You can manage the sale of your business on your own, but should you? The buyer is going to have a highly experienced team on its side. When they sit across from you at the negotiation table, they’ll be armed with years of expertise in the form of business advisors and attorneys. Do you really want to be a part of such a one-sided sale? You deserve the skill and experience of a third-party M&A advisor. Here are five reasons to consider working with an experienced M&A advisory firm:
An Advisor Can Insulate Your Management Team
Selling a company is a monumental task, and a full-time job in its own right. A third-party advisory firm insulates your management team and you from the process so you can remain focused on running the company, so that profits do not suffer.
Offer Insight and Expertise
When you’re pursuing a sale, you do not know what you do not know. This makes it nearly impossible to access the information you need, and puts you at a significant disadvantage for the entire process. The M&A journey is long and nuanced, demanding expert insight. An advisor guides you through the process, warning you of common pitfalls, asking sound questions, providing guidance, and helping you execute a successful deal with the most favorable terms on the shortest possible timeline.
Protect the Buyer-Seller Relationship
Negotiations are tough and stressful. After all, your business is like your child, and no one likes for their child to be criticized or devalued. Selling is emotional for all parties, and involves a lot of hopes, dreams, and of course, money. An M&A advisor acts as a middle person who can be diplomatic with both sides, taking the emotion out of the deal and helping everyone involved calmly assess and assert their own interests. Not only does this decrease the odds of the relationship going south; it also prevents stress from becoming a major deterrent to the deal.
Intelligently Evaluate the Deal
It’s hard to objectively evaluate your own business, especially when there’s money at stake. Just as an accountant offers an objective perspective on your taxes, an advisor instills confidence and a sense of objectivity. If there’s an issue later, your advisor offers some reassurance that you adequately vetted the opportunity. An advisor also offers reassurance to the other side, showing that you’re committed to an above-board sale.
Create a Competitive Process
For most sellers the price they can obtain for their businesses is the most important element in selling. M&A advisors create a competitive process by researching and identifying the most likely suitors, soliciting interest from multiple parties, and managing a formal, structured and competitive auction process. By virtue of receiving competitive bids, the values are often driven higher and the advisor can help evaluate just how much latitude there may be for further negotiations. Absent this competitive process offering competing bids, a seller is at the mercy of accepting at face value that any offer being received is competitive.
Still not sure? Then begin your advisor interview by asking the advisor for a specific plan for how they can help you. You might be surprised by how much they can offer.
ABOUT WINDWARD ADVISORS
Windward Advisors, LLC is a sell-side, buy-side, capital raise, and corporate growth advisory firm. Windward specializes in helping business owners better prepare their businesses, with the intention of increasing shareholder value by providing strategic planning and corporate growth advisory services, and by representing owners in the execution of sales, acquisitions, and financial structuring transactions. Windward is an advocate of ensuring that business owners are knowledgeable about their alternatives and we work closely with other trusted advisors to assist owners with properly preparing before pursuing transactions.
Steve Howell showell@towindward.com or Barry Johnson bjohnson@towindward.com
Managing Directors
(804) 784-7191
MR. HOWELL AND MR. JOHNSON ARE REGISTERED REPRESENTATIVES OF, AND SECURITIES PRODUCTS AND INVESTMENT BANKING SERVICES ARE OFFERED THROUGH BA SECURITIES, LLC, MEMBER FINRA SIPC. WINDWARD ADVISORS, LLC IS A SEPARATE ENTITY FROM BA SECURITIES, LLC. WINDWARD ADVISORS, LLC AND BA SECURITIES, LLC ARE NOT AFFILIATED ENTITIES.