It is stunning for many Business Owners to find that only about 25% of companies offered for sale result in a transaction and that 75% of those companies’ owners profoundly regret their decisions to sell 12 months later, often because of an unsatisfactory financial outcome.
For a business owner who wants to increase a company’s value and achieve the ultimate desired sale price, there should be two priorities:
● Grow Profits
● Grow the Valuation Multiple that will be applied to the Profits.
Kingfisher Growth Strategies’ business strategy and consulting in Florida and business strategy and consulting in the Mid-Atlantic can help increase profits and multiples through better business, marketing, sales, and valuation strategies:
Business Strategies
A good business strategy and consulting in Florida and a good business strategy and consulting in the Mid-Atlantic confirm what the company serves, determines where it can best deliver a differentiated benefit to a meaningful target market, decides what must be done to achieve success, and defines the next steps, accountability, and key tracking metrics.
Many companies take business strategies for granted, being reactive and following sales wherever they may lead. This can be self-defeating, as income that appears easy often distracts from the pursuit of stronger opportunities, premier service, and powerful messaging.
Marketing Strategies
A good marketing strategy for business in Florida and a good marketing strategy for business in the Mid-Atlantic are about positioning the key benefit of a company's product or service in a focused, compelling, and memorable way that is in line with the business strategy. It is the stake in the ground for how a company or product presents itself to the world and the basis for how it is sold. For a company or product to gain momentum, the messaging needs to effectively emphasize and consistently sell the differentiated benefit that responds to the identified need.
Companies often ignore positioning---instead of marketing product features, leaving it to prospects to sell themselves, and are fearful that they will lose out if they focus on a specific benefit for a defined prospect niche. This is an error. Given the frantic pace of today’s world, if a product or service cannot break into a prospect’s consciousness, there is a low chance that success can be optimized, let alone occur. The way to break through is by tailoring a position, marketing a differentiated benefit, and specifying prospect targets.
Sales Strategies
How can we close more sales? What is the best way to sell the product? Who are the best people to approach? Are there additional channels and categories we should consider? How are we going to go after them? What will we say in our outreach and presentation? Is my team up to the task? How is the competition selling against us? How can we sell against them? Can referrals make a difference?
Many companies leave questions like these unconsidered and unanswered. They take orders instead of selling or doing what has always been done in the past, reluctant to blaze new trails or train their teams in different approaches. This can lead to disappointment, as they are outrun by companies that get it. Selling often begins at “No”.
Valuation Strategies
Business valuation multiples are set within a market-dictated industry range and generally applied to company EBITDA to determine a company's value.
The high end of the multiple range reflects best-in-class industry companies. The lowest end is reserved for companies with poor human, customer, structural, and social capital characteristics. In general, laggard companies are not salable to anyone.
Understanding and executing actions that can increase valuation multiples, as if a company ownership exit could occur at any time, should be an ongoing strategic priority, no matter the stage of a company’s development. This can lead to an exponentially higher price when a company sale ultimately occurs.
Our Expertise
Kingfisher, a marketing strategy consultant in Florida and a marketing strategy consultant in the Mid-Atlantic, helps Business Owners, primarily in Florida and the Mid-Atlantic, increase their profits and multiples using an immediately actionable, two-pronged approach. This approach covers business, marketing, sales, and valuation growth strategies.
Shep Burr, a proven business builder and Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), has to date helped 18 national (including publicly traded), regional, localized, and foreign Kingfisher clients spanning a wide range of industries.
These include consumer products, operations automation, homeland security, building materials manufacturing, identity verification, pet services, pension fiduciary, engineering, pharmacy prescription, information processing, cycling, hedge fund management, and hospitality sectors.
Kingfisher’s advice is direct and objective and aims to be immediately actionable. The results have been exciting.