Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You Paperback – December 24, 2012

I have owned several businesses in my life, and I wish I had read this book sooner. I would have saved many headaches and won many more dollars in the process.

This is a brilliant book that should really be essential reading for the owner of any small business, wherever they are located.It's an easy to read story of a guy running his own business for 8 years who realises one day that his business ain't worth much to sell. And it's a story of what he does to change his business model, change his product mix, change his staff and even change some of his customers to turn a service business into a product business.This is NOT a theoretical academic text written for students by some teacher who has never done it himself. It's real. Fictional, but real. According to the author, it's not an autobiography. It seems to be more of a composite of the author's own experiences coupled with wisdom the author has gained from many years of talking real business with real business people.So, why read this book?It's a fairly quick read. Not lightweight, but not imposing either. You can knock it over in a couple of nights. And then you can read it again. And again.It's well laid out with concise wisdom and advice intermingled with the main story. It's a good story, and the author is a good story-teller.And at the end, there is a step by step outline of the key stages in the process to turn a service business into a product business.On the downside, some of the process is skimmed over fairly lightly - probably because it could confuse the key message. For example, preparing the legalities and contractual side of selling your business is obviously more involved in reality than is presented in this book, but that is a minor issue compared to the clear processes and advice contained throughout the book for transforming a low-value service business into a saleable asset.This is not a book with "suggestions" for problems that don't really exist. This is a book with solutions. Solutions that address one of the biggest issues facing the owners of small businesses today - getting some significant value back at the time of sale from the blood, sweat and tears they invested to build their business.Too many business owners find they simply can't sell their business - or can't sell it for enough - and they sell out on unfair terms, or terms that dont really give them freedom. Or they just walk away battered and bruised when they've had enough.In Australia (where I live) and in other parts of the Western world, small business is talked about ad being the backbone of the economy - but really gets little support. Small business entrepreneurs often do it tough. I hope this book can help change the lives, fortunes and happiness of business owners throughout the world.Just read it! Then read it again. Then start work changing your business - or help someone you love to change their business. They'll thank you for it.

The heart of this book is a fictional story about Alex Stapleton, an advertising agency owner, and his struggle to convert his business into a sellable one. With the help of his friend Ted, he converts the business from a struggling one that relies too heavily upon him and a single, overly demanding client, to a highly-focused one that thrives without his constant street-level involvement.If you've read many business books on the subject of entrepreneurship and management, these concepts will seem very familiar, but set in a slightly different context. Throughout the book, I felt that the content borrowed heavily from E-Myth (who the author credits in the appendix). The important variation from E-Myth is that the owner is preparing to sell the business. Everything he does in terms of automating and streamlining the operations is done within the framework of the question: "How will this help me sell this company?"After the story concludes, the author summarizes the key points, which seems a little redundant, along with some personal experiences. The greatest flaw of this book is that it never addresses the problems you might have at different points along this process. By the time you finish reading the story (which won't take long), you'll probably be thinking, "Wow! That was easy. Anyone could turn a failing business into a 5.2 million dollar company in a few years."Although the simplicity of the concepts and lack of detail in overcoming obstacles takes away from the thoroughness of the work, the primary takeaways are still valid. Like most business books, this will help any business owner who is slowly but surely letting their business run them to slow down and look at the big picture.If you are a business owner who is putting in a ton of hours with no end in sight, I would highly recommend this book as a starting point to refocus your efforts and rethink your business model. If you are thinking about or getting ready to start a business, this book will still provide some important infrastructure to your business plan to make sure you don't become one of the many business owners who become lost in their own companies. Just don't expect this book to solve all your problems. It's nowhere near that comprehensive, but it is a great starting point.

From the organization of the book like a true story, to the tidbits of gold, this book transformed my way of looking at my startup. We need to apply these principles from the very beginning to ensure we maximize the value of our business. I have recommended this book over 100 times to colleagues, friends and people I have met on a plane. This easy to read book will always have a place on my bookshelf.