BUSINESS OWNER
The Recurring Revenue Bump
Last month, Darden, the owner of the Olive Garden restaurant chain, announced it was acquiring Ruth’s Chris, the legendary American steakhouse, for $715 million, implying a valuation of around one times last year’s annual revenue, or about ten times their adjusted EBITDA for 2022. Not bad for a giant company, but Ruth’s Chris’s value was likely…
How First Impressions Can Drive the Value of Your Business
The initial impression customers have of your business often influences how much they decide to spend with your company. This is well known, but have you ever considered how first impressions affect the way potential investors value your business? When raising capital, investors’ initial perception of your business significantly impacts their valuation,affecting both the equity…
How to Protect Your Equity When Your Business Is Thirsty for Cash
When it comes to financing the growth of your business, you may find yourself facing a difficult choice between the lesser of two evils. Selling shares in your business can provide an immediate cash injection, but it means giving up some of your valuable equity stake. Borrowing money from a bank, on the other hand,…
One Overlooked Metric That Could Transform Your Company’s Value
You know gross margin impacts your profit, but have you considered the impact it has on the value of your company? When assessing your company’s value, acquirers and investors will often scrutinize your gross profit margin. Gross profit margin is the difference between a company’s revenue and its cost of goods sold. In other words,…
The Purest Way to Increase the Value of Your Business
Picture a magic slot machine. Each time you pull the arm, you make back a multiple of whatever you wagered. How much time would you devote to cranking that arm? When it comes to the value of your business, you can make many bets, but only one has a virtually guaranteed return. Most companies are valued…
5 Strategies for Identifying Innovative Candidates to Replace Yourself as Founder
In 2012, Jaclyn Johnson founded Create & Cultivate, a media company that educates and inspires women to succeed in business. By 2018, Johnson had grown Create & Cultivate to eight employees when an acquirer offered her a staggering $40 million. Unfortunately, the deal was too good to be true. When the acquirer discovered how dependent…
3 Ways to Create a Valuable Culture Inside Your Business
Many factors drive your company’s value, but perhaps the most important is how your business would perform without you. To get your company to flourish when you’re not around, you need owner-like effort from your team. Inspiring owner-like effort comes from cultivating a vibrant culture inside your business. Here are three ways to get your…
How to Get Your Customers to Pay for New Ideas
There is never enough money to invest in developing products when you’re running a self-funded business. When you’re running your company out of cash flow, most of your resources go into selling your existing products and services, leaving little left over to fund your new product ideas. You could keep plugging away with your existing…