Your Company Value Depends On It
Dream Business Brokers
In this season of thanksgiving, most of us count the people we work with among our blessings. As a business owner, you probably take time to thank someone for their help, advice, or hard work every day. (If not, this is your opportunity to start.)
Every company will tell you that its people are its greatest asset. As a business intermediary, I can vouch for that. Your staff is part of what attracts a buyer to your business; they are a key part of your knowledge base and critical to continuity and quality production or service after a sale.
I’ve seen companies where the staff are more like tools than valued participants in the business. That kind of environment makes it harder to find and keep good people and makes it harder on the owner as well. If you are acting as CEO, CFO, chief engineer, sales manager, and hiring and training every employee, you’re exhausted. And at least one of those jobs is being done poorly or neglected altogether.
I regularly tell my clients: the more valuable an owner is to the business, the less valuable the business is to anyone else. High owner dependence is a risk factor to any buyer seeking to buy the business especially if the seller does not wish to stay and work for the buyer after the sale.
Investing in hiring, training, promoting, and appreciating your staff is not just the right thing to do; it’s the right business move. Having great people around you will stave off burnout, make your business more attractive to buyers, and make it more likely that the next generation of your family will want to be a part of the company.
Here’s how great business owners show staff they appreciate them.
They invest in training.
From safety to process efficiency to learning how to operate more sophisticated machinery, training makes your employees’ lives easier. The company gains increases in productivity, and employees gain skills that make the job more interesting, more rewarding, and safer. If you don’t have the time to write a Standard Operating Procedure manual or implement lean processes, bring in a consultant who can do those things for you. The cost of training will pay off when you sell the company.
They delegate authority and promote their best workers.
A business owner’s job is to set policies and install guardrails so workers can make decisions on their own without constantly checking in. Empowering your staff to make decisions – and correct errors – means they’ll be more confident and more productive on their own. Delegating both responsibility and authority shows you who’s ready to take on more work and perhaps manage a team. Promoting your best employees motivates everyone to do their best work and remain loyal to the company over time.
They hire help when they need it – the best help they can afford.
Smaller companies may not think they can afford the best talent, but there are options beyond hiring full-time staff. Contractors or fractional workers bring valuable skills for a few hours a week to several clients; that makes their contribution affordable for almost any owner. You can hire fractional management, sales, financial, or HR staff and save the company tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Your staff gets the benefit of the best talent and the best ideas, and fractional employees get paid for results. They’re efficient with their time because they’re managing several clients or projects at once. That means you also get the benefit of their experience with other companies, even other industries. They also invest in their own skills and knowledge, so they bring the best and newest ideas to their work.
Finding and retaining talent is every business owner’s most important and most challenging job. Employee turnover that is caused by not having the time or energy to do your best by them while they work for you is expensive and exhausting.
As Thanksgiving approaches, let your employees know how much you appreciate their hard work. Then share the plan you’ve developed for investing in their future success.If I can help you determine how much your company is worth, click here.
