Grow or sell

Doug Richard, founder of Library House and Andrew Richards a serial entrepreneur, shared their experiences of working through the decision that comes to all businesses as to whether they should invest in their business in order for it to continue growing or to sell it.

Growing businesses is about change and it is hard to have steady growth without change.  The common theme during the discussion was that business owners rarely plan their exit strategy.  Both Doug and Andy underlined the importance of understanding right at the outset whether the business strategy will be to grow the business or whether it will be to sell it.   If it is to sell, then businesses need to identify those organisations that might be interested in buying at some point in the future, to research them thoroughly and to get to know them.  After all strangers do not buy businesses!  They also recommended that businesses be proactive in managing the relationships with potential buyers, even to the extent of considering how these potential buyers might view decisions you may be making for your company.  

In summing up it was clear that all businesses need to have an ability to change, they should grow from a platform of success which will generally be linked to the availability of the right sort of finance and there should be a plan of how to change the business - and for those businesses that really want to beat the rest of the pack they should develop more than one plan.

Download the audio clip (mp3 format, 1.8mb)
View Doug's biography
View Andy's biography