While there are a myriad of exciting reasons business owners decide to sell—retirement, pursuit of other ventures—the transition process can be tedious and not even end up working out. According to multiple studies, 50-90% of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) fail. Fortunately, you can help ensure the success of your sale with strategic exit planning. Take it from the beloved history-maker Benjamin Franklin who said “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” 
What Do Buyers Look at When Considering Buying a Company?
To understand the attractiveness of a company for sale, let’s first look at the company from the lens of the potential buyer. The financial health and wellbeing are the most obvious aspects of the company that get evaluated, but there’s so much more than that. Growth potential – The growth potential of a business plays a major role in its value. Buyers will examine market trends, the competition and potential areas for expansion, such as new products or services, to look for opportunities to increase profit once they take the wheel. Brand and reputation – Reputation and brand image are critical, as buyers don’t want the new business to tarnish their own reputation. If they don’t like what they see, they’ll look away. Customer base – Buyers want a loyal and diversified customer base. They’ll look at customer demographics, retention rates and any customer concentration risks. Understanding the items buyers look at helps lay the foundation for proper exit planning – a process that needs to be started at least two to three years before you plan to leave. And, after that, the sale process itself can take another year. (See Exit Strategist David Shavzin’s article: Selling My Business) The secret that seasoned business owners—and sellers—know is that a well-rounded plan starts with a marketing strategy. Marketing increases sales, brand awareness and authority, all of which maximize the value of your company. All too many times exit planning advisors have seen business owners not wanting to spend the money on marketing efforts before leaving. But sellers hit a roadblock when would-be buyers inquire about their marketing plan and they have nothing to say.
Top Marketing Strategies to Create Impact
When it comes to getting top dollar, the question surrounds how you can distinguish your business to appeal to the right buyer. This is where marketing and demand generation efforts enter the stage. In the simplest of terms, demand gen is used to increase awareness of your product or service, or even more simply generate demand. Under the support of marketing experts, there are several effective strategies you can execute to raise the value of your business and appear very appetizing to buyers.
Know Your Customer and What They Want
Potential buyers aren’t going to be as interested in your business if they don’t see organic demand. How do you generate demand? You have to be in front of your target audience, they have to know who you are. As the very first step, you have to determine who would benefit from your product and what their pain points are. You need to know who you are trying to sell to and why. Once you figure that out, you can use the other strategies listed to reach your customers. You can lead more effective campaigns focusing on the preferences and needs of your targeted group using brand messaging they can relate to. 
For an example of an epic fail due to lack of customer understanding, look no further than eBay’s $2.6 billion flop in September of 2005. eBay acquired Skype under a misguided assumption that Skype would improve the auction site by offering users a better platform for communicating. What their CEO didn’t account for was the fact that users actually prefer anonymity – it’s one of the draws of the site. After users failed to adopt the new feature after a few years, eBay sold it to a group of private investors for a loss of $700 million. While not Skype’s fault, the lesson is that the misevaluation of customer wants and needs will quite literally cost you. And it’s a lesson business owners can learn from when exit planning. If you fail to understand who keeps the lights on, a buyer isn’t going to spend the time trying to. Being able to demonstrate that you can hand over everything the new owner needs to hit the ground running will make your business significantly more appealing and less of a liability.
Enhance Your Brand Image to Tell Your Story
Differentiating the voice and brand of your company from your competitors highlights the value clients can get only from you. It also connects customers emotionally to your business, which can be positive or negative. How do you accomplish this? Live your values. Use a consistent tone of voice across all channels. Be purposeful on social media. A positive brand image will not only impress customers, but also potential buyers.
Attract Customers with Your Website
Since it’s 2024 and you’ve been in business for years, we’ll assume you already have a website. If you don’t remember the last time you updated it, it’s probably already past time to do so. Your website is the digital face of your business. Most customers will go to your website to check you out as the very first step. On average, users form an opinion about a website in 0.05 seconds. Most will click away if they see an unprofessional site and assume you must therefore be an unprofessional company. Your site needs to properly represent your brand, show visitors the information they’re looking for, and ultimately move them along in the process. A high-performing, revenue-generating website allows new owners to step in and focus on immediate needs pertaining to running the business, rather than having to worry about new sales, external appearances or digital presence.
Make Content Marketing Your Ally
Content marketing focuses on creating valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain your target audience. And it can be one of your most valuable tools if you execute it right. Content marketing encompasses your landing pages, blog, social media, case studies, email marketing and more. After defining your target audience, you can create a goal-oriented content plan by month or quarter for how to reach them. A popular buzzword in digital marketing, SEO (search engine optimization) is a go-to for many companies to reach new audiences and nurture new leads. Once you’ve attracted their attention through SEO, your content is creating awareness, intrigue and ultimately trust in your products or services. Potential buyers will take notice.
Take it from Corona who launched a #ThisIsLiving campaign on social media featuring stunning photos and videos of beaches, nature and sunsets. They’ve worked with influencers—like pro surfer Nacho Sebastia—who share their values to post engaging content and expand their audience. They focused on content that didn’t hit people over the head with their products, but drew them in to want to see more.
Don’t Leave the Work to When It’s Too Late
As we already mentioned, exit planning isn’t something that happens overnight. It requires years of work – work that is more than worth it once you are able to achieve the dream many business owners have. Owners who don’t start marketing and exit planning early on could end up at the mercy of whatever the market dictates. They could end up not being able to exit on their own terms or having to sell for much less than they hoped. It’s best to do quarterly checkups to ensure you’re hitting your marks and doing everything you can to increase the value of your business well before you start shopping it around. Raise the value by ramping up marketing efforts and create an exit plan that feeds off that. Marketing is an investment that can be hard for some business owners because unlike rent and insurance, it’s less tangible. But make no mistake, your marketing dollars will go directly back into your pocket with interest if you execute your marketing plan properly. And it all starts with connecting with your audience. Do you know how to get their attention?