Why you need an M&A advisor and how to choose it.

Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Whether you're selling or acquiring a business, or looking for a minority or majority partner, you need an advisor. Choosing the right one is an essential step in achieving your goals.
If you're selling your business, this is one of the most important decisions you can make. You've worked hard to build your business. Turn that transaction into a reward for a lifetime of creating jobs and wealth! All you need is patience and the best committed professional advisor. It's the opportunity of a lifetime to crystallize the value of what you've built over many years. Don't miss it!
A M&A advisor will bring significant value to the process. It will provide organized and structured planning from start to finish; ensure confidentiality and the best possible valuation. On the other hand, it will save you time and allow you to focus on your core business by delegating the management of the process. An M&A transaction is incredibly time-consuming and can hurt your business performance.
Who you choose to work with can make all the difference between seeing a successful transaction with a big rise in value and ending up in the middle of nowhere. Here are a few things to consider when making this critical decision:

Confidence & trust

You'll be working with an advisor for 4 to 9 months, so it's important to feel comfortable. It's important to have open communication. You should feel comfortable asking questions, raising concerns, discussing doubts, and sharing emotions. Your financial advisor is there for you, and so is your psychologist if you need one. Selling or buying a business is an emotional roller coaster, and you'll need all the support you can get! You need someone to support you in this process and guide you through the obstacles and challenges of the process.
The perfect advisor will start discussing your objectives with you, and you'll feel like they understand and share them with you. The perfect advisor will take the time to truly understand your business.
Trust is the key to open and honest communication between all parties involved. Transparency is the key to identifying potential issues early on.

• Trust is a powerful tool that can reduce costs by avoiding engaging in opportunistic behavior, reducing the need for extensive safeguards and monitoring.

• Trust is the key to cooperation, deal outcomes, and protecting your reputation!

• Trust is like a lubricant that makes M&A transactions a breeze! It makes it easier than ever to achieve your strategic goals.

The bottom line is this: you need to feel like you have a great relationship, feel comfortable about the process, and that the advisor is acting in your best interest and with integrity.

Process, process and process!

The perfect advisor will present you, explain you, and follow a strong and robust process. To achieve the right transaction, you need a lot of disciplines to follow all the steps, even if that takes a lot of time. Never take an advisor that proposed to cut the corner! The perfect advisor will walk you through the process, show you a timeline, and explain what they'll do at each step of the process. At the same time, you want someone who is creative to adapt the process to the specifics of your business and the situation. After all, no two deals are the same! You also want someone who can be creative in adapting the process to all obstacles and challenges.

Experience and passion!

You need someone who has a strong and robust process and who can be creative if needed. This can only be obtained from an advisor who has a lot of experience, has done a lot of transactions, and has a creative thinking. Someone who is willing to explore multiple deal structures in a way that is fair and beneficial for all parties involved. Definitively, it can’t be your accountant!
You need someone who can create a competitive process and it’s absolutely essential if the advisor has expertise in your industry. An industry expert will better understand the key drivers of your business, the market dynamics, and the potential buyers. Each sector has its own challenges and peculiarities, and you want an advisor who knows how to navigate those that are relevant to your industry.
You will also want to work with an M&A advisor that is well suited to your company size. The goal is to make sure that the M&A advisor doesn't get distracted by larger deals that come along. And you don't end up with a junior team because the senior manager gets a better deal.
The bottom line is that you need an experienced creative professional with a track record, who has a passion for your industry, for company size, and for the job.

Global reach and independence

A top-notch marketing campaign is essential for success. People need to want to look at your company, and you need to arouse interest. Look at the advisor's website, look at their proposal, and look at their marketing documents to see if it makes you want to look at them.
One of the best things about partnering with an M&A advisor is that you get to tap into their incredible knowledge of financial purchasers, overseas acquirers, and purchasers outside your own sector. Global connections are especially valuable in this context. Look for an advisor with the geographic connections and resources to expand your opportunities far beyond your reach. The goal is to create a competitive bidding situation. While the biggest company may seem like the obvious choice, it's not always the best one. Look for a firm that will take the time to get to know you and is able to develop strategies tailored to your needs. And lastly, take someone who has no conflicts of interest or hidden agendas that could influence its advice.

Valuation

It's always a good idea to have someone who knows the value of your company. But remember, your business is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. If you're looking for an acquisition, an M&A advisor can help you avoid getting too attached to the target and provide insights and metrics to support a fair valuation for both parties. They can also help you assess possible synergies!

Fees

An M&A advisor is not a broker. The biggest mistake will be to look solely at the one with the lowest fees and without a retainer. Someone who is not asking for a retainer is a broker, not an M&A advisor. Without a retainer fee, they will close the deal as quickly as possible, at whatever price, which is bad for you. A broker will not maintain confidentiality and will not negotiate a deal and prepare the business for sale.
In contrast, an M&A advisor will work exclusively to maximize your profit, and its compensation is more than 95% dependent on the success of the transaction. An advisor cannot take on the project and make such an investment in it without a reasonable expectation of being paid for it. Therefore, exclusivity and a retainer fee are in both your best interests. It provides the basis for your commitment and allows the advisor to begin working on a transaction promptly. The retainer fee is a great way to show that you're serious about the transaction and to help the advisor offset some of the direct costs associated with the project. This allows the advisor to position the deal for success! By charging a fixed retainer fee, the advisor demonstrates its commitment to you and ensures that the necessary resources are fully dedicated to the transaction from day one. This allows the advisor to move quickly and wait for the best deals!

The ideal M&A advisor should be able to add so much value to the transaction that it's worth many times their fees!