So, you’re expecting to sell your consultancy or technology services firm one day. Great. You’re in the right place – selling firms like yours is what we do! 

If you think you want to sell now, speak to one of our M&A experts. But, if you are expecting to complete a transaction in a year or two, or perhaps even further in the future, then planning for that event can’t start too soon. You need to be clear about how to grow a business that people really want to buy, or invest in, rather than growing one that is difficult to sell or that can’t achieve the value you want.  

When the time comes to sell there will be four* key questions you need to ask: 

1. Are the numbers there? 
   
2. Is the quality there? 
3. Are the buyers there? 
4. Is the value there? 

You obviously want the answer to all these questions to be “Yes” and, if they are not, you would be well-advised not to start a transaction process. Beginning a process that you can’t complete is not an experience you want to go through – it’s exhausting and damaging, and it will take you and your business some time to recover. 

Rather than discovering too late that the answers to these questions may not all be in the affirmative, it is much smarter to find out now, so that you have time to work on those things you can change in order to put yourself in the best position for success, or maybe even to wait until market conditions improve.

This is how it works: 

• You send us some data which we analyze 
• We review market activity and transactions in your space 
• We run a one-day workshop with you, which answers the key questions 
• We create a plan together 
• You execute the plan and we review progress with you
• When you’re ready, we take you to market
• We get you the best deal possible
  
  
   

A one-day workshop is the focal point of the review, and this is what we do on that day:

• We review your top-level metrics on finances, customers and people. We benchmark your business performance against what buyers see as being good. We know what buyers see as good because we talk to them all the time. 

• We review the quality of the business using our proprietary IP known as the Equity Growth Assessment. This contains some 50 questions that examine the business from a buyer or investor perspective to determine the level of risk that they would see in your ability to deliver future growth. The more risk they see, the lower their valuation. If they see too much risk, they may walk away from the deal. You don’t want either of these things to happen, so we uncover the risks now. The assessment is based on our Eight Levers of Equity Growth. We have run it over 700 times. It works! 
  
  
• We review the groups of buyers and investors who would be interested in your business. We discuss why they might buy you, how they might structure a deal, and what it would be like working with them. 
  
  
• We tell you what we think your business is worth (which always generates a lot of interest!) and what needs to happen to improve the valuation. 
  
  
• While we are looking together at the numbers, the business quality, who might buy you and for how much, lots of issues surface and we distill these into a prioritized action plan. Using our experience and knowledge we facilitate and help guide this so that we know the plan is robust and will really address the most critical issues. 

Our Strategic Review process helps you create the transaction strategy needed to ensure your business is in the best possible position for the right investment with the right company, with a deal structured in the optimum way. We get fantastic feedback from clients who do this with us – our Net Promoter Score is over 90, an almost unbelievable score – and we’d love to discuss with you how it might help you on your journey, so please contact us and we’ll set up a call.

 *In fact there are five questions! The additional question is, are all the shareholders aligned around a common view? Do they want to sell, and if so when, and for how much, and to whom? This is such a fundamental question that we should probably call it the zeroth question! Don’t worry though, we address this in our preparation for the Strategic Review as well, and if it’s an issue, we’ll help you resolve it before going to market.

Hear what our clients have to say about their experience of the Strategic Review...

Business Consultancy Client:  “Thank you again for the strategic review. I guess the team was a bit skeptical at the start but then your workshop and reports just blew them away. "

Financial Services Client: "We have used the Review output as out action plan for the last 18 months. It was an exceptional exercise and gave us confidence and clarity on concrete, next steps." 

Business Consultancy Client: "You Identified the nub of the issue pretty much immediately, along with a way to progress the improvements. This extensive, relevant experience brought to like the analysis & conclusions." 

Technology Services Client: "Using the Equiteq methodology has enabled us to build the market-leading boutique Salesforce Consultancy in Europe." 

This article was updated in April 2024, and was based on an original blog post published in June 2023.