Go on a Revenue Hunt Prior to your Information Technology Company Sale
Review all long-term maintenance contracts and implement price increases that are covered by your annual increase limits. Send your sales team out to all accounts that are not on your latest version. Bring those accounts current with the appropriate license and maintenance level increase.
Do you have any Add-on modules that your customers base has been slow to adopt. Offer a 2 year price freeze on their currently installed software if they buy the add-on module and sign a maintenance agreement. The principal theme of these actions is to increase your company’s level of contractually recurring revenue. That is your most important financial driver of the value of your company.
Tie these actions directly to your sales team’s commission plan. The commission plan should tell your sales reps exactly what you value. A higher commission rate should be applied to recurring revenue contracts. If you have poor performers, immediately put them on notice. You may tie their future employment to meeting some short term goals in these strategic areas. If they continue to under perform, let them go. A buyer that is looking at your business will rightfully question your management capability when the find in due diligence that you have allowed a poor performer to drain profits from your company.
If you are concerned that firing the sales rep would be disruptive to your customer base, offer to allow him to stay on a commission only plan. Remove his fixed salary portion and replace that with a higher commission rate that would equal his previous expected compensation level at 100% of quota. Let’s think of it this way. If a salesman’s lack of performance is costing you $50,000 in EBITDA and your company will sell at a 7 X multiple, this laggard will cost you $350,000 in transaction value.
Your key short-term strategy in maximizing your company’s value in the marketplace is to increase the level of contractually recurring revenue. As an acquiring company looks at you as a potential acquisition target they place a value of, for example, 1 X on projected new sales supported by historical performance. They will place a value of 2 X on the revenue that is covered by contracts they acquire with the purchase of your information technology company.
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Until next time!
Dave Kauppi is the author of "Selling Your Software Company - an Insider's Guide to Achieving Strategic Value, editor of The Exit Strategist Newsletter, a Merger and Acquisition Advisor and President of MidMarket Capital, Inc. MMC is a private investment banking and business broker firm specializing in providing corporate finance and business intermediary services to entrepreneurs and middle market corporate clients in a variety of industries. The firm counsels clients in the areas of merger and acquisition and divestitures, achieving strategic value, deal structure and terms, competitive negotiations, and Letter of Intent Consulting. Dave is a Certified Business Intermediary (CBI), is a registered financial services advisor representative and securities agent with a Series 63 license. Dave graduated with a degree in finance from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. For more information or a free consultation please contact Dave Kauppi at (269)231-5772, email Dave Kauppi or visit our Web page MidMarket Capital. Click Here For Our New Book on Amazon