SUCCESSFUL SUCCESSION – Keeping the End in Mind
By Alesha Yankie
I n working with existing Franchise owners over the years, there is one lesson I would like to pass on to all franchisees: The best time to begin preparing for the sale of your business is the day you open. The second best time is today. Over the past year, members of the Dwyer Group® Resale Department have delivered breakout sessions at Reunion and Spring Conferences focused on the importance of Succession Planning and Business Valuations. Following these presentations, there were three major things we learned as a department: • An overwhelming majority of our franchisees were unaware
Know where you stand today and set achievable goals for the future. Knowledge is power! Staff in the Resale Department stand ready to assist you in understanding, based upon recent financial performance, a range that you might expect your business to sell for if it were on the market today. This knowledge will enable you to better understand the specific things you can be working on to enhance the value of your company moving forward. Our experience has shown that those businesses that have fully embraced the franchise systems and capabilities developed by your brand consistently produce better financial results and higher sales prices then those locations where an owner might be less engaged. Begin to develop a long-term succession plan. Whether or not your long-term plan may be to pass the business down to your children, or to sell to a key employee or to an outside party, a well-developed plan will greatly improve the likelihood of a smooth transition when the time comes. In the end, it is always advisable for a business owner to be keenly aware of the current value of their asset (business) and understand the importance of preparation in the resale process. We look forward in assisting you in any way we can whether the sale is around the corner or many years in the future.
that Dwyer Group has a dedicated department designed to both help our franchisee understand the value of their businesses and assist them with the sale of their companies when the time comes. • This same majority of business owners, focused primarily on the day to day tasks of running their franchise, had dedicated little time or thought to a future time when they may want or need to sell their operations. • Our owners did not know where to start to best prepare themselves and their businesses for a time when they will no longer own their company.
“Knowwhere you stand today and set achievable goals for the future.”
14 POWERLINE® | EDITION 1 2017
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker