What is Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset?

By Generational Equity

07/05/2022

This is a question that every business owner needs to consider, especially as one approaches the market for a buyer; because buyers will ask you this and you need to be ready with a good answer!

Let’s face it, no matter what industry you are in – if you manufacture, retail, wholesale, consult, distribute, fabricate, develop, etc. – your most valuable asset is not you, your leases, your designs, your location… It is always the same:

Your People!

Remember as we have said before, buyers are buying your FUTURE not your PAST…

And the team you have developed will play a critical role in your business achieving its future.

Far too often when we ask business owners to provide us a list of key employees and a description of what they do, the bio of the owner is significantly longer than any of the bios of the key team members. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your career and what you have accomplished. But from a buyer’s perspective, the future of your business absent of you, is going to be driven by the team’s skills, not yours.

Before you consider approaching buyers with your company, it would be wise to conduct a skills audit of your organization. This will allow you to determine where the weaknesses are in your team and what can be done to improve them.

Our professional consulting team with Generational Consulting Group has extensive experience in conducting these audits and helping our clients achieve significant operational improvements. Here is what a few of our clients have to say about the GCG approach to building buyer-ready businesses:

• The Nicklaus Companies
• Upstate Refractory
• Ricardo Beverly Hills
• Over Under Clothing

The importance of knowing your organization’s strengths and, more importantly, its weaknesses cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, in most cases, these audits are very hard for you to do on your own because you are so very close to your company, and you will either go to one of two extremes: Seeing only the negatives OR seeing only the positives. Either way, you lose.

Far better to hire an experienced M&A advisory firm that can be with you every step of your exit journey from the inception of the idea to the completion of the path. To learn more about how we can help you understand, value, grow, and develop your most valuable business assets (people), reach out to us via our website or call us at 972-232-1121 and we can confidentially begin a dialogue regarding your company and its future.

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

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