Selling Your Company to the Right Buyer: The Art of Marketing a Business
Osage Advisors’ marketing strategy is dynamic and balanced, consistent yet customized. Our goal is to garner as many offers for your business as possible. We strive to grab the attention of the greatest number of qualified buyers – and we do this discreetly, so your identity is only revealed after a confidentiality agreement is signed by an interested buyer.
This requires creativity in identifying potential synergies with strategic buyers and private equity firms, whether they operate in your industry or a related one or are based in the U.S. or abroad. We’ve developed a marketing process that targets the best buyers for your business utilizing an approach that captures their interest.
Many buyers see hundreds of deals each week, so once we’ve developed a list of potential targets, breaking through the noise is the first hurdle. We do this with a set of polished marketing materials that includes a professional 2-minute video combined with a vigorous outreach campaign. Strong potential buyers that you’ve deemed to be “sensitive” for business or competitive reasons are approached in a delicate manner that we’ll discuss with you beforehand.
The initial emailing/mailing is a “blind teaser,” which is a one-page profile of your business that highlights your company’s uniqueness and value drivers. The teaser does not reveal the name of your business or its precise location. We present just enough information to elicit buyer interest and get them to call us for the confidential information memorandum, or “book.” Before sending out a book, the buyer is vetted and required to sign a confidentiality agreement. This is standard practice in the industry.
We follow up this initial emailing/mailing with phone calls to potential buyers who’ve not responded until we reach the decision maker which is typically the CEO, President, CFO or Head of Business Development. We remain engaged and are persistent until we reach the right person.
We also think “Out-of-the Box” and look for the not-so-obvious buyers. For example, we marketed a medical device development and engineering company to the plastics industry. Why? Because the plastics industry is a key supplier to the medical device industry and is always on the lookout for additional engineering resources to get products ready to manufacture. The result: a plastics company was the ultimate buyer and provided the best value to our client.
Written materials that are concise and clear are essential so interested buyers can easily determine if your company fits their acquisition criteria – operationally and financially. A short video giving buyers a preview of your business also generates interest and demonstrates your transparency early in the process.
Osage conducts extensive buyer research on a global basis. We’ve closed deals with industry-related buyers, private equity firms, public companies and buyers based overseas. Our advisors continually update you on the results of our marketing activities and work with you to evaluate buyers and offers as they come in.
We’ve mastered the art of marketing businesses over the past 20 years, and the proof of our success will be finding the right buyer and your complete satisfaction with the deal you choose.