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Are you ready to sell your WordPress development agency? Contrary to popular belief, it’s unusual to list your business for sale and get inundated with inquiries and offers. Instead, you’ll need to take the time to increase its appeal.
The good news is that there are plenty of ways to make your agency more attractive to prospects. For example, you can enhance your portfolio, obtain client testimonials, and upgrade your technology. This can even help you secure a higher sale price.
In this post, we’ll dive straight into eight things you can do to attract buyers for your WordPress development agency. Then, we’ll show you the best place to find quality buyers. Let’s get right to it!
Eight tips for attracting agency buyers
So, here are ways to make your web agency attractive to buyers!
1. Enhance your portfolio
The easiest way to persuade a potential buyer of your agency’s value is to show, rather than tell. Naturally, you’ll want to impress prospects with high-quality work and a diverse range of projects.
Not only will buyers be checking to see whether your past work aligns with their own standards, but they may also use your portfolio to decide whether it meets their future goals. Perhaps they’re looking to move into a more niche area of WordPress development, or maybe they want to target a more defined market.
It’s a good idea to position your best projects first so that they are easily accessible. Additionally, you’ll want to use photographic evidence (where possible), especially when it comes to design projects.
It’s also a good idea to include key project details such as summaries, timelines, and industry information. If you have a heavy backlog of previous work, you can even consider organizing projects into different categories.
While social media is a great place to post case studies and recent work, we always recommend setting up a dedicated page on your website where clients can quickly browse through the best examples.
2. Improve profitability
Although some buyers prefer to focus on the potential for profitability, others may only be interested in agencies with a high return on investment (ROI).
In particular, recurring revenue makes your company more sought-after because it offers a certain amount of predictability for future earnings. So before you list your business for sale, you could try to convert existing/past clients into long-term accounts by offering retainer agreements or monthly maintenance packages.
But revenue isn’t the only factor that helps buyers determine the overall financial health of your agency. They’ll also assess profit margins and expenses. In fact, now would be a good time to reduce expenses, which might involve optimizing supply chains or renegotiating contracts.
Some buyers will even want to view your tax history and financial projections. Meanwhile, your balance sheets and cash flow statements can also come under scrutiny. Naturally, outstanding debts may present a challenge when it comes to generating profits, so it’s a good idea to settle these first.
As always though, it’s smart to properly value your WordPress agency to help generate a fair asking price and lend credibility during negotiations.
3. Obtain client feedback
While a portfolio enables you to showcase your creativity and standard of work, it doesn’t tell buyers anything about your work ethic or communication skills. They might be left wondering whether clients found it easy to work with you, or whether they were satisfied with the work you carried out.
Some buyers will assess your business reputation as it can help them feel more confident about making an offer. You can expect buyers to dig deep into your customer reviews (if you feature these on your website), social media reviews/comments, and even Google Business reviews to find out what people really think about your work.
If you don’t have feedback available on your website, now is a good time to add it. Of course, you can implement this feature into your website using WordPress plugins. However, don’t be afraid to reach out directly to past clients that you feel would review your agency favorably.
Perhaps there’s a stand-out case where you (or your team members) went above and beyond a client’s expectations. Maybe they even commented on the excellent customer service or quality of work numerous times throughout the process. In most cases, people will be happy to provide glowing testimonials to help you out.
4. Foster company culture
The team and culture of your web development agency can also help you attract potential buyers. Naturally, buyers will favor companies that are made up of skilled employees with experience across various disciplines like WordPress development, design, project management, and more.
They’ll want to know that the existing team is equipped with the expertise to support their long-term business goals. More important perhaps is the experience of the leadership team. Besides a strong track record of success, buyers need to know that the agency will continue to thrive, even when you’re no longer around.
You can make your agency look more appealing if you can demonstrate a highly capable management team that handles day-to-day operations with minimal input/supervision from you (the owner). Can they be trusted to make important decisions? Can they nurture a good company culture and boost morale?
5. Upgrade your technology stack
When deciding whether to purchase a web development agency, there are certain things buyers will look for, including your technology stack and toolset. In this case, buyers will expect you to specialize in the WordPress CMS platform.
However, some interested parties may also be looking to acquire a more varied client base, including those that favor Drupal, Joomla, or Magento. It’s also best to ensure that your current toolset reflects modern industry standards.
Outdated software and technology isn’t a good look for your agency, and it can indicate errors/lapses in management. On the flip side, a top-class toolset and technology stack shows that you’re up-to-date with the latest industry trends, and that you’re able to compete against other WordPress development agencies.
6. Streamline operations
Improving the efficiency of your web development agency can also help you attract buyers. This can be indicative of your productivity levels and speak to the smooth day-to-day running of your business.
As such, it’s a good idea to streamline operations. This might mean automating repetitive tasks to save time and money. It might also involve enhancing existing workflow systems or restructuring staff hierarchies.
7. Expand your service list
If you run a niche development agency focused on a highly defined market, this step may not be useful to you. However, the industry is flooded with general-purpose WordPress agencies, so it’s important to add value where you can to differentiate your company.
That’s why it can be a good idea to expand your service list to cater to a broader range of client needs. For example, there are many different areas of WordPress development such as plugin, theme, and ecommerce development.
But, you may consider offering additional development services like platform migrations or headless or decoupled architecture. You could even venture into territories that complement your service nicely like web design, WordPress maintenance, or search engine optimization (SEO).
Another great way to make your agency look more attractive to buyers is to package your services as products. This means you’ll sell a range of pre-defined plans.
Typically, these bundles contain different services or cater to businesses of varying sizes. The advantage here is that ready-made plans are highly marketable. They can also be more convenient solutions for small or mid-sized businesses.
8. Develop your own products
The final way to make your WordPress development agency more appealing is to develop your own products. This can even result in a higher sale price, especially if the product could help buyers maximize future income.
Typically, software and technology make a good fit for a WordPress agency. The asset will then need to be protected by intellectual property (IP) rights in the form of patents, copyrights, trademarks, or similar.
IP protection prohibits the use of the product by unauthorized parties, especially when it comes to financial gain. As such, buyers receive exclusive access to your creation, which could be a huge draw to your business.
Where to find buyers for your WordPress development agency
Once you’ve got your agency up to par, you’re ready to look for buyers. Naturally, you can reach out directly or leverage industry contacts.
You also have the option to list your company on online marketplaces, but you’ll often face lots of competition. Auctions are another potential avenue, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll sell your business for the price you expect.
That’s why it can be better to sell your company to an existing agency that provides the right environment for your business to thrive. Freshy is a particularly great option since it has a strong track record of acquisitions and mergers:
Better yet, Freshy isn’t only interested in profitable development agencies. It considers general-purpose businesses and those with niche specialisms. It’s also open to agencies of any size, client base, or market.
What sets Freshy apart is that it offers a smooth and efficient transition for your employees and clients. With a dedicated in-house support team, all clients receive personalized care and attention during (and after) onboarding.
Our team members are highly skilled and experienced in all aspects of WordPress, including development, design, security, search engine optimization, ongoing maintenance, support, and more.
There’s an extensive portfolio available to help you determine the quality of our work. And, you can kickstart proceedings right away by filling out this simple form. A member of the leadership team will then reach out to begin discussions.
Conclusion
Once you’ve decided to sell your WordPress development agency, you might try to rush into the process. However, it can be difficult to interest buyers if you don’t invest time and effort into making your business more attractive.
To recap, here are eight ways to attract buyers for your development agency:
- Enhance your portfolio.
- Improve profitability.
- Obtain client feedback.
- Foster company culture.
- Upgrade your technology stack.
- Streamline operations.
- Expand your service list.
- Develop your own products.
Attracting buyers is important, but it’s also crucial to find the right buyer. At Freshy, we provide a tailored onboarding process to welcome all your clients and employees. We also consider all types of WordPress agencies, and we have a long history of successful mergers and acquisitions. Fill out this quick form to get the ball rolling!
Featured image credit: Pexels.