
Essays, frameworks, and field notes from nearly four decades of building, backing, and selling businesses.
More writing
The record costs less than the copy
Six checks to run on any company, in any country, before you buy it, sell to it, or sign with it. The official record is cheap; the copies cost more.
The term you'd never have accepted on day one
Most of the damage in a sale is done late, a clause at a time, by people who just want it finished. Write your walk-away down before fatigue sets in.
Nobody asked for an earn-out. You just offered one.
Silence makes sellers uncomfortable, and they fill it with money. Most negotiating losses are self-inflicted, and the costliest words come from your side.
The bigger offer is often the smaller one
$20 million with $7 million deferred or held back can lose to $18.5 million paid on the day. Take every offer apart before you decide which is bigger.
Worth a dollar to one buyer and three to another
The same business is worth different amounts to different buyers. A valuation report doesn't create competition. Buyers do, so keep more than one in play.
Don't fill the two-second pause
The management presentation is due diligence in real time. Rescue every answer, and you prove to the buyer that the business still runs through you.
They Punished the Question
McKinsey stripped a senior partner of his leadership roles after he asked whether the glass cliff is real. What it got wrong, and what to do when it's you.
Delete the adjectives and see what's left
'"A leading provider of innovative solutions" tells a buyer nothing. Your retention figure tells them plenty. Write your sale document as evidence.'
Nobody pays for upside they have to imagine
Every seller says the business could double. Buyers pay for growth they can believe, so test a small slice of the plan, with its costs, before you sell.
Your growth rate is hiding something
Two businesses grow from $10 million to $12 million. One kept its customers; the other lost $4 million and won $6 million. A buyer pays very differently.
Twelve apps, four spreadsheets, an old server, and Michael
A buyer doesn't score your technology on what it cost you. They score it on what it will cost them: the debt, the one-person systems, the security gaps.
