Short YouTube talk (by Donna Bordeaux) advising studio owners on capturing and documenting intangible assets that increase business sale value. Recommends creating an “intangibles” list covering website metrics (traffic, ecommerce sales), documented processes/SOPs, staff experience and non-competes, brand/community reputation, and other intellectual property; invites viewers to discuss in comments and provides contact/social-call to action.
Studio owners often ask me about selling their business and how to make sure they get the top value. Much of it is based on having very good financial statements and great record keeping. However, there's one part that does not get included in those financials that is very crucial to the sale of a business and that is the value of your intangibles, your intellectual property and the value that you've built by having a good brand and being a good corporate citizen in your community. So I suggest everyone who owns a studio create an intangibles list and I'd love to take a look and see what you have on your list. I would love to be able to have a group of you get together and compare this and talk about this topic specifically. So things I would suggest you look at are your website. For example. Your website is not listed as a piece of property because it's intangible. We can't touch it. However, it maintains great value for many businesses. I'd suggest that you look at how many hits you get on your website, how many visitors. If you have booking or purchasing through E commerce, look at how many sales you make specifically through your website and those will accumulate to show the value. Now, our interest is not in putting a specific dollar amount necessarily, but first let's just create this list of what the magical pieces are of your business that aren't on your financial statements. Another item do you have any specific processes or procedures that you use in your business that are special and help make your business better than the average? Have you documented all of your procedures? Do you have SOPs, standard operating procedures for how you set up a party, have guests coming in, how your pickup process works, how you do off site events, things like that? Those are intangible items that are of great value to a business owner as somebody stepping into your shoes as a purchaser. Also, do you have people in place? Do you have non competes in place for people or do you have a staff that's been with you for a very long time or has a great amount of experience or technical expertise? Check those out and add those to your intangibles. Come up with this list and let's talk about it. Let's get the conversation rolling. So if you will in the comments below, indicate some of the special characteristics in your studio that you believe should be of high value to a purchaser in your business. I'm Donna Bordeaux with pyopaccounting.com Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Make sure you check out our blog and our website from the link below, subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when we post. To contact me, email me@donnapyopaccounting.com it.
