What is Your Business Really Worth?
It’s normal to get excited about your first business. You proceed to buy some fancy furniture, set up a nice waiting room, revamp the office and equip it with the latest gadgets, or even place some expensive action figurines to brag. You would think that, at some point, these details might truly help jump start your venture.
The sad reality is that it doesn’t really matter how much you invested in a company. Assets are not what determines the true value of a company, otherwise, you’d just be selling a good-looking establishment.
A business’s worth is determined after an arduous and exhaustive business valuation. New York City business brokers who are worth their buck will ask for financial statements, balance sheets, cash flow data, and a plethora of records in order to get a hint of the company’s profitability and growth potential. Contrary to what many would believe, these are highly objective metrics that will ultimately make a huge difference in a given business valuation.
New York City, despite its shortcomings, has one of the most competitive business-selling markets in the country. Hence, It takes a lot more than just showing furniture and gadgets in order to make a good sale. Even If you had all the trappings of a successful company, if you can’t manage to demonstrate your success with tangible financial data, no serious investor will show interest in what you have to offer.
What Actually Affects Business Valuations NYC
A detailed business valuation would take into account both internal and external data.
In terms of internal data, revenue is an important indicator, but not just revenue in and of itself. A company’s potential is truly manifest whenever there is recurrent revenue or revenue growth.
However, we should not overlook other factors such as market share, sales pipeline, customer portfolio, organization, and, yes, even infrastructure and assets (though they’re not decisive factors by a long shot!) Think of these factors as levers. The value you’ll get will be determined by how you go about moving those levers. This analogy will hopefully draw a more comprehensive picture of how you’re supposed to understand the term “value” in this context.
It’s true that market sentiment plays a big role in driving the price of your venture to interesting levels. Most people inside the markets are amateurs and not very savvy at measuring raw data, and there is a sweet spot wherein emotion can push the levers described earlier, albeit just slightly.
Some would take the extreme view that a company is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it, just as with any other asset. This is not entirely inaccurate, though there is some truth to that statement. Valuation is oftentimes performed using relative methods that look at the value of recent business sales for reference. This comparative assessment could be dangerous if not coupled with other variables, though.
Don’t perform a DIY business valuation. New York City is filled with competent business brokerage firms that could offer an honest evaluation of your company’s value and provide counsel throughout every stage of your negotiations with potential investors.
Read MoreHow To Increase Your Business Value
Many household owners would revamp their homes prior to their sale in order to increase the value and generate much higher returns, Businesses are no different in principle, though the methods are a bit more complex and you need to be able to simultaneously tackle many fronts.
How To Increase Your Company’s Value Before Business Valuation New York City
Business valuation is one of the first milestones in the process of selling a business. The results of this valuation, though, hinges upon your ability to boost your venture’s worth before the business agent can move forward to analyzing spreadsheets and financial statements.
You may find these recommendations useful before getting started:
1. CONSULT AN AGENT
A good business broker should be able to assist you in this regard. Business brokers who excel at business valuations NYC and elsewhere ought to be able to provide tips to heighten your profit beforehand so that the fair value of your company increases without having to make up numbers, hence giving you a better return on investment as you seal the deal with the buyer.
2. RECORD ALL YOUR PROFITS
It’s very tempting for many business owners to slide cash into their pockets and elude the taxable event. When you get paid in cash, you may want to record that sale and pay the respective tax, as that will undoubtedly improve your business valuation. NYC is known for being a “fiscal hell”, but we can assure you that you’ll fare better registering all your sales in the long run, as the broker is able to come up with much higher price tags with verifiable data to back it up.
3. Create an improvement plan
It doesn’t work to simply abandon your business operations as you plan on selling. It’s always crucial that you show interest in the outcomes of your company, even at this stage, so that the prospective buyer can envision a smooth operational transition and be more enticed to carry on with the negotiation.
For this purpose, you’d still want to make investments and improvements in the operational side of things to showcase your company’s worth more tangibly.
4. CUT DOWN UNNECESSARY EXPENSES
Buyers do not care about convenience expenses. In fact, they would love to have expenses cut down to only the essentials. You could probably do away with those subscriptions that ultimately don’t add that much value and could become a hindrance down the road.
5. Boast
It’s not a bad thing to boast about your company’s unique perks and features that separates it from the competition. Your broker can take advantage of these perks to boost the business valuation. New York City has a very competitive market and it’s important to be able to stand out from the crowd.
For example, if you own a guitar shop, you could highlight how you may offer some unique sets of strings or a free tutorial/installation job included in every purchase. Even the most trivial difference (such as opening on weekends) can make or break a business valuation (NYC business valuations especially).
Read MoreLegal Mistakes That Business Sellers Need To Avoid
In the process of selling a business, sellers will encounter a variety of hurdles. Most of these relate to paperwork, proper business valuation, New York City‘s taxation system (which is far more burdensome than that of most US cities), among others.
The amount of work that needs to be done can understandably intimidate any business owner with no prior experience in selling a business.
The worst part is that skipping any of these tasks will potentially have the owner immersed in serious difficulties and his/her credibility will also get harmed along the way. For this reason, it’s very important to get acquainted with all the stages of the process.
MISTAKES THAT BUSINESS SELLERS NEED TO AVOID
Among some of the most common mistakes that sellers make and must be avoided, we include the following:
1. NOT HIRING PROFESSIONAL HELP:
In the process of selling a business, you would need to rely on the work of qualified professionals that can handle things such as paperwork, taxes, banking, and business valuation. NYC is packed with lots of options in terms of brokers, attorneys, real estate agents, accountants, and bankers to get your sale fast-tracked.
The amount of competition in all these fields should also ensure that you get affordable rates to have these tasks done for you, within certain parameters. Nonetheless, make sure that you don’t just hire the cheapest professionals, for they may cause more trouble than they solve.
2. PERFORMING INCORRECT BUSINESS VALUATIONS (NYC BUSINESS BROKERS SHOULD PERFORM THESE TASKS)
Getting professional help is key to getting a more accurate business valuation. NYC business brokers ought to have the necessary pedigree and resources to calculate your business’s worth, but you’d have to play your role as an owner by providing the required financial documentation.
In order to perform correct business valuations, New York City brokers will make a series of calculations based on various metrics obtained from the company’s financial statements and spreadsheets, as well as the local market conditions. This is usually done with the aid of an accountant or accounting partner.
3. LACK OF PRIVACY CONCERNS
Privacy is one of the most overlooked aspects of business selling on the part of business owners. Making your sale publicly known could affect your venture in a variety of ways. You wouldn’t want your competition or your employees to know that you’re planning to sell.
Business brokers are versed in many strategies devised to protect the privacy of the sale. One of them consists of drafting non-disclosure agreements that potential buyers would have to sign before the details of the company are revealed to them.
4. SKIPPING LETTER OF INTENT
Out of fear of losing a potential buyer, business owners neglect to get a letter of intent signed by the interested parties. This may make you lose a bit more time in the selling process, but you’ll possibly waste much more from dealing with prospective investors who don’t take the sale seriously and who feel they can simply back down from the deal with no repercussions.
Read More
