Experienced entrepreneurs understand that that when it comes to the right way to sell a business, there are a few details that you absolutely must get right. If you don’t, the amount of money you receive for your company will most assuredly be less than it could otherwise be.

If you are building a company today that you may one day want to sell, are you taking the steps today to plant seeds for the sale of tomorrow?

Do you know that the single most important thing you need to be doing for the 18 months leading up to the sale?

In this episode of the Bright Ideas podcast, I’m once again joined by Ian Ippolito, founder of vWorker.com, which was recently acquired for an undisclosed sum by Freelancer.com, and during our conversation you are going to hear Ian and I talk about:

• how he managed to sell his company for almost twice the initial offer
• the one activity that he intently focused on for the year leading up to the sale
• the steps of the acquisition process, from letter of intent to closed sale
• the key components that every letter of intent should contain
• how to understand what the buyer’s motivation is and how to use that to your advantage
• how to know when to move into due diligence with a potential buyer
• the most important things that a buyer is going to look for during due diligence
• the value of a business broker, tax advisor, and legal counsel
• why most buyers will want to structure the deal as an asset sale
• how to create an auction for your company to maximize the sales price
• why and how terms can play such a large role in negotiations
• ways to structure the sales contract to keep you out of court if things go wrong
• and so much more…

Regardless of where you are at in the process of growing your own company, this interview is one you can’t afford to miss. Trust me.

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Watch The Interview Now

About Ian Ippolito

In 2001 Ian created a site where employers could find remote workers in a marketplace and be protected with money-back guarantees, while the workers would be guaranteed payment for a job well done. The resulting site was (at that time) called Rent a Coder and was programming focused. The site grew to facilitate thousands of succesful projects a month in all types of work, and was re-christened as vWorker in 2010.

vWorker was called “One of the 100 most brilliant companies” by Entrpreneur magazine, and has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fast-Company and many other journals and magazines as a company exemplifying the shift of power to the new world-wide digital economy. It is a 3 time (2007, 2008, 2009) consecutive winner of the INC 5000 “fastest growing private company in the U.S.” award.

In 2008, Ian was a finalist for Tampa Bay CEO of the Year in the category of “Emerging CEO: Under age 40”. In 2009 he was again a finalist for Tampa Bay CEO of the Year… this time in the “Small company under 45 employees” category.

He enjoys travelling and enjoying excellent food with good company.