How To Sell Your Business with Brian Church

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Brian Church, who is a bestselling author, public speaker, radio show host, serial entrepreneur, and an expert in mergers and acquisitions. Brian is the CEO of Idea Shares, which is a company that helps entrepreneurs take their ideas from the drawing on the paper napkin to a profitable business venture. During the show, we discuss the future of entrepreneurship, ideation and testing your ideas, and beginning with the end in mind.   Main Questions Asked: What is it about your personality that makes you want to be in so many ventures and not just one business? Talk about IdeaShares.com and how you are helping your clients. Are you mostly working with people who have an idea for a product or professional services? How early in the process should you be thinking about your business as being something that can be sold one day? What are your thoughts on service-based businesses? What is an example of a company who is doing everything right?   Key Lessons Learned: Future of Entrepreneurship We are going to lose 45 million jobs in the next 10-15 years due to technology. What we used to think of as a ‘job’ will be very different. If you aren’t thinking entrepreneurially today, you will have to, as it will be necessary to ‘side gig.’   Solving Problems You don’t have anything that can create commerce if you don’t solve a problem. The current model of business incubators is actually more along the lines of accelerators. There is a gap between the early stages of ideation to execution and no one who is helping compress the time, cost, and overall risk associated with ideation.   Ideation Ideation is the time between when you get the idea, the catalytic action to move on the idea, and getting to minimally viable product, or proof of concept. The process for ideas is the same regardless of whether it is a product or service, as there needs to be a prototype for both. For proof of concept to gain traction in order to get funding outside of friends and family, you have to have a prototype.   Begin with the End in Mind When people buy businesses, they buy enterprise value, intellectual property, or both. Enterprise value is not a dependent business but rather an independent business someone can take on to the next level. Multiples are usually based off the enterprise value that, if the owner walked away, it’s a viable business model. A lot of businesses aren’t built to be sold. Some will be licensed, as they are more process-driven. Most people burn out because the business is dependent on them. The businesses that get the best valuations are the ones that are built in a way that they can run with the entire team being replaced.   Service-Based Businesses Service-based businesses need to have processes that are simple, repeatable, and measurable.    Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio! The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic    Links to Resources Mentioned Idea Shares [email protected]