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How to Increase Your Company’s Value: 7 Actionable Steps
Some of the factors that determine your company’s value depend on the market, and you cannot influence them. Others depend entirely on you, and those offer the greatest room for improvement. These seven actions have the most demonstrable impact on a valuation, together with the realistic timeframe each one requires.
None of them requires that you intend to sell. All of them help the company perform better tomorrow.
01. Diversify Your Client Portfolio
Timeframe: 12-24 months. Impact: Very high.
If a single client accounts for more than 25-30% of your revenue, any buyer, investor or financial institution will treat it as a structural risk. This translates into a discount on the price, deferred payment or guarantees.
A reasonable target: no client above 15-20%.
It is the most versatile of all the actions: it improves your valuation, your access to credit and your ability to sleep soundly.
02. Reduce Founder Dependency
Timeframe: 12-18 months. Impact: Very high.
The question will come sooner or later: what would happen if you were not here tomorrow? If the honest answer is “everything would come to a halt”, the value drops.
To improve that answer: delegate the commercial relationship with key accounts, strengthen the management team and give it greater visibility, document decision-making and establish reporting systems that do not go through you.
A financial buyer will not even analyze the transaction if the company cannot operate without you.
03. Document Internal Processes
Timeframe: 6-12 months. Impact: High.
Many companies operate thanks to the accumulated experience of their team. That is a strength, until that knowledge exists only in the heads of three people: then it becomes a risk.
The nuance that changes the valuation: know-how that lives in people is not an asset of the company. It only becomes an asset once it is written down.
04. Protect Intellectual Property
Timeframe: 6-18 months. Impact: High, and very low cost.
Register the trademark with the OEPM or the EUIPO, verify that it is registered in the name of the company and not in that of a shareholder, and formalize ownership of the software if external developers or freelancers were involved.
It is one of the investments with the best return available: the cost is low, and it avoids price retentions or conditions precedent in any future transaction.
05. Improve the Quality of Financial Information
Timeframe: 6-12 months. Impact: High.
Reliable monthly closes, accounts filed on time, margins broken down by business line, and forecasts with clearly explained assumptions.
This does not change your results, but it completely changes how they are perceived. A company that takes three weeks to produce a balance sheet conveys a lack of control, and a lack of control is discounted.
And do it with your normalized EBITDA: separate what is recurring from what is not before someone else does it for you.
06. Increase Revenue Recurrence
Timeframe: 12-24 months. Impact: Very high.
Not every euro is worth the same. A euro from a multi-year contract is worth more than a euro from a one-off project, because it reduces the buyer’s risk.
Common routes: moving from projects to subscriptions or retainers, signing maintenance contracts, introducing automatic renewal, and extending the duration of agreements.
It is the lever that does the most to move your multiple towards the upper end of your sector’s range.
07. Identify and Highlight Your Intangible Assets
Timeframe: 3-6 months. Impact: Medium-high.
Make an unfiltered inventory of everything you own: brand, technology, databases, patents, processes, client portfolio, licenses, reputation. Most business owners find between 8 and 15 items they had never listed.
Then link each one to a measurable indicator: renewal rate, price premium, replacement cost, savings generated.
Documentation does not create value. It makes it collectable.
Where to start
identifying your intangible assets. The first two eliminate the most discount, and the intangibles help you understand your business in detail and focus on what truly adds value so you can strengthen it: protecting the brand, organizing information, inventorying intangible assets.
Would you like to know which actions would have the greatest impact in your case?
We analyze what is holding back the value of your company and where it makes sense to start.
FAQs
How much can the value of my company increase with these actions?
We provide website planning, UX design, UI design, and responsive page design tailored to your brand and business goals. Depending on the project, development and ongoing support can also be included. You can choose only the services you need.
Is it worth it if I am not planning to sell?
We provide website planning, UX design, UI design, and responsive page design tailored to your brand and business goals. Depending on the project, development and ongoing support can also be included. You can choose only the services you need.
How long before a transaction should I start?
We provide website planning, UX design, UI design, and responsive page design tailored to your brand and business goals. Depending on the project, development and ongoing support can also be included. You can choose only the services you need.