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Knowing When to Sell?

Written by: Nicholas Fraser

Article Overview: One of my roles as a Mentor is to ask the BDQ – Bloody Difficult Question. And the real lulu of a question at the moment is “What the heck are you doing this for?” Surviving is hard enough but it is very painful working with clients and seeing them struggling on to keep the business running no matter what. The pain they are feeling is visible and so there are times when I as the Business Mentor have to call as it is.

Knowing When to Sell?

One of my roles as a Mentor is to ask the BDQ – Bloody Difficult Question. And the real lulu of a question at the moment is “What the heck are you doing this for?”

Surviving is hard enough but it is very painful working with clients and seeing them struggling on to keep the business running no matter what. The pain they are feeling is visible and so there are times when I as the Business Mentor have to call as it is.

Is there light truly at the end of the tunnel?

Are you really suited to run this business in these conditions?



Have you got the cash now and are you prepared to mortgage your future to keep this business afloat?



This just is not working and no matter what you do it’s not going to get better; so when are you going to accept the reality?



SME businesses and their owners in my experience invariably have succeeded in spite of themselves and not because of themselves. When times get tough this skill and resource gap becomes really evident. Telling people they need to stop and sell up is not the easiest of roles. In fact I do not know do that per se. I enable them to review the situation in a detached frame and get them to come to the conclusion on their own.

Invariably there is a heavy set of denial involved and also a fair degree of guilt. What I try to do is get them to focus on what they are good at and getting the business into the hands of those who might make more of it than they ever could. I have been doing just this exercise with one of my clients this month.

My client has been struggling for a number of years to get the business on track. He did an MBO in the mid 90’s and business was very good for a number of years but in the 2003/4 things changed and various problems hit the business including a legal dispute over rents due. That and a downturn in business led to him putting the business in a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) 18 months ago; this is an agreement with the company and its creditors to write off some debts and pay back the outstandings over a period of time. This helped in the short term especially as he got some good contracts shortly afterwards. But it did not attack the real issue; namely my clients innate ability to manage the business to growth and profitability. I have tried to help but the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

What he did have was a good brand name, a good set of blue chip clients and a recurring revenue stream. But he was faced with cash flow and credit restrictions due to the CVA and his lack of skills to run the business profitably in these tough times. Eventually we agreed that he and the business would be better as part of another group. I therefore helped him construct a mini prospectus and approached one of his main competitors. We are now in advanced discussions about merging the business into the larger one and ensuring my clients position in the new group. Hopefully this will work out well for all parties. Should we have done this earlier; probably but then knowing when to sell and accepting the reality is just not that easy. But certainly having an independent ear helped in making the decision.

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Re: How do you maximize your time at business/networking events? - Hy Kevin. I think everyone is focused on those persons who can help business to grow but i consider it necessary to constantly meet new people and make new connections. Knowing more people, means more exposure for your business and you never know when you will need their services.
Your advantage over others - Sell using your USP - unique selling proposition. Why should people buy from you, instead of your competitors? Think about it, why are you so great? It may be a hard question, but finding the answer can multiply the effectiveness of any advertising or marketing activities you undertake.
Re: When do entrepreneurs retire, if ever? - Why would you ever retire when you love what you are doing? Sell the business and start another one maybe - but retire - NEVER! You should all read, The 4 Hour Work Week - By Timothy Ferris. He talks about building your business so that you can take mini 'retirement's throughout your life, instead of saving it all up for when you are old. Great concept - what do you think??
Affiilate Products - Knowing what you are trying to sell would be helpful. What sort of promotion have you tried -- in detail? I wouldn't jump into a big expensive ad. If the things you are doing isn't working on a smaller scale, they probably won't work on a big high dollar scale either. Why not give us your website address and we can take a look. There is plenty of money to be made in affiliate marketing, but it takes time, it takes trial and error and you have to evaluate what you're doing and make the needed changes to have an effective program. Shri
Re: SES Toronto - Day 1! - ...oh and even though it's 21 secrets, why do you have [quote:1gz722fe]Tip #22: Use Your Thank You Page to Sell[/quote:1gz722fe] on your blog? Are you holding out on secrets or are you adding your own? Hope to see you at the next conference!


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