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Say Yes! Enterprises Valuation Checklist
Written by Marissa B. on November 29th, 2020

Valuation is the process of assigning value.

It is a measure of worth that is arrived upon using standard formulas. Business value comes from assets, processes, financials, profitability, and systems. Prices for business are determined using simple mathematical formulas and contextual thinking.

The process of finding valuation for a business is a conversation guided by information. There are no right or wrong answers and typically there are very few deal-breakers. Each business has unique attributes. Each business has both factors that contribute to and factors that detract from its valuation. These are some of the questions that Say Yes! Enterprises consider when determining valuation.

What are the answers for your business?

Financials
  • What is the length of traffic history in the business?
  • ​What is the trend of traffic in the past years? Months? Are the trends up or down?
  • How stable is the traffic? Is the business highly seasonal? Or is there year-round demand for the business?
  • ​What are the KPI’s the business uses? How stable are the KPI’s? How stable are the CPM’s? COA? Conversion Rate?
  • ​How diverse are the financials? What percentage of the revenue comes from a particular customer or product?
  • ​Have there been any financial changes in the business? If so, what?
  • ​How easy will it be to transfer the revenue of the business to the new owner?
  • ​How easy will it be to minimize costs for the new owner?
  • ​What are the opportunities for cost savings?
  • ​Have there been any unusual or unique financial variables in the business?
  • ​How is the market demand categorized for this business? Is push or pull marketing needed to drive revenue? Are sales static or evergreen?
  • ​How much influence does the owner have over the financials? Does the owner have special relationships or customers that only come to them personally?
  • ​How does the industry value these financials? What is the industry multiple?
  • ​Along with the industry multiple, what phase is the business in and how does it affect the business multiple?
Traffic
  • What is the length of traffic history in the business?
  • ​What is the trend of traffic in the past years? Months? Are the trends up or down?
  • ​How stable are the traffic? Is the business highly seasonal? Or is there year-round demand for the business?
  • ​What does Google Trends say about this industry? How does this compare to other industries? What will the traffic look like in the future?
  • ​How easy will it be to transfer the traffic of the business to the new owner?
  • ​How strong is the SEO value of this business?
  • ​How diverse is traffic to the business? What is the percentage of Search, Social, Walk-In, Referral, Email, Etc?
  • ​Have there been any recent algorithmic changes or penalties to the website?
  • ​How many backlinks does the website have?
  • ​What is the bounce rate of the website?
  • ​How long has it been like that? How easy will it be to change that? How long do viewers stay on the website? How long has it been like that? How easy will it be to improve that?
  • ​What percentage of traffic is paid versus organic?
Operations
  • How much time does the owner currently spend in the business?
  • ​How much time will the new owner have to spend in the business?
  • ​What duties or responsibilities is the current owner responsible for? Why is that? Can they be delegated?
  • ​What personal know-how, technical knowledge, technical requirements, skills or relationships does the owner have to have?
  • ​How many employees are in the business? Is the business under or over staffed?
  • ​What is the history of the current personnel and turnover rate?
  • ​How is the management team structured? Is the business under or over managed?
  • ​Are there any vital or key employees that the business must have?
Niche
  • Is this niche one of the SYE’s preferred niches?
  • ​How much competition is there in this niche?
  • ​What is the growth of this niche? What has the historical growth been?
  • ​What is the availability of innovation in this niche?
  • ​What are the barriers to entry within this niche?
  • ​What is the availability of growth within this niche and of this niche?
  • ​What is the availability of disruption within this niche and of this niche?
  • ​What is the availability of acquisitions within this niche?
Customers
  • How are customers currently acquired?
  • ​What percentage of customers come from which acquisition channel?
  • ​What are the primary customer segments?
  • ​What are the customer demographics?
  • ​What is the Average Order Value?
  • ​What is the Lifetime Order Value?
  • ​Are the customers price sensitive?
  • ​How much customer data is there currently? (Lists, Addresses, Phone Numbers, Emails, Etc.)
  • ​How responsive are the customers to email blasts, social media posts and advertisements?
Online Audience
  • What digital assets (such as social media, website, landing pages, domains, email list, etc.) does the business currently own?
  • ​Are the traffic levels on digital assets stable, increasing, or decreasing?
  • ​What kind of SEO ranking power does the business have?
  • ​How often does the customer appear in search results?
  • ​What are the highest performing traffic sources for the business?
  • ​Have any of the digital assets ever been penalized by Google, Facebook, or a similar business?
  • ​Does the business’ website have strong domain authority and backlinks?
Tangibles
  • What physical assets does the business have? (Real estate, inventory, equipment, supplies, etc)
  • ​What trademarks does the business currently have?
  • ​What copyrights does the business currently have?
  • ​What intellectual property does the business currently have?
  • ​What trade secrets does the business currently have?
  • ​What key relationships does the business currently foster?
  • ​What market positioning does the brand currently have within their marketplace?
  • ​What is the online reputation score of the business?
  • ​What is the net promoter score of the business’ customers?
Intangibles
  • What is the founder(s) story & vision?
  • ​How high is the affinity of the business’ fanbase?
  • ​What is the business owner’s specific know-how?
  • ​What is the net promoter score of the business’ employees?
  • ​How would the employees rate the workplace culture?
  • ​What are ideas and strategies that the business owner has but has yet to implement?
  • ​What is the potential of the ideas and strategies of the business owner?
Products
  • Does the business have one primary product or service or multiple products?
  • ​What is the diversification of those products and services?
  • ​Does the business have supplier agreements?
  • ​Does the business have supplier exclusivity?
  • ​What level of volume can the current supply chain handle? How much room is there for growth?
  • ​What level of growth would disrupt the current level of supply chain?
Risk
  • Is the business in an industry that is highly regulated?
  • ​Is the business in an industry that is legal?
  • ​Are there certain parameters, permits or requirements that the business has to have to stay in operation?
  • ​Does the business have any liens?
  • ​Is the business current with their taxes?
  • ​Has the business had any legal issues or lawsuits?
  • ​Is this business in a niche that may be prone to lawsuits?
Owner
  • What is the owner’s credit score?
  • ​Is the owner up-to-date on all taxes?
  • ​How much debt does the owner have?
  • ​Does the owner seem like they’ll work well during the transition to the new owner?
  • ​Does the owner seem like an individual that the SYE team would like to work with?
  • ​What is the owner’s reason for selling?
  • ​What does the owner want out of this transaction?
  • ​How can the SYE team overdeliver for the seller in this transaction?

Would you like more resources?
Read our business valuation primer?

You can also visit our website to sign up for your free business valuation.

About Say Yes! Enterprises

Say Yes! Enterprises is an investment management company that acquires, builds, and sells companies that benefit shareholders, customers, team members and communities at large.
About Christopher Wick
Investor, 9X Award-Winning Entrepreneur, and 5X Best-Selling Author & Speaker

*Founder/Principal of businesses that have been featured by Huffington Post, ABC, NBC and Wall Street Select*

Christopher Wick is an award-winning entrepreneur who has built, bought and sold various companies relating to social media marketing, e-commerce, real estate, retail and investing.

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ABOUT 
Say Yes! Enterprises is an investment management company that acquires, builds, and sells companies that benefit shareholders, customers, team members and communities at large.
Say Yes! Enterprises is an investment management company that acquires, builds, and sells companies that benefit shareholders, customers, team members and communities at large.
CONTACT 
Say Yes! Enterprises
5900 Balcones Drive
STE 100 
Austin, TX 78731
Copyright © 2024 Say Yes! Enterprises | All Rights Reserved. 
Copyright © 2020 Say Yes! Enterprises | All Rights Reserved. 
ABOUT 
ABOUT 
Say Yes! Enterprises is an investment management company that acquires, builds, and sells companies that benefit shareholders, customers, team members and communities at large.
Say Yes! Enterprises is an investment management company that acquires, builds, and sells companies that benefit shareholders, customers, team members and communities at large.
CONTACT 
CONTACT 
Say Yes! Enterprises
5900 Balcones Drive, STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
Say Yes! Enterprises
5900 Balcones Drive, STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
   Email Us
   Email Us