Is Your Business Built to Sell?

I have just received a small business book recommendation and I would like to share my thoughts on this amazing book every entrepreneur should read.

I personally recommend you to buy and read John Warrillow’s Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell if you envision yourself selling your business and retire rich (or any other personal endeavours, such as to start a new business.) Here’s why.

In my early days of entrepreneurship, I was well-taught that in whatever I do, I have to genuinely do it as if I do it for God, not for men. I take this advice by heart and it has guided me throughout my entrepreneurial journey, keeping me grounded and doing my best in my business activities.

I build my business on the above fundamental, and I thrive – all thanks to the mentors teaching me such a great value.

I build web properties – One thing that I always have in mind when building my portfolio of sites is that I will sell it eventually. In the end, I might not sell my sites, but at least I build them without any hesitation in mind – I focus on building them in such a way that they will be optimised on regular basis with the help of outsourcing partners, thus they will be valuable enough to be sold later (or to attract buyers to make acquisition inquiries.)

John Warrillow’s Built To Sell is truly inspiring

Built to Sell explores on ways to create a ‘sellable’ business. What’s in a sellable business? A sellable business involves continuously maximizing value and qualities, in such a way that it can be sold at the highest price possible. This is it – this is something I want my business to become.

But how?

In his book, John teaches in a creative way – Built To Sell is a story of an imaginary business owner who wants to sell his business but find out eventually that nobody in sight wants to buy it (even for a bargain) due to one reason: the owner IS the business.

Alex Stapleton, the fictional character, is finally hitting the roof – his business growth can’t break through the rooftop because he takes care of everything, from management to selling. Luckily, Alex met an old friend, Ted Gordon, who later will teach him on how to transform his business into a sellable company.

The story in Buy To Sell is fictional, indeed – but the message contained holds true to many of us. Here’s the plain fact taken from the book: Only 1 in about 100 businesses is a sellable business.

Again, if you want to find out how to increase the ‘sellability’ of your business, I truly recommend you to get a copy of Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell.

Ivan Widjaya
Building a sellable business