When marketing a highly specialised business such as yours, our preferred approach would be by Competitive International Tender, as outlined in Target Marketing.
The steps to achieving a successful result include:
1. Learning as much as possible about your business, so that we can:
a Produce a credible selling document
b Value the assets and intellectual property involved in the business as a "going concern"
c Develop a profile of the most likely type of buyer
d Identify the individual "key selling points" and synergies for each likely buyer
e Most importantly, identify any potential "turn-offs" for each potential buyer, and devise a strategy that could convert each from a negative toan opportunity
f Audit your digital marketing and assets, identifying opportunities and weaknesses
2. We attack the most obvious buyers first. We research our buyer database, and the worldwide web, to come up with a list of prospects that would have the most to gain from acquiring your business, and approach them directly, on a highly confidential basis.
3. We can back this up with directed marketing on the web on Lloyds site as well as up to 10 National and International sites, and in selected media, such as the Australian Financial Review, which, in our opinion, provide the most economical means of reaching the largest possible number of qualified buyers.
4. Lloyds Brokers gives you access to some of the world's largest deal platforms, Lloyds sources deals from investment banks and M&A advisory firms worldwide. To end up with the best deal, you need to start from a position of strength, that's why we think that delivering the world's most extensive network of qualified M&A professionals on some of the largest global online deal sourcing platforms is a big deal.
5. All of this can be backed up by some targeted advertising and international exposure on a number of Industry M&A Deal Sourcing Platforms such as Intralinks Dealnexus®, Banker Bay, and others that facilitates cross border Transactions, and Industry websites we have found to be very effective in the past, as well as national exposure on our own and other proven industry websites.
This is what we call "Stage I", of the marketing plan, and in over 60% of cases, this strategy results in a buyer, usually within 6 months.
If these efforts do not produce a buyer, then more drastic action is required, which we call Stage II. This would begin with a de-briefing, and a survey of the prospects approached, to find out what went wrong, and why they did not proceed to purchase.
Read more: The top 5 mistakes people make when using a business broker.
Possible reasons could be:
We approached the wrong class of prospective purchaser
We did not identify the right buyer benefits for the prospects
We could not demonstrate the value to them
There could be some perceived problem with, or threat to, your business, which we were unaware of, and that would need to be addressed with an appropriate strategy, in the Business Profile.
Once the reasons have been identified for the problem, we can attempt to rectify them, and continue with a revised marketing plan.
We do not believe in failure. Failure can only happen when you give up trying.
