Even if you aren’t thinking about selling your media business right this minute, it’s usually an important future consideration. Or maybe you’re thinking about selling just a part of your portfolio. You can never start preparing too soon!
We checked in with some of our top M&A experts to get their insights on some good guidelines when contemplating the sale of (some or all) of your niche media properties.
Dan Oswald, CEO of Simplify Compliance:
Jim Zielinski, Founder of Zielinski Financial Advisors, LLC:
“The most important benchmark is revenue per employee. Revenue per employee is the most key basic measure because it fundamentally incorporates the entire P&L (Profit and Loss) in one number. In media businesses, staff payroll and related expenses account for the majority of total expenses.”
Don Pazour, CEO of Access Intelligence:
“The level of engagement your audience has with your brand. It has always been important, but with today’s digital metrics, it is easier to prove and demonstrate.
If you happen not to have fully developed the digital extensions of your brands, that is value and growth available to the buyer. It is a strange kind of making lemons out of lemonade. Always remember most buyers think they are smarter than you and can do better than you did with your brands and products. Use this to your advantage.
Digitally savvy teams in all areas of the business—well beyond your “IT” staff–editors, sales people, audience people should demonstrate competency and internal tracking of measurements that fully leverage the digital media ecosystem for the sector in which you publish.”
With this wisdom from the experts in mind, check out the 2017 Niche CEO Summit in Washington, D.C., June 21-23. It’s an event just for Publishers and CEOs who want to learn more from their peers and niche media industry experts, and includes B2B- and B2C-specific sessions on M&A. Join us!
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About this blogger: Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Niche Media. A former sales director and corporate marketing hack, she has now found nirvana in writing and wrangling quality content. Diana is a food, wine, art and SF Giants enthusiast…who sometimes gets carried away.
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Niche Media has the best events, education, and training in media! Our super niched-out events & content give target-audience publishers in the B2C, hobbyist, B2B, city & regional, and association markets the tools they need to build revenue, audience, and more.
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