Risk & Business Magazine McFarlan Rowlands Fall 2016 | Page 28

MAKING YOUR COMPANY SELLABLE

Making Your Company
More Sellable
See If Your Company Meets The Criteria
“IF YOU ARE
WONDERING HOW
YOU ARE GOING TO
ACHIEVE ALL OF THESE
GREAT THINGS WITH
YOUR BUSINESS, YOU
PROBABLY DON’T
HAVE THE RIGHT
MANAGEMENT TEAM.”
28

|

FALL 2016

O

ver the years I have met
many entrepreneurs
who hope to sell their
companies. Some built
their companies to sell
from day one. Others built lifestyle
businesses and are just ready to move
on. The big thing to remember when
selling your business is that if it’s not
valuable to you, it won’t likely be valuable
to someone else either, especially if the
entrepreneur can’t step out upon sale.

There are certain criteria you have to
meet if you want to make your company
sellable. In doing research for his new

book, Finish Big, Inc. Editor and best
selling author Bo Burlingham surveyed
dozens of entrepreneurs who’d exited
and found that about half were happy
at the end of the process and half were
miserable. One of the key factors in
determining how satisfied they were
had to do with their success--or lack
of success--in building a sellable
business. So what makes a company
sellable? Burlingham highlights the
groundbreaking work that exit guru John
Warrillow has done with his company
TheSellabilityScore.com. Warrillow
surveyed entrepreneurs and private
equity investors and identified eight key