October 27, 2022 | Mark Dorman, AIF, CLU, ChFC, CEPA, CFBS, President
I recently had one of those “lightbulb moments” when you realize something big. It happened when I met Craig West, the founder and chairman of Capitaliz, an Australia-based digital platform designed to identify and accelerate the value of a business.
This is simply the best and most comprehensive solution I’ve ever seen. It goes far beyond simply providing a figure for the value of your business.
Capitaliz identifies the potential value of your business – and specific areas to focus on if you want to maximize its full value.
Craig West is a strategic accountant with over 20 years of experience advising business owners. He figured out that most business owners (and often their advisers) were unprepared and unaware of the steps required to prepare for exit – so he designed a unique “Succession + 21 Step” process to assist owners and their advisers in navigating this process.
Capitaliz is powered by millions of exit planning data points that can deliver accurate valuations and consistent guidance. In collaboration with a business owner, we gather the pertinent information to be analyzed. This powerful tool helps our team at Legacy Business Advisors give advice based on data, not guesswork.
Craig has helped more than 700 mid-market businesses, their owners and advisers for over 10 years using his Capitaliz digital platform.
Once I saw the reports and the results, I realized this is the tool I’ve been looking for to help clients prepare for the most significant transaction of their lives: the sale of their business.
What a business owner has to say about Capitaliz
Craig Addington is CEO of Thomas Associates, a trade association management firm in Cleveland. He recently engaged LBA with a goal to prepare for a successful exit, though not for years down the road. He is already impressed with the Capitaliz reports on his business.
“I’m a visual person so I like to see the dashboards and the analytics and metrics. You can see weaknesses and strengths in your business and where you can enhance the value,” says Craig.
“We got a real-time report that’s dynamic and moving. It can be tweaked and refined and updated as we go through the process. We can see what we need to button up now as we plan our strategy for a successful ending.”
Before you exit – maximize the value of your business
Selling a business is like selling a house. If you fix it up first, you’ll get more back when you sell it. When done right, that can be significant return on investment.
Once Capitaliz calculates the potential value of your business, you get a detailed roadmap for the next 18-24 months, showing you exactly how to get there.
What’s the magic behind Capitaliz? It creates a perfect blend of your quantitative financial info with all the qualitative elements in every business. We put all that into the mix and analyze it to create a 48-page “Business Insights Report.”
This report gives you a strategic overview and a letter grade on these five key areas of your business:
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- Financial
- Non-financial
- Credit
- Exit-readiness
- Benchmarks against best-in-class in your industry
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You learn the current value of your business plus specific items preventing you from maximizing the value of your business. For example, your business may be worth $1 million but when you compare it to industry best-in-class, it should really be worth $1.5 million. So how do you get there?
Customized road map + a business coach to hold you accountable
Working from the “Value Potential” in the Capitaliz report, we can identify exactly how to increase the value of your business – without increasing revenue or cash. Then we create a roadmap with high, medium and low priority tasks.
But we don’t just hand you a report… because human nature says you will forget about it. Every client is assigned a personal business coach who holds you accountable. Together, we agree on a customized plan and implementation timeline.
“My advice to other businesses is to have open communication among your shareholders, plan early on and invest the time and money in the process,” says Craig Addington. “In the long run, it’s peanuts compared to what you could lose. On the Capitaliz dashboard you can actually see the value of your business changing. You realize you have control over that. If might show that my company is worth a million dollars, but if we change a few things and follow this path, it could be worth as much as $4 million. It puts the keys in your hands and lets you decide how to do it.”
The value is enormous. When you engage with Legacy Business Advisors and take full advantage of Capitaliz and our coaches – you maximize the value of your business before you sell it. That’s just plain smart!
Mark Dorman is passionate about helping small businesses plan for success and achieve peace of mind. He’s worked with business owners for more than 30 years and is founder and president of Legacy Business Advisors. For the past 15 years Mark has focused on transition planning and exit strategies. He is also founder and managing partner of TAB Western Reserve (The Alternative Board), a peer coaching and advisory group for small business owners.
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