Insights

Bring Your “A” Game

Steps to Selling your Business Part 20.

Getting the attention of prospective buyers isn’t easy. Once we have the ear of decision-makers, we have a small window of time to pique their interest. 

We’re careful not to waste those moments; we have our “A” Game ready to deploy while that window is open.

So, what is Stillwater’s “A” Game when it comes to selling your business?

The way Stillwater designs and formats a Sale Book is one part of our “A” Game. A decade ago, a typical Sale Book was an unwieldy beast, more like a phone book than a pitch. There were 300 words of text on every page, with tiny, inscrutable charts and graphs peppered liberally throughout the many pages. No one could question the thoroughness of the document, but it didn’t scream, “I need this company.” 

At Stillwater, we asked ourselves: what do we do with material like this when it crosses our desks? We didn’t read it, and we knew nobody else did, either. As such, we redesigned our approach to the Sale Book to ensure that potential buyers would see the value in reading them. 

The challenge we face is to get as much good information in front of a buyer as possible in the most attractive, economic, and digestible format.

We take great care in crafting our Sale Books. We minimize the words on a page, and what is there is included on purpose. We use visual representation and infographics to encode as much information as possible for easy intake and memorability.

Our slide decks use the same carefully calibrated design approach as the Sale Book – highly comprehensible, information-dense visuals, and high-impact messaging to get our point across.

We capitalize on a buyer’s attention and offer a straightforward summary of each information point at a glance. 

We try to anticipate the questions a particular buyer will ask and prepare solid responses in advance. Before the question gets asked, a slide is ready and waiting with their concerns already addressed. 

Our “A” Game is compelling information about our client’s business that is highly understandable and built to grab attention quickly. It is concise communication from Advisors who know their client’s story intimately and can extract and deliver the right parts, at the right time, for maximum effect.

When you are selling your business you have to be ready. When you have gained that fleeting moment of a buyer’s attention, you have to capitalize on the opportunity to make that buyer stop for a moment and say, “Wait… tell me more.”

And then, tell them more.


If you are planning to divest your business or have questions for one of our Advisors, please contact our team today.

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Written by: Douglas Nix