Whatever business journey you are taking,
we can build the road map to take you there:
Growth road map
Our growth road map is built on your unique capabilities and the emerging opportunities in your market.
Exit road map
Our exit road map will build the best exit plan customized if you want to sell now, in 1-3 years or more than 5 years from now.
Growth road map
Our team has been building growth road maps for two decades. Almost all business owners want to increase the growth of their business, but many lack the framework for how to evaluate growth opportunities and prioritize investments.
We start building growth road maps with the following framework:
What is critical to note is that there are three fundamental levers for driving growth: revenue, margin, and multiple. Often, truly successful growth programs start with the middle lever – margins – because that can free up resources to invest in top line growth.
A frequent growth model we help our clients develop has the following flow:
Develop overall growth strategy
Identify revenue growth opportunities and operational weaknesses
Improve efficiency to expand margins and improve customer service
Build team to expand organizational growth capacity
Execute new sales and marketing strategy
An excellent end result is that clients who implement this full program get a “triple bonus” because companies executing a well-defined program such as this also get valued at a higher multiple when they ultimately seek partial or full liquidity in an exit.
Interested in learning how your company can build a winning growth road map?
Your exit road map fundamentally depends on your timing
Are you looking to sell immediately?
Are you getting ready to sell in 1-3 years?
Do you expect to run your business for the next 5+ years?
There is much more that you can do, the longer your time horizon.
Regardless of timing, it is good to begin with the end in mind. The vast majority of business that sell for a high valuation sell to a private equity buyer (either as a platform company or a “bolt on” to an established platform). A well run process will have the elements described in our “Fast Track Exit Roadmap”
If you are looking to sell immediately, we generally recommend that you partner with an investment bank and with our team. Why? Because each have different specializations that greatly improve the outcome. Investment bankers are great at running processes to get competition amongst PE groups so that you get the best value for your business as it is. Growth & Exit Partners, however, helps you build a better business to sell.
Critical aspects of the Fast Track exit process are the Confidential Memorandum and the Management Presentations. The first is a stand-alone document sent to prospective buyers to evaluate your business. Most investment bankers develop a “menu driven” Memorandum that covers all the bases, but may not tell the compelling story that wins the hearts of potential buyers. Our team’s roots are with McKinsey & Company, where we were well trained to tell compelling strategy-driven stories. The more impressive your Memorandum, the more likely buyers are to pursue your company and bid a higher value.
Even more important is the second – Management Presentations. At this stage of the process, it is the most interested buyers (usually between 5 and 20) will be invited in. The flow is short and simple: dinner the night before, tour of the facility, and 2-3 hour Management Presentation. In that short window, potential buyers will make a life altering decision for you the seller. They can decide:
Not interested - and drop out
Tepid interest - if the price is right
Serious interest - and want to buy this company
High interest – this is our top choice and we need to win the deal
How you and your management team perform will have a huge impact on the value of your business. If you perform poorly, and buyers have tepid interest or lose interest entirely, your deal can break, or the price can “trade down” from the indications of interest (IOIs) by 10% or more. In contrast, if you do well and multiple buyers decide that need to win the auction, prices can rise as much as 20%.
Think about it. There is a potential 30% swing in the value of a lifetime of work depending on how well your team does during the one-month period for your Management Meetings.
Our team knows how to prepare your team for Management Meetings. We make sure the presentation is on point, telling a compelling story. We work with your team to know how to deliver the slides for maximum impact. And we coach you to be ready to answer the questions as they come up. Most importantly, we get your team confident so that they give the best they are capable of during the most important meetings in the process.