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Leadership: How to Make Your Company More Attractive to Buyers

By Generational Equity

10/17/2022

One of the most important intangible assets, those assets that make your company great (but most do not show up on your balance sheet), is LEADERSHIP.

Now you may find this statement a bit simplistic, and perhaps it is, but the reality is, as we have seen for decades, buyers invest in companies with a clear future and vision for growth. Leadership is key to both.

Recently, Brian Dodd, a well-known leadership consultant, released an article that discussed five ways that well-led companies shine, here they are in a nutshell:

How Leadership can make your company stand out to buyers in a crowded field:

  • Leaders Attract Other Leaders
  • Leaders Are Always Breaking New Ground
  • The Most Successful Organizations Have the Most Leaders
  • Growing Leaders Build Growing Organizations
  • Leaders Hold Everything Together

While each of these is vital, perhaps the most important is that leaders attract leaders, and really strong leaders attract…. you guessed it, really strong leaders!

This can’t be overly emphasized. The value of your company (or its premium compared to similar companies) can be summed up like this by many buyers: Who have you groomed to take the reins of your business when you exit (and yes, hate to tell you this, but eventually you will have to exit).

The biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs is hiring folks to take responsibilities away from them. This is natural given the fact that often successful entrepreneurs start their businesses from scratch, making all decisions for years, and have a hard time relinquishing control.

However, eventually, to grow from $5 million in revenue to $25 million and beyond, you need to create, develop, and mentor a management team. And your team should consist of strong leaders, folks who “push” you to become an even stronger leader yourself.

One of the reasons we created Generational Consulting Group (GCG) was to help businesses reach their potential since we found so many foundering, listless, with great ideas in the owner's head, but very little implementation, often due to an under-motivated managerial team. Our GCG team has been very successful over the years in helping business owners groom great teams for even greater success. Here are a few of their stories:

Now you may be an expert in your industry, having won awards and accolades, and you may be a fantastic entrepreneur, but if you have not attracted leaders to your company, and given them tools to grow (and fail), then you are missing out on the value of one of your most important intangible assets: Leadership!

Fortunately, Generational has a track record of preparing business owners for their exit journey, whether it be next year, five years from now, or even beyond. We stand ready to do the same for you. To learn more about our Growth and Exit Strategy program and how it can help you develop great leadership in your company, please contact us and we will have a confidential conversation with you about your options.

Carl Doerksen is the Director of Corporate Development at Generational Equity.

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