When you are going to sell a business, buyers must be found. But where do you find them? And how do you find buyers that fit your needs and business?
Of course, there are different strategies for this. Think about listing your business on a large platform and waiting for interested parties to respond or approaching buyers individually yourself. Find out which strategy suits you best.
Listing on platform
A good way to reach a wide group of interested buyers is to put your business up for sale (anonymously) on a platform such as Brookz. With this you reach a large number of parties at once. These include entrepreneurs who want to diversify and are not currently doing business in your industry. There are both large national platforms that are very broadly oriented and specialized platforms for specific industries.
For whom?
This is a great option if you don't have a strong preference as to who will take over your business or if you would like ample choice from different types of buyers. Also, posting your business on these types of platforms can help if approaching buyers individually doesn't yield what you had hoped for after all.
Pros and cons
The advantage is that you reach a wide selection of potential buyers. As a result, you may also attract parties that you had not initially thought of, but that turn out to be interesting. At the same time, you have less or no influence on the type of buyers who respond and - despite the fact that you can do the placement anonymously - there is a greater chance that parties will recognize your company.
Individual approach
Another strategy is to approach buyers individually. With this you proactively approach parties that you think are ideal buyers. You make an analysis in advance, distinguishing between different types of parties:
- Strategic parties: these include parties who want to diversify or competitors who would like to add your business to increase their market share, geographic addition, scale up or your unique customers.
- Add-on strategist: these types of parties would like to add to your customer base or broaden their assortment with your product(s).
- Private equity: these are funds that have a buy and build strategy, into which your business would fit nicely via a pre-exit or full exit, for example.
- Customers: customers who see your business as a valuable addition to their own supply chain.
- Suppliers: suppliers to your business who would want to be higher up the chain and need your business to do so.
- Management buy-in (MBI) candidates: this is an outside candidate or team of candidates who do not want to start from scratch and take over the business and then run it themselves.
For whom?
Approaching parties individually is particularly interesting if you want to keep the sale of your business anonymous or if you have specific wishes regarding the sale or buyer. Think of retaining the identity of the company, involvement as a seller after the acquisition or the desire to find a buyer, who runs the business with the same passion. Of course, you may also want to go purely for the best deal and select parties accordingly.
Pros and cons
While you have more control over the type of buyer and deal you have in mind and the sale can remain anonymous (as much as possible), approaching potential buyers individually is a time-consuming process. Plus, you have a lower reach, so you may miss out on interesting options.
