Use your 'story' to attract buyers for your company
When selling your company, storytelling is a super power. Here's how to craft your story and use it to get buyers excited for buying you.
I worked with a founder who was a little unusual. He modelled himself – perhaps too much – on the Steve Jobs alternative-founder archetype.
When he was selling his company, he insisted on starting every first meeting with a buyer (or when he met someone new in their team), by passionately telling his origin story.
Why he was compelled to start the company, why they were destined to revolutionise their industry, and why he had the best product and team. And for every buyer, he also could say exactly why joining forces with that buyer was the most natural and perfect combination in the world.
Everyone expects these meetings to start with pleasantries, then straight into the presentation and the numbers.
But he knew that, when selling your company, storytelling is key. It's a super power.
The best sellers create a narrative around the founding of the company, its vision and place in the world and why now is a great time to buy.
The story engages buyers by creating an emotional connection to your business. This gets them excited – and makes the company stands out from other acquisition options.
They also weave the story into the buyer's future plans, making it seem obvious that the two should unite.
Obviously this all has to be backed up by the numbers too. But you can get the buyer hooked first.
How to craft your story
There's no formula for this. Your story is personal, and needs to come from the heart.
But here are some ideas to help you get started...
You can start this in a simple way – just a Word document which starts to answer some of the following questions:
- Why did you start the company? What problem needed to be solved?
- Why is your industry in need of change?
- What single thing has made the company successful? What is unique about your approach?
- Why is future success inevitable? What are you most excited about in the future of the company?
- How does working with this buyer make that success more likely?
Where and when to use that story
You can then edit that down into a single concise narrative that tells your story, with a section on the buyer that you can adjust for each. This becomes a master document.
You can then crib from this document throughout your communications with buyers – intro emails, the first page of presentations, your little intro speech in meetings, and so forth.
Over-doing it
A word of caution – you can go too far with this.
Buyers might get tired of hearing you pump up the business as being "game-changing" and "revolutionary", or throwing in too much fancy consultant-jargon.
It might look like you are covering for weaknesses in the business, or just wasting time with too much flowery language.
So be genuine and heartfelt, and keep it concise.
What if you're stuck
Here's a question you may be pondering:
But what if my company isn't an innovative, disruptive tech start-up with a mission to change the world?
You might feel like 'just another marketing agency'. You might be in a boring and unsexy industry. You may not be the founder with the origin story, but an exec who's worked up to being the CEO and part owner.
But there is always something exciting and emotive to say about the business.
That might be: your customers really love you and are super loyal, you've figured our some clever stuff in your product or distribution, you have an amazing exec team.
Worked Example
In a previous article, we using the example of Legal Whizz, a fictional company.
Legal Whizz sells software to UK law firms to help them organise and run courses to train and up-skill their staff. Their customers use the product to build training sessions, courses and quizzes for their lawyers and new joiners. They have brought modern software and a cool brand to an old fashioned industry.
Here's a story the founder of Legal Whizz could tell if she was speaking with buyers.
Our founder, Sarah, a former corporate lawyer herself, saw first-hand how difficult it was for law firms to keep their teams up-to-date with the latest legal developments. The legal world and client needs were changing fast, but training was variable, inefficient, and time-consuming.
So in 2015, she left her legal career and set out to solve this problem. Combining her knowledge of the profession with a world-class tech team, Sarah created Legal Whizz.
Within five years, the platform is used by over 60% of the top 100 law firms in the UK. Our customers love that they can create engaging, customised training courses, and their teams love our sleek, modern interface which breaks away from the stuffy, traditional tools they’re used to. We’ve built a brand that’s synonymous with innovation and efficiency in an industry that is often slow to change.
Legal Whizz isn’t just software – it’s a movement. We help legal professionals at every level, from trainees to partners, stay sharp in a rapidly changing world. We help our clients unlock the potential of their teams.
But we’re not stopping there. Our next steps will take us into new markets, with plans to expand our platform internationally, and incorporate new features like AI-driven course suggestions and personalised learning paths for every user.
By joining forces with a forward-thinking buyer, we can take Legal Whizz to the next level. Our software will seamlessly integrate with your existing tools, bringing new revenue streams to your existing customers and opening up new relationships with new clients.