Looking to sell? Remove yourself from the picture
When you’re gearing up to sell your letting agents, you’re going to need to put some groundwork into making sure your business still runs without you.
Everyone likes to feel needed within their business, but you need to prove it can run without you to be appealing to a buyer.
If you can’t do this it’s not the end of the world, but you have to accept a business isn’t worth as much to a buyer if it’s heavily reliant on you.
Buying a lettings portfolio is a strange one because you’re essentially buying relationships. If your customers have loyalty to you as a business owner rather than valuing the service that’s provided to them then it’s less likely they’ll stay with whoever purchases the business from you which means your business is less valuable.
One crucial thing buyers look for is confidence in future cash flow and this has a huge influence on the figure the acquirer is willing to pay. To increase that confidence, you have to decrease the risk of the cash flow disappearing if you were to step out of the picture.
How do you remove the reliance on yourself?
1. Get the right processes in place
Start stepping away from the nitty-gritty of your business operations. Make the running of your business more about processes than the people carrying out the work.
👉 Document how you do things step by step
👉 Identify areas where you’re currently essential
👉 Work on ways to remove yourself from those areas
If you’re looking to sell your business soon, our advice would be to try to ensure minimal impact on your customers if you make any process changes. The last thing you want is for them to feel disrupted by changes you make, and then feel further disruption when they move over to your buyers’ processes. Too much change could cause them to leave and you could end up out of pocket if your final sale payment has a reduction for each landlord lost.
2. Delegate where you can
Don’t keep critical information or tasks to yourself - trust others to make decisions on the direction of your business and to deliver the service you're so used to giving. Support their wins and losses and accept that it won't always go right but it wouldn't have always gone right for you either. By offloading your responsibilities onto capable team members, you are freeing yourself up to work on the sale of your business.
Do you have any further questions on selling you letting agents? For a completely confidential chat, speak to spencer@synergyforward.co.uk