How To Prepare To Sell Your Business And Have a Strong Exit with Christine McDannell #032

Christine McDannell is the proud Founder of The Magnolia Firm, an international M&A and business brokerage firm. Before starting Magnolia and helping companies buy and sell their businesses, she spent over 20 years building and selling her own companies.

In this episode, Christine provides incredible advice for any founders or future founders out there. She explains how to prepare for a strong exit, managing internal communications during the process, and how to transition responsibilities to the new ownership team once the deal is done.

Toward the end of the interview I ask her to share with us how she started her firm and how they go about securing new clients which includes an outbound Sales Development motion that they’ve recently activated.

#salesconsultantpodcast #mna #businessbroker #valuations #founders #entrepreneurs #buyingbusinesses #sellingbusinesses

Time Stamps:

[1:30] Christine shares her background with growing and selling companies before starting her practice.

[3:25] Why founders decide to sell their business.

5:25] The type of companies her firm normally works with.

[6:00] I ask how the economy is impacting her business and she explains how choppy waters in the economy actually leads to more buying and selling activity.

[7:20] How she got into buying and selling businesses.

[9:33] Her advice to founders on how to best position themselves for a strong exit. She also explains the concept of a “earn out”.

13:45] Strategic advice for transitioning effectively from founder-led to the new ownership team and redistributing responsibilities.

[17:30] Managing internal communications during the process of selling the company and why you shouldn't tell anyone until it’s done.

[22:10] Christine started The Magnolia Form 2 years ago and she tells us about the deals she helped with that led to the idea. She also gets into how she’s starting to scale up a bit tripling capacity.

[25:08] How they acquire new clients for their firm.

[29:43] Christine shares the technology her team is using to underpin their outreach strategy.

[31:00] I ask if she would ever exit Magnolia.

[34:10] She was able to have breakfast with Richard Branson in Paris once and so I ask her what’s one thing she learned from him that she has implemented into her life/business.