Sell your business NOW – there’s never been a better time!
I must say honestly, rushing to sell your business is never a good idea.. On the other hand, there is never a good time for two things; having babies and selling your business! This is why you should sell your business NOW!
While our economy has been recovering from the GFC, the next big event is well underway. What were to become of these youngsters that were often being branded as lazy and good-for-nothing in the past?! They are now on the verge of becoming the new generation of business owners!
Generation Y: tech savvy and ready to BUY
Generation Y (born after 1980) was often branded as the ‘lost’ generation; lazy, spoilt and demanding. For the last ten years or so they have been taking up jobs in the corporate world, pushing over ‘the oldies’ because themselves were destined to be the CEO, or at least a manager of some sort before their 35th birthday! They would spoil their hard earned cash on partying, booze, ‘useless’ techie gadgets, computer games & cars. As teens they were mostly miss-understood and worked, as it seemed at the time, collectively on the destruction of the world as we knew it.
Well guess what… their plan of world domination is coming to fruition right now like an unstoppable freight train carrying a nuclear load of fresh, young and motivating youngsters with a message that is clear… you either making money or you are making excuses; you are either Green and Growing, or you are Ripe and Rotting.
Generation Y is more tech- savvy than any other generation, is more driven and more demanding than all generations before them. They don’t have to think twice on the concept of the food chain; you either eat or you will be eaten. They will soon change the business world forever with new systems, better organisational skills & a simply higher desire to succeed.
This is exactly the reason why THIS is the right time to sell your business right now, or at least start planning an exit for the next 3 to 5 years. Especially a business that is moving forward; one that has some systems in place, but most importantly has some more growth potential by implementing fresh ideas from youngsters like the Gen Y before it is blossomed out and look like an old concept nobody wants to touch.
The advantage of selling your business now
There are many reasons to sell your business sooner rather than later. Two main reasons include:
1. The baby-boomers will have to sell in order to capitalise on their retirement investment. This would push more businesses on the market and it could be hard to stand out in an open market if the market is flooded with other, more average performing businesses.
2. Generation Y is coming to buy most off the good businesses that are standing out from others in an open market. These businesses typically are already performing well within their market but have even more potential, given the right systems & management.
When this generation Y is looking to buy a business they will look at the relevance of the industry in an ever fast-changing business world where new rules apply. The old way of doing business could seem useless and worth nothing like it would be in these present times. It could be like Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish & chips wrapping.
Because the world is changing so fast you will have to think of a way to capitalise on your current investments and realise that Management trumps Idea. This is a good time to revaluate the way you do business currently, and how you could adapt to the change that is coming.
To conclude I give you an example of the old & the new and how it changed business in general; Borders the bookstore VS Amazon.com
Borders, representing ‘the old’ had a GREAT concept! We ALL loved to go to Borders, taking up a book and a cup of coffee. It was a part of daily routine for some of us.
When Amazon, representing ‘the new’ came around Borders choose to ignore the concept, thinking it was inferior to change and with an attitude of “what would those funky youngsters know?!” When things went bad they would complain that printed media was dead and the era of printed books was nearing its end at the same time….
Nothing was less true and Amazon showed us exactly that! Amazon.com went on to buy the Washington Post and they showed us that if you adapt to change there is a whole new world to be opened up and, indeed that… Management trumps Idea. This means that the business concept can be really good, but the success of a company will always be dependent on the implementation of strategies by the current management in place.
Generation Y will show us some more tricks in the near future; a future that can be quite exciting, if we decide to give them a chance.
FREE LINK Northland downloads:
FREE Booklet outlining the sales process: Managing The Sale of Your Business
FREE Booklet outlining other options to an Exit Strategy