Who Would Buy Your Business?

Part of building to sell is knowing who might buy you, so you invest in valuable assets. Take Northern Lights as an example: after selling, their stores were closed because the acquirer wanted their wholesale distribution channel – not the stores.

Part of building to sell is knowing who you are going to sell to. 

If you don’t start thinking about your potential buyers list early, you may end up growing an entire appendage of your business that an acquirer will neither want nor value.

Take Northern Lights as an example: Michael Glauser started Northern Lights to offer low-fat frozen yogurt through a growing wholesale distribution network of stores selling his desserts. At the same time, he built up a network of 60 company-owned stores under the Golden Spoon brand. The company-owned stores were expensive to start and complicated to manage.

Glauser went on to sell Northern Lights to CoolBrands International for five times net income. CoolBrands turned around and immediately sold or shut down the 60 company-owned stores because they wanted Northern Lights’ wholesale distribution channel – not a bunch of expensive retail stores.

During our interview, I couldn’t help but wonder how much more Glauser and his shareholders would have gotten for their company had Glauser figured out what a buyer would value and then invested all of his limited resources into building his brand and its wholesale distribution channel from the start.

Creating a list of potential strategic buyers for your business is something we’ll do during Module 11 of The Value Builder System – get started for free by getting your Value Builder Score.

Check out our full M&A Glossary

About Our Guest

Mike Glauser has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, business consultant, and university professor. He is the cofounder and chairman of My New Enterprise, an online training and development company for aspiring entrepreneurs. He is also the founder and former CEO of Golden Swirl Management Company and of Northern Lights. Both companies were sold to CoolBrands International. Glauser has consulted with hundreds of startup companies and large corporations in the areas of business strategy, organizational effectiveness, and leadership development. His clients have included Associated Food Stores, The Boeing Company, Department of Workforce Services, Esso of Inter-America, Syntek Global, Max International, and USANA Health Sciences.