Sell Your Company in 150 Days – Part 5: Market Introduction & Buyer Qualifications

Stage 5: Market Introduction and Buyer Qualifications

ECP Ventures offers a disciplined, diligent, structured 10 Stage 150 Day sales transaction process for business owners to sell their businesses with sell side M&A representation.

At ECP Ventures we encourage every client to participate in a "full market" offering. Many brokers do targeted offerings to known buyers only. We do not feel that method determines every viable buyer and does not serve the best interests of selling owners.

Our goal is to obtain at least five qualified offers for our client's consideration. Multiple offers allow our clients to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative attributes of each offer to determine which offer aligns most favorably with their specific goals and objectives.

Three Dimensions of ECP's Full Market Offering

Client Recommendations – most clients fully understand their operating environment and have an awareness as to which competitors or vertical participants may be interested in acquiring their company. Often our clients recommend a number of companies to contact and often instruct us who not to contact as well.

Buyer "First Look" Program – at ECP we keep an extensive database of buyers and their interests by sector and subsector. When we have a match between a new seller and a buyer's specific interests, we notify them day one of the offering. We do not give them an advantage in the process other than the advantage of the most possible time to participate in the offering. Our buyers are very respectful and appreciative of their "First Look" opportunities.

National Posting Systems – we do a very careful articulation and description of the company being offered to entice maximum interest. The market is currently so robust that we have been receiving between 75 and 150 buyers expressing interest per offering.

No Asking Price

We share a tremendous amount about the financial and operating elements of the company but we NEVER issue an asking price. About 20% of the buyers grumble and say that we are asking them to bid in the dark or bid against themselves. Our response is that we encourage them to determine what the value of the company is to them and then bid that amount. Values vary dramatically between buyers.

We then narrow the 75-150 buyers down to a total of 15 by evaluating each buyer and their ability to pay and how well they align with the goals and objectives of our sellers. Then we open up a constructive dialogue between our sellers and the short list of buyers.

The ultimate goal is to secure 5+ qualified LOI's for our seller's consideration and ultimate selection.

We are a 100% successful efforts firm so all services described above are performed with zero cost and zero risks to our clients.