Four Ways To Increase The Value Of Your Business

Written By Hanneke Antonelli

As a certified exit planner and award-winning business coach, I’m here to help clients not only build highly profitable companies - but I’m also on a mission to ensure that clients set themselves up for success down the line. If you’ve landed here you’re most likely looking to exit your company, either by retiring or selling your company. Congratulations, what an exciting time. You may also be at a loss as to where to start. So in this article, I’m sharing four ways that you can increase the sales value of your company.

This is a follow-up to my article “Why value is more important than profit,” we discussed why value is more important than profit. We did a quick overview of the multiplier range that a business will be assigned depending on the size, industry, and certain company aspects.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:
- Four Ways to Increase The Value of Your Business
- How can I start working on these four factors?
- How can we work together?

The content we’ll cover today is what brokers and industry experts look at when assigning multipliers.

Four Ways to Increase The Value of Your Business

As I mentioned in my article Why value is more important than profit, you can’t control the multiplier range assigned to your business. You can, however control where you fall within that range by concentrating on what the Exit Planning Industry refers to as the four C’s.

And those four C’s are:

Human Capital:

Investing in skilled employees who know the ins and outs of your business and are given autonomy over specific projects is key to improving the value of your business.

Having key players who can run your business without you means that your business is more likely to succeed if you were to sell it to someone else, making a company more desirable from an investment and buyer’s point of view.

Customer Capital:

Buyers and investors specifically look at the concentration of your customer base: i.e., does most of your revenue come from two or three customers, or do you have a wide customer base?

Next, who’s running those relationships? If the relationships are mostly held/handled by the business owner, that increases the risk of a successful business transition.

And finally, what kind of customer contracts are in place with your clients and customers?

Structural Capital:

This refers to the infrastructure of the business. What processes and systems have been developed? Has everything been documented into clearly defined SOPs for all areas of your business?

Social Capital:

This refers to your business brand and the perception of your business to the outside world, as well as your company's culture. It involves everything from the daily operations of your business, and how your team works together, to the way you communicate with your clients.

Think Apple, Google, and Gucci - these are all strong brands. When you hear the name of the company it immediately condors up certain thoughts and perceptions.

The great news is that you’re probably already working on improving all of the above in your business because doing so is considered a good business strategy.

And now you have more motivation to keep improving all of the above areas as it will not only lead to higher profits and higher value but investing in the above factors will also give you more freedom.

The good news is that all of the above is what you would in any case focus on to build an efficient and profitable business that can run without your constant involvement.

How can I start working on these four factors?

As a busy entrepreneur it’s easy to push the above factors aside to focus on more pressing matters that arise daily. That’s why it’s important to set aside dedicated time and prioritize working on these strategies. The best way to do so — well, before you ever think about selling or retiring - is to hire a business coach and consultant. This will save you lots of time and money in the future and ensure that you will get the best sale price and smoothest exit possible - without having to scramble when it’s time to retire or sell.

Want to work with an award-winning business coach and certified exit planner?

I have helped many clients to scale companies, ensuring they also focus on the four C’s above. Click here to see how I have helped them and let’s schedule a call to discuss how I can help you as well.

Hanneke sitting on a chair at a coaching panel for Best of Boston.

How can we work together?

If you liked what you read here, and you’re curious to learn more about business coaching, you might also like this other article I wrote: How can a business coach help me?

And here are a few more ways you can get more support from me to become the best entrepreneur you can be:

Hanneke Antonelli
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