How Do I Prepare My Small Screen Printing Firm To Sell?

Rock, I run a small home-based industrial screen printing company. My sales team consists of me and a salesperson who is mainly retired but helps me out. Our production team is me, my son (on the weekends), and a few contractors when needed. On the admin side, it’s me and my bookkeeper. I have several accounts that print with me as projects come up, so it’s a respectable flow of work for a single-owner business. How do I prepare a small screen printing business to sell? Would someone want to buy it?

There are always buyers who want a turnkey business if it is profitable.

A modest specialty screen printing business can be tucked into a bigger graphic arts company, or it can continue to run – as you have done – as a standalone.

Here’s how to sell a small screen printing business:

The first thing to consider is whether you have a good reputation and a loyal clientele. If so, someone might want to buy your business for the accounts (most likely) or for your screen printing equipment (less likely).

If the price is right, a prospect may consider your company just to keep someone else from buying it and competing with them.

Second, buyers will need to see how the financials pencil out. If you work from your garage, let’s say, without the overhead of a larger business, that’s an essential factor for a prospective buyer.

We recommend you sit down with us. We’ll run the numbers as if the new owner had to pay rent, hire workers, lease vehicles, and so forth. Could the business be profitable, even in this scenario? If so, that’s helpful.

Third, we need to research your market. Anyone who buys your business wants to understand where future screen printing customers will come from and what the market conditions are likely to be for your area. We specialize in accessing and analyzing this type of data for printing company owners.

Fourth, a buyer needs to see how the business can run without you. This is vital. When you describe your role, it sounds like every area of your operation is touched and managed by you.

A buyer would have difficulty duplicating what you do without hiring three or four people. If the business requires a hard-driving multi-tasker at the helm, you will be challenged to find a buyer who is competent in so many areas of the company. We would need to search our network to help you find a suitable owner-operator. Or, we could focus on finding a buyer who has the industry experience, financial backing, and infrastructure to seamlessly tuck in a business like yours.

Now, let’s talk about how to make your small business more valuable – and potentially increase your asking price.

Have you had a business valuation? Are your financials up to date? When we work with owners, we need to document the starting point before making improvements. Will we be helping you with profitability? Cost control? Better utilization of personnel and materials? Improving operations, for example, can potentially help you improve the attractiveness and asking price of the business, depending on your timeline and goals.

Have you been thinking about adding a new service? If so, get the bugs ironed out before putting your business on the market. Showing your new service as an established and profitable program is one less thing for a new owner to wonder about.

Can you hire a general manager so you can step back from the business systematically? Hiring someone to learn the ropes has many benefits. It protects you if you need to be away from daily operations for an extended period. It also psychologically prepares you for your exit. And – this is the reality of fleshing out your team ahead of the sale – it gives you time to figure out how to pay for that new position.
Does your marketing plan position you authoritatively to the outside world? We recommend a modern website, potential e-commerce options, social media, strategic advertising, and a suite of up-to-date sales materials that explains your services and products.

Don’t scramble to implement your plan at the last minute. Putting a better face on your business helps attract a higher-caliber buyer.

Yes, getting a small screen printing company ready to sell takes some work. However, if you follow the steps above, you can position yourself to attract the right buyer. If you think you’d like to build and add value to your business while you get it ready to sell, we recommend our handy guide that is free, with no obligation, from the experts at LaManna Consulting Group.

Download and read our FREE guide, Acquisition Criteria for Printing Companies, and when you’re ready for a valuation or a conversation about our services, give us a call. The perfect buyer for your small screen printing business could be right around the corner!