Building Business Value: How to Command a Premium Price for Your Midsized Company

As a consultant I experience the internal workings of many companies and only the best ones follow the principles described in this book. The information and insight provide a leadership team a road map for how to stay focused on what is important and how best to position an organization for the future. This is one of those books you need to read every 12 to 18 months.

Whether you're interested in positioning your business for sale at a premium price or just trying to optimize your operations and maximize your profits, this book can help. Drawing on his years of experience in running, building, and selling successful companies, O'Neill provides a cogent road map for creating and maximizing value in any business. His model is easy to understand and apply. Building Business Value is written in an engaging style, replete with examples, charts, and checklists.

While the subtitle is accurate, it is also a bit of a misnomer. As the phrasing in the title and the blurb on the back imply, the purpose of this book is to put forward advice on how to make your company attractive when there is the prospect that it will be sold. From that perspective, the subtitle is accurate. The context of a misnomer applies because the tactics that you use to make your company attractive in the market are largely the same ones that direct the company on a path to growth and prosperity. For potential buyers are most impressed by data and arguments that convincingly demonstrate that the company is sound in each of the vertical, horizontal and temporal dimensions. Many of the points that O'Neill makes appear in many publications about effective management and some of them are: *) Articulate a clear vision for the direction of the company and make sure that all employees know it well. *) Create an open and honest atmosphere where employees feel comfortable to freely and respectfully express their thoughtful opinions. *) Keep accurate and detailed records that are easily accessible and understood. *) Make sure that all employees have a stake in the positive movement in the company and that they are treated with dignity and respect. It is clear that these are sound policies that will drive any organization to success. While success in business is never assured, it is possible to maximize the likelihood that your company will be successful. This is done by developing and executing a core set of actions based on beliefs that are appropriate in general and specificity. O'Neill sets down a sound set of actions that are generic enough to work for almost everyone.

Now is the perfect time for leaders of mid-market companies to take a hard look at their organizations and to plan for the future. And Marty O'Neill provides a rich, practical framework and process for assessing the state of your business and increasing its value. Full of practical and actionable advice, derived from Marty's personal experience building and leading businesses, Building Business Value will help you create a roadmap for the future success of your business. I am convinced that those leaders that take the time to think about the value of their business today, using Marty's framework, will be the future winners as the economy begins to recover.

I came across "Building Business Value" at the perfect time. My company was growing fast, despite the recession, and we were looking at several opportunities. This book helped our leadership team improve our focus on the long term goals, guiding our short term actions. I have read hundreds of business books and share the frustrations of many: books that offer 10 pages of value and 200 pages of fluff. The author's practical, real life experience in our shoes, wrestling with our issues, allowed him to pack the pages with practical, actionable advice. We are hard at work, implementing Marty's strategies. This book is a great (and cheap) investment.