Bizma Article Index

Here's a full index of the articles currently live on Bizma.

Start Here

👉 Welcome to Bizma. An overview of my story, and how I try to help business owners to get the best price and terms when selling your company.

👉 M&A Jargon Buster. A breakdown of 150+ common pieces of M&A jargon and technical language.

Prepping to Sell

👉 The Time Is Right: When to Sell Your Company. A framework for evaluating when you should sell, including personal, company, and industry factors.

👉 Get Aligned with Your Co-Founder Before You Sell. Co-founders can get totally misaligned during a sale. We explore why, and how to fix it.

👉 Finding Your Walk-Away Number. What's the minimum amount you would sell for?

👉 23 Projects to Prep Your Business for Sale. Getting prepared will get you a better price and a faster, smoother sale. Here's a menu of projects to consider.

👉 The Emotional Rollercoaster of an Exit. An exit feels like a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Here are some tips to cope.

👉 Exit or Bust?. We discuss the obsession with exiting, why that's harmful, and why focusing on building a great business rather than selling is the best strategy long-term.

Finding Buyers

👉 A 7-Step Plan to Finding Buyers for Your Business. A roadmap to creating and evaluating a shortlist of buyers, and pitching them on buying your business.

👉 The SIX Strategies That Drive M&A. Explaining the reasons that companies do M&A so you can understand who might buy you.

👉 Four Types of M&A Buyers. Buyers in M&A can be grouped into four personas, based on their motives and experience. Use this to plan how to engage and work through the deal.

👉 Are Companies Bought, Not Sold?. Crushing the myth that you'll sell your business by waiting for a buyer to come out of the blue.

👉 Use Your 'Story' to Attract Buyers for Your Company. When selling your company, storytelling is a superpower. Here's how to craft your story and use it to get buyers excited for buying you.

👉 Four Steps to Get Buyers Interested in Your Company. How to decide whether to sell, research valuations, start prepping the company, and get in front of buyers.

👉 Creating Heat: Competitive Tension in an Exit. Having multiple keen bidders is M&A gold—here's how to get it, and some pitfalls.

👉 How to Cold Pitch a Potential Buyer. A worked example and template to pitch a potential buyer encouraging them to make an offer to buy you.

👉 How to Convert a Lead into a Serious Bidder for Your Company. How to take a curious and potentially interested party into a keen buyer who will make a formal acquisition offer for your company.

👉 How to Build Relationships with Potential Buyers. Why you should build long-term, trusted relationships with potential buyers before you want to sell. It's M&A gold.

👉 Who's on Your Buyer's Team?. To get your deal done, you need support from across the buyer's team. Here's who's critical and how to get them on board.

👉 Beware! How to Screen a Fake Acquisition Approach. Not all potential buyers are genuine. Tips to understand who might be fake, and how to handle their approach.

👉 Why M&A Is Always Plan B. Understand why M&A is risky for your buyer, and how deals can fall apart.

Valuation

👉 Price Is Not the Only Factor When Selling Your Company. Consider other factors such as payment type, timing, deal certainty, trust, and risk allocation when choosing your buyer.

👉 What Are Valuation 'Multiples'?. A primer on how valuation multiples are calculated and when they are used.

👉 How to Get a Real-World Valuation of Your Business. Four actions to get a more concrete idea of what your business is worth.

👉 What Multiple Should I Expect When Selling My Business?. Benchmarks for what valuation multiple you should expect on your exit.

👉 How to Get a Higher Exit Valuation. A deep dive into the factors that drive higher valuation multiples, and actions to increase yours.

👉 The Valuation Scorecard. Download an interactive tool to score your business and get a ballpark valuation.

Deal Structuring

👉 Exploring Five M&A Deal Structures. There are many ways to sell your business. We explore the options, including partial and full sales.

Negotiation

👉 The Art of Negotiation: 8 Tips When Selling Your Company. Tips and tools on how to get the best outcomes from the pivotal negotiations during your sale.

👉 Three Big Things. Why you need to focus on a small number of critical areas when negotiating your sale, and be prepared to let others go.

👉 You Are on the Same Team as Your Buyer. Smart sellers know M&A is a team effort and work with their buyer to get a deal done.

👉 The 24-Hour Rule When Selling Your Company. Time kills deals. Here's a tip to help reduce the risk of your deal falling over.

👉 The 17 Most Common Reasons M&A Deals Die. Deals are fragile, and many don't make it. We break down why and tips to minimize the risks.

👉 Behind the Bid: How Buyers Model Their Price. How a buyer uses financial modeling and scenario planning to calculate what to bid, and what you can do to get a better price.

👉 How to Build Great Financial Forecasts for Your Buyer. We break down the top-down and bottom-up methods of forecasting, common pitfalls, and some tips to impress your buyer.

👉 The Goldilocks Problem: How to Get Your Forecasts 'Just Right'. Not too hot, not too cold... we share the 60% rule on how to push your growth forecasts without losing your credibility with a buyer.

👉 The Dreaded Price Chip. What to do when your buyer suddenly cuts their price.

👉 Synergies 101. A dive into the different types of synergies so you can use them to get a better price from your buyer.

👉 How to Unlock Synergy Value with Your Buyers. A playbook to find, evaluate, and quantify synergies with your buyer.

👉 Don't Make This NDA Mistake. Why you should 'go easy' when negotiating the NDA with your potential buyers.