Built to Sell
According to John Warrillow, the number one mistake entrepreneurs make is to build a business that relies too heavily on them. Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency. Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable: * Teachable: focus on products and services that you can teach employees to deliver. * Valuable: avoid price wars by specialising in doing one thing better than anyone else. * Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers have to repurchase often.
BEST DEALS
About the Author
John Warrillow is the founder of The Value Builder System™, a practice management software for business advisors.
His best-selling book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You was recognized by both Fortune and Inc. as one of the best business books of 2011 and has been translated into 12 languages.
John is the host of Built to Sell Radio, ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s 10 best podcasts for business owners. In 2015, John wrote another best-selling book, The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry. John completes the trilogy with his latest book, The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top.
Prior to founding The Value Builder System™, he started and exited four companies, including one acquired by a public company. He lives with his family in Toronto.
You can follow John’s work by:
- Signing up for free goodies at www.BuiltToSell.com.
- Reading John's blog at www.BuiltToSell.com/blog/
- Following John on Twitter twitter.com/JohnWarrillow