Think Like A Buyer
To maximize both today’s results and tomorrow’s exit value, examine your business through the eyes of your future buyer.
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This year, like last year and the year before that, most business owners who pursue the sale of their companies will blow their opportunity to capitalize fully on decades of investment and sweat. Roughly 40% of the deals that reach the Letter of Intent stage will fail to close, while a substantial percentage won’t even get to an LOI in the first place. Even those deals that do close will often be delayed and devalued by major concessions that diminish returns to the seller. In many cases, companies will fail to draw any buying interest at all.
And, no, we aren’t referring to somebody else’s company. We’re talking about you.
While it takes very little effort to multiply the selling price of a company, most owners fail to follow a few simple and inexpensive steps that practically guarantee success. And each year, as a direct result of that failure, acquirers will gain $billions or tens of $billions in returns that woulda/coulda/shoulda gone to the sellers.
How can you avoid that disaster when it’s your time for a liquidity event? Download our latest white paper by following this link: THINK LIKE A BUYER
About Michael Rosenbaum

Quadrant Five founder Michael Rosenbaum has walked the walk when it comes to building a business, so he can be a confidant and compatriot—not just an advisor—for clients. Rosenbaum worked his way up to president of a $35 million company with 300 people and 600 clients. Along the way, he managed operations, HR, IT, and marketing, and advised CEOS and CFOs at more than 200 companies.
Beginning as a newspaper reporter, he developed a specialization in business journalism and earned an MBA on his way to a 30-year consulting career. Representing both angel-backed startups and Fortune 100 giants, Rosenbaum identified the patterns and processes that drive success across a wide range of industries and business cycles.
He is well regarded for designing each performance-improvement process around specific client needs, capabilities, and culture, rather than pushing a pre-fab set of rules for clients to follow. He brings a unique set of skills to each engagement, including experiences as a company president, financial journalist, marketer, IR advisor, non-profit founder, author, and public speaker. Items of note include:
• Received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in 2015 for non-profit work
• Honored for the Best Business Biography of 2012 for his fifth book, Six Tires, No Plan
• Frequent speaker on customer relationship value
• Sales instructor for Certified Value Growth Advisor certification program.
• Regional Communications Chair, YPO Gold
• Marketing Chair, AMAA’s Mid-Market Alliance
• Former Chicago Chapter Chair, National Association of Corporate Directors
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