Insights

Insights

Lessons From Experienced Buyers

In a previous post, I mentioned that a structured series of smaller acquisitions over time is often a wiser course of action than one larger, splashy purchase. An acquisition strategy built in this way has a lot of powerful advantages in growing your business over the long term, but today I want to talk about […]

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The Creative Approach

In the previous post in this series, I took a moment to warn against over-relying on Google and other public search engines in conducting market research. I suggest using the same caution regarding the industry use of paid databases. Like every other M&A firm, Stillwater sometimes uses paid databases—they offer enormous swaths of information on […]

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The Big Funnel

We start the Market Outreach Stage of the acquisition process with a list of prospects that in some way fit what you’re looking for. Your Advisors have done their work in the preparatory phase and have developed a good picture of you and your company—your acquisitional capabilities, what you’re looking for, and an idea of […]

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On Collaboration

Once the acquisition process begins, you’ll quickly discover that your new team of M&A Advisors are suddenly very present in the life of your company. Contact is almost daily; this team of recent strangers is asking questions and looking for information, and meetings are called. For the duration of the process, your advisors are just […]

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From Preparation To Outreach

If you’ve read Stillwater’s previous series on the Steps to Selling Your Business, you’ll know that the three-step process is the same for sellers and buyers. 1: THE PREPARATORY STAGE 2: THE MARKET OUTREACH STAGE 3: CLOSING Those who read that series will also know that, for the seller, the preparatory phase is a daunting […]

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Who Is Your Champion?

One guarantee that comes with choosing Stillwater Capital as your M&A Advisors: you will have astonishingly organized people working on your behalf. Some degree of organizational ability is necessary for anyone handling the myriad of moving parts involved in a successful acquisition, but at Stillwater, we look for the highest level of skill in everyone […]

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Don’t Bet The Farm

The overall goal of the Preparatory Stage of the 3-step acquisition process is to get your business ready to face the market, and to develop a clear idea of what you’re looking for. It’s demanding, and requires a lot of precise communication and analysis, but in some ways it’s also the most fluid step in […]

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Public or Private

In my last post, I discussed the high-value Stillwater places on highly adaptable people who can make smart decisions in real time. I call people like that situationally fluid. This skill set gives an advisor the power to change direction and tactics on a dime, to pivot as a situation demands. People who excel at […]

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Preparing For Scrutiny

So far, in this series, I’ve largely focused on the preliminary preparations you and your company can make before the formal process begins. I want to re-emphasize here that the most important preliminary step you can take is choosing the right M&A Advisors. They are a key factor in the transaction’s quality and the relative […]

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On Post-Deal Integration

In this post, I want to highlight a critical and often overlooked piece from the very end of the acquisition process that needs to be carefully considered from the beginning—Post-Deal Integration. When the ink has dried, and the keys are in your hand, how will you integrate the new business into the daily reality of […]

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Extension or Transformation

We continue to focus on the importance of the preparations you make before the formal acquisition process begins. Adopting the right mindset and making robust preliminary preparations sets you up for success in the end. In this post, I want to focus on another critical facet that you need to consider concerning your plans to […]

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What shade of yellow ?

When your advisors eventually turn their focus from internal discovery to market outreach later in the acquisition process, they will start to develop an initial longlist of potential candidates for acquisition. It will be a long list, too lengthy for you to scrutinize every prospect. However, if you were to review it, you would see, […]

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What Are You Looking For?

The whole act of buying a business hinges on finding the right one to buy. The company you acquire must align with your company’s mission, contribute to your strategy for the future, and tick other boxes unique to your needs and situation. In the early days of the three-step formal acquisition process—the preparatory phase, the […]

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Are You Future-Proof?

The initial posts in this series on the steps to buying a business outline the preparations you can make before the three-stage, formal acquisition process begins, along with the mindset you must adopt to achieve the best results. The formal process begins after you’ve engaged an M&A Advisor, but your preliminary preparation will give you […]

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One Question Is The Key To Everything

A tale of 2 companies – A North American management team and a European management team walk into an M&A Firm… It sounds like the start of the kind of bad joke that the keynote speaker tells at an industry conference, but it’s not. It’s the true story of two companies who came to Stillwater […]

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The Shopkeep And The Hunter: Two Mindsets

In the introductory blog to this series, I laid out why, in the process of buying a business, you should not do it alone. You need skilled, experienced M&A Advisors working with you at every stage of the 3-step process of buying a business: STEP ONE: PREPARATION STEP TWO: MARKET OUTREACH STEP THREE: CLOSING THE […]

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Bring the Right Advisors

Bring the Right Advisors If you and your management team’s strategic plan includes buying a business, you’re starting in a good place right here. In this space, I want to share some insights my team, and I have learned over years of walking our clients successfully through this process. I want to offer you some […]

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Steps to Selling a Business Series

Selling a business well is one of the most important milestones in the life of a business owner. Getting this wrong is like dropping the ball on the 1-yard line in the Super Bowl’s final seconds. Follow along with our Selling a Business series as we walk through the journey we take our clients on […]

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The Remedy to Risk

Risk in the Current Environment Risk, real and perceived, is a critical factor in M&A. Risk informs valuation and drives deal structure. The market today is full of risk. Factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, increases in interest rates, inflation, and global supply chain issues have created an unpredictable economic environment. Risk, left unattended, can […]

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Choose Well

Steps to Selling your Business Part 38. As we bring this exploration of the process of selling your business to an end, I want to reiterate the principle that will determine the quality of your success: YOU MUST CHOOSE THE RIGHT ADVISORS Fail at that, and you jeopardize the outcome of the entire sale. The […]

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The Purchase Agreement

Steps to Selling your Business Part 37. The purchase agreement is the kingpin of the sale process—a binding contract that will significantly impact the next stage of your life. Your Advisors must play a crucial role in shaping the final terms of the agreement to your advantage and have a responsibility to ensure they clearly […]

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Representations, Warranties, and Indemnifications

Steps to Selling your Business Part 36. A critical section of the Purchase Agreement outlines the representations, warranties, and indemnification limits. Get any of these wrong, and you could devalue your earn-out or potentially turn a great-looking sale into a personal disaster. Getting it right, though, requires experience and expertise —this is complex work. Before […]

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From Letter of Intent to Purchase Agreement

Steps to Selling your Business Part 35. The Closing Phase moves you from a completed Letter of Intent (LOI) through Due Diligence to the signing of the Purchase Agreement. By this point, your M&A Advisors should have a robust and well-crafted Letter of Intent secured and in your hands with the best buyer with the […]

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Negotiating Around Risk

Steps to Selling your Business Part 34. In a previous post, I explained that a great Advisor’s mission is to get the best deal for the seller in a form that also works for the buyer. We face a significant hurdle in helping your buyer accept risk, and we need to minimize the impact these […]

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Structuring Earnouts

Steps to Selling your Business Part 33. One of the critical components of this last stretch in selling your business centers around structuring how the purchase price will be paid. This post will cover a common and crucial component of many Letters of Intent—the Earnout. Most business sales must deal with the differences between how […]

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Two Foundations of Good Negotiation

Steps to Selling your Business Part 32. At this point in the sale of your business, you will have one or several Letters of Intent from interested buyers. When we work with clients, we do a lot of heavy lifting in thinking, analysis, explaining, and positioning. We have found that buyers respond very well to […]

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A View of the Finish Line

Steps to Selling your Business Part 31. Management visits are complete. You and your team of Advisors have stepped into the third and final phase in the sales process. Congratulations! Phase One – Preparation: you have provided your advisors with all the information needed to tell your business’s story. Phase Two – Market Outreach: all […]

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Choosing Buyers for your Shortlist pt.2

Steps to Selling your Business Part 30. In our last post we discussed creating your shortlist of buyers by eliminating prospects based on a lack of certainty of closing. Cutting those who aren’t as likely to close will save you a lot of otherwise wasted time.

The elimination process doesn’t end there. You will make further cuts as you apply the remaining three criteria: valuation, deal structure, and chemistry.

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Choosing Buyers for your Shortlist

Steps to Selling your Business Part 29. Last week we discussed how we continue the process of cutting the list of potential buyers. In terms of a shortlist, there isn’t a precise target, quota, or arbitrary goal, for example naming a top three or reducing your pool of candidates by half. Remember, you will be […]

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After the Dance

Steps to Selling your Business Part 28. Your Management Visits are over. You are sick of hotel boardroom coffee, dreaming in pre-scripted responses to questions about your run-rate analysis, and—if you’re like most—may feel a little exhausted, talked-out, and out of adrenaline.  These are signs of a robust and healthy round of Management Visits. After […]

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The End-Goals of Management Visits

Steps to Selling your Business Part 27. Before we move on to the next step in selling your business, I want to take a moment to consider the end goals of Management Visits. The first is to thin out the pack of prospective buyers. After these meetings, the people you move forward with will be […]

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Being Coachable

Steps to Selling your Business Part 26. There is one thing we require of our seller clients during the week of management visits: We ask them to be extremely coachable. It can be demanding (and possibly a little humbling), but I believe being coachable is a necessary component of creating the best outcome as you […]

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How Not to Derail a Management Visit

Steps to Selling your Business Part 25. Sellers can, at times, inadvertently sabotage their own progress during a management visit. Our team is skilled at managing any problems that may arise and work diligently to ensure our clients are successful. Below I outline four common missteps and how Advisors at Stillwater manage these.  MISSTEP ONE: […]

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Management Visits are Critical

Steps to Selling your Business Part 24. The management visit – the meeting between you and the shortlist of qualified buyers – is the highlight of the Market Outreach phase. A lot is riding on your success here. If you have done it properly, you should have confidence in every name on that shortlist of […]

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Narrowing the Field pt.2

Steps to Selling your Business Part 23. In my last post, I outlined our first step in cutting the extensive list of interested candidates down to a list of the highest-quality potential buyers through a request for a written Expression of Interest (EOI).  The EOI request quickly removes bargain hunters, value investors, and tire kickers from […]

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Narrowing the Field pt.1

Steps to Selling your Business Part 22. The Market Outreach Phase is an energizing time in the sale process. Lots of time has been spent researching and reaching out to a robust list of prospects. As I’ve discussed earlier, this is no small feat, so what needs to be done next might seem counterintuitive.  Here’s what […]

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Removing Obstacles

Steps to Selling your Business Part 21. Removing any obstacles that stand between you and the sale of your company is a key job for your M&A Advisors. Dealing with obstacles is a systematic process for a skilled team: Identify an obstacle Deploy the best strategic response to properly position it Anticipate future obstacles Prepare […]

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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 […]

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Trust is Everything

Steps to Selling your Business Part 19. Trust underpins the entire process of selling your business. Finding buyers that you can trust is our job as your Advisor; however, the buyer must trust both you and your Advisors as well.  On the subject of trust, we have two responsibilities:    1: We must communicate trustworthiness to our […]

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Protecting Your Name

Steps to Selling your Business Part 18. We can’t say this too strongly – you never want word of your company’s sale to be public knowledge – this is a private affair. Public knowledge of the sale can wreak havoc on the health of your business, attract vultures, and even interfere with getting the price […]

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Making Initial Contact

Steps to Selling your Business Part 17. We’ve previously discussed the Sale Book as being one of the end products in the Preparatory Phase. The Sale Book contains everything a potential buyer needs to know to decide if they are interested in your company or not. In essence, it’s your advertisement.  Although we may approach ten different companies with […]

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Who Are You Talking To?

Steps to Selling your Business Part 16. Previously, we introduced the task of developing and personalizing an initial list of potential buyers for your company. It’s not easy to do this well, and doing so is a mark of a great M&A Advisory team at work. Stillwater’s attention to detail on your custom-built buyer list […]

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Keep Your Sales in Focus

Steps to Selling your Business Part 15. When you start formally working with Stillwater to sell your company, there is something we ask you to do right away that will have significant consequences for you, particularly when you move into the Market Outreach stage. Keep your focus on your sales. We’re talking about making strong […]

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Setting the Pace for a Sale

Steps to Selling your Business Part 14. “How long does a sale process take?” an interviewer recently asked me. I answered, “that depends on how far back you want to put the starting line.”  So far in this series, we have focused our attention on the initial steps and work (Preparation) within the three-stage process […]

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Identifying the Perfect Buyer

Steps to Selling your Business Part 13. As you complete the preparation stage, momentum will begin to build and you will feel a sense of acceleration as you strain towards the finish line. It is time to showcase your business in the marketplace. Who do we show it to? Going to market is one of […]

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The Story We Will Tell

Steps to Selling your Business Part 12. So far in this series, we have looked in detail at the extensive preparation you must undertake with your M&A Advisors to get ready to sell your business. This is not easy work, and you may find yourself fatigued and tempted to rush things at this stage in […]

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What’s Your Downside? The Truth About Honesty

Steps to Selling your Business Part 11. When you tell your company’s story to prospective buyers, make sure you are not hiding anything. This is simple enough advice; most of us have had enough life experience to know that honesty truly is the best policy. There are checks, safeguards, and penalties in place against outright […]

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The Magic of Multiple Bids – No Regret Selling

Steps to Selling your Business Part 10. When new clients sit down with us for the first time, they have often already received an offer or have a particular buyer in mind. Having a single prospective buyer in mind makes the sale process look easy. Perhaps the buyer has already suggested a number, which sounds […]

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Are You Stealing From Yourself?

Steps to Selling your Business Part 9. An old friend once said something to me that I’ve never forgotten. It was a single sentence that immediately became part of my arsenal of practical wisdom. My friend is an accountant; at one point, he bought another accountant’s practice. This accountant had been struggling financially for 20 […]

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Canadian, Eh?

Steps to Selling your Business Part 8. If you have been reading this series so far, you know the importance that Stillwater places on understanding your business’s story when it comes to optimizing conditions for its sale. This understanding comes from observing the details and data points in your numbers and from examining your history […]