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50 Ways To Leave Your Love

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1. Sell or give your company to a family member

2. Sell your business to one or more key employees

3. Sell to your employees(ESOP)

4. Sell your business to other shareholders

5. Sell to an outside third party

6. Bring in an investor but keep a minority interest

7. Go public

8. Hire a management team to take over and become a passive owner, or

9. Liquidate your business

Determining exactly which option is right for you is a challenge that many business owners put off until it is too late. Opportunities pass with time. If you wish to "leave your business on your terms and on your time table," you need to be proactive about understanding your exit options.

We recommend that you follow a four-step process to determine which exit option is best for you. This process will ensure that your exit options are consistent with your personal goals and take into account the realities of your company and the marketplace.

Choosing a Path

Step One: Set Personal Goals. You need to identify your most important objectives; both in terms of financial goals ("How much money do I need from the exit to ensure my family's financial security?") and in terms of non-financial goals ("I want the company to stay in my family," or "I want to my key employees to be rewarded during the exit"). Establishing well defined and written objectives is the first step in the exit planning process. Doing so in advance of your exit gives you and your advisors the time necessary to make your goals a reality.

Step Two: Make Sure Goals are Consistent. With the help of your advisors you need to determine whether your goals are consistent with each other. Very often this is not the case. For example, many business owners want to receive all cash at closing when they exit their business. At the same time the owner may want to transfer the business to a family member or a key employee. Unfortunately, these two goals may be mutually exclusive. Family members and key employees often do not have sufficient capital to structure a transaction this way. A great deal of stress and heartache can be avoided by addressing these kind of issues early in the process.

Step Three: Understand Value and Salability Issues. Once you have defined a set of consistent objectives, you need to understand the market value and salability of your company. This analysis is important in that it will provide you with further direction and can eliminate certain exit options.

For example, if the value of your company is below what you feel you need to support a comfortable lifestyle after your exit, you may decide to take some time to enhance the value of your business or to do further financial planning to ensure you clearly understand your financial needs.

In addition to understanding the value of your company you also need to understand how salable your business is. Value and salability are not always the same. Salability determines how quickly a business will sell and how much leverage a business owner will have when negotiating with a buyer. Salability depends to a large extent on external market conditions. External conditions are things that are out of your direct control like business, market or financial conditions. For example, the option of selling your business for cash to an outside buyer may be eliminated because of a downturn in your business or industry.

We recommend that you work with an investment banking firm to determine the value and salability of your company. Only an investment bank that is actively talking with buyers can give you an accurate read of the marketplace and a "real world" sense of the value and salability of your company.

Step Four: Understand Tax and Legal Implications. The final step in determining the best exit path for you is to a path is to evaluate the tax and legal consequences of the exit options that are available to you. This evaluation will include factors such as legal structure of your business entity, how its ownership is structured, exiting legal agreements, as well as any changes that must be made. For example, if a transaction involves a sale of assets and the company is a "C" corporation, there would be significant adverse tax consequences. Good advice from your CPA and attorney can help minimize the taxes you would otherwise have to pay.

Using this four-step process, you will be able to narrow the list of exit routes to determine which one is best for you. The important thing is to start early.

50 Ways To Leave Your Love

Enhance your professional image

1 - Look professional and as BIG as large corporations.

2 - Pre-sell yourself to new clients even before you meet them.

3 - Supply a meaningful and intuitive address related to your type of service. It is easier to remember www.websitename.com rather than a long ISP email address such as 'www.yourInternetServiceProvidername.com/~websitename'.

4 - Provide a permanent address with up-to-date contact details and opening hours. You can change Internet Service Provider or move physical premises and your customers will always find you and your marketing efforts are not lost.

Boost confidence in your business

5 - Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise with tips, articles and editorials.

6 - Build your credibility by displaying awards and providing testimonials.

7 - Encourage potential clients. A free web hosting address can look dubious and show less commitment to your business.

8 - Give staff details to humanise your business, to show that you are 'real' people.

9 - Provide background information on your business.

Provide current and useful information

10 - Publish a catalogue or portfolio of your products and services.

11 - Inform your visitors about the benefits and applications of your products.

12 - Categorise information according to target audiences. For example, discuss benefits of a dishwasher to potential buyers and give installation instructions to installers.

13 - Arrange table of comparisons of product specifications and prices to help your client's decision making.

14 - Publish a newsletter.

15 - List upcoming products, services, events.

Increase sales

16 - Sell directly to customers without middlemen.

17 - Take orders when clients are ready.

18 - Generate extra income with affiliate programs and sponsorships.

19 - Sell advertising space e.g. banners.

20 - Provide enrolment forms and applications for membership.

Save on operational costs

21 - Open your shopfront extended hours - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - at no extra cost.

22 - Produce high-impact online coloured brochures that would be too expensive to print.

23 - Save printing and mailing costs on newsletters, brochures and reports.

24 - Update information regularly without incurring printing costs.

25 - Save time on phone calls by providing answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).

26 - Advertise your job vacancies.

27 - Shorten your sales cycle by streamlining your operations.

Expand your client base

28 - Expand your reach to new global markets.

29 - Collect names and addresses using viral marketing e.g. 'Tell a friend'.

30 - Send special reports to visitors who provide you with their contact details.

31 - Link with suppliers, clients or complementary businesses to attract more traffic to your website.

32 - Increase client base with special offers and newsletter subscriptions.

Implement promotional activities

33 - Link offline and online advertising and promotion to feed on each other.

34 - Use email marketing and save on direct mailing costs.

35 - Experiment with new promotional ideas and measure their effectiveness.

36 - Create loyalty programs for repeat clients e.g. vouchers, special offers.

Create a favourable public image

37 - Provide a list of links to promote your partners and associations.

38 - Promote your community spirit and involvement.

39 - Publicise your environmentally friendly practices.

40 - Provide a press media kit.

Improve your level of customer service

41 - Display your policies and warranties.

42 - Maintain visibility with regular email invitations to view new online information or promotion.

43 - Provide a user guide with a trouble-shooting section.

44 - Allow your customers to view and change their account details and pay invoices.

45 - Improve your after-sales service with follow ups and feedback forms.

46 - Archive information. You can make available past issues of newsletters and user guides of dated products.

Obtain information for market research

47 - Collect information from visitors (e.g. age group, preferences).

48 - Gather information from suggestion forms to develop new products or improve existing ones.

49 - Test and evaluate new products without spending big dollars.

50 - Use surveys to obtain primary data for researches and reports.

Extra Tips

Use multiple domain (or subdomain) names to differentiate products and services, measure promotion effectiveness and attract more traffic to your website. For example, www.product1.com, www.product2.com and www.service1.com could all point towards the same website.

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About Author

Both Richard Jackim & Henriette Martel are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Richard Jackim has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Education and Search Engine Marketing. . Richard Jackim's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.

Henriette Martel has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Marketing and Computers and The Internet. Henriette Martel is a website strategist, author of and director of the. Henriette Martel's top article generates over 1300 views. to your Favourites.

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