This post is about one of my 45-second pitches at my BNI Chapter, BNI City Business. You can read the introduction to this collection here.

On the agenda of a typical BNI chapter meeting will be a more extensive 10-minute presentation from one of the members. In a typical chapter, each member will get two to three 10-minute presentations each year. At BNI City Business, again due to our size, we have opted for two five-minute presentations from two members each week – this way we each get the same two to three presentation slots per year.

And this week was my 5-minute slot. Our approach is for one speaker to have their slot at the beginning of the meeting, the other at the end. I was up first.

We were still in lockdown here in New Zealand but nearing the end. I am guessing around March 2022.

I used Surprises as the core theme of my presentation and started with this slide to set the scene.

I then went on to summarise my MSc thesis (on a single slide, in under three minutes), finishing with the 5Ds of exit planning – the surprises that can mean a business owner needs to sell sooner than expected (Death, Disability, Divorce, Disagreement, and Distress), and finished with my name, title, and contact details – and I added a picture of a banana for reference. In my head (at least) this all made sense and tied my 5-minute presentation together well.

So it made perfect sense as my 45-second pitch slide that week, a little later in the meeting, to use this slide:

A Bunch of Bananas

I had originally planned to stretch out the metaphor when we (eventually) got back to meeting in person, but the timing was never quite right.

A common tool for presenters at BNI is to have a prop: something physical that the speaker uses to illustrate their message. A (now former) chapter member, Ant Simons of Attain NZ, was the master of the prop, and I was keen to have a shot. My plan was to talk about the oft-discussed issue for business owners: when is the best time to sell their business? I would then have three bananas: One green (obviously unripe), one a perfect yellow, and one ‘overripe’ speckled with numerous brown spots. I would use these props to demonstrate the futility of trying to time the market.

I also had the following image ready to reinforce the concept:

I would wrap up by peeling the brown banana to reveal that the banana itself was fine. You can’t time the sale of your business perfectly.

I felt this use of banana props would only work when we were back having in-person BNI meetings, so I needed to park the idea in any case. Nonetheless, I did rehearse the pitch and had two critical issues delivering the message: (i) I couldn’t guarantee to have three perfectly aged bananas for my 7.00am meeting, and (ii) the whole show went well over the allotted 45-seconds. I always thought I would come back to the idea at some point, but by the end of 2022, I haven’t managed to.

Timing a Business Sale

Is there a better time than others to sell your business? The typical answer from a broker is no – the best time to sell a business is now in order to manage the uncertainty. I even used this approach when I was a broker: Imagine thinking you would get a better price in mid-2020 that late 2019. The unexpected can happen that could make your business unsaleable.

This message is fundamentally the same used in the residential real estate market. The key difference between the timing of a house sale and a business sale is that – in most cases – you sell your house in order to buy another. You are buying and selling on the same market, generally without disadvantage (yes, I know this isn’t a perfect argument, but it is sufficiently true).

It is less common when selling a business to then go and buy a similar business. Completing buy and sell transactions on the same market is far less likely. Timing your sale becomes far more important in an Exit Planning context if you have the luxury of time. You want to ensure your business is ready to be sold, that you (as the business owner) are ready to sell, and that – in general – you are early in a market upturn. Not everyone has the luxury of time to sell their business (see the 5Ds). And hardworking business brokers need inventory to sell in any market.

Timing the sale of your business is a factor I include when coaching a business owner who is considering the sale of their business.

One Last Thing

Around November 2022 I found the following meme that appealed to my sense of humour. I haven’t (yet) used this one either.