Dean Medwid is president and COO of MindField Group, a company that specializes in recruiting hourly workers for companies like Sport Chek and Overwaitea Food Group.
Medwid said he learned an important lesson during the sale of his first business: shelve your emotions and take a hard look at your bottom line.
“I had toiled over this business; it was one of my children, I felt that much passion about it,” he said. “I had a price in mind that I wanted to sell it for.”
The business, Legacy Brands, was a food and wine distribution company Medwid had built from the ground up. But the potential buyer was offering him nowhere near the price he thought the business should fetch.
A business mentor – who had also been a long-time customer – gave him the advice that he uses to this day: “Put aside the fact that you’ve put in blood, sweat and tears because that’s not how an acquirer values an organization.”
When Medwid sat down and took a hard look at the financials, he saw that his cost of goods was out of whack. He started negotiating with wine brokers to bring down that cost.
The result? Fourteen months after starting the exercise, he sold the business for a much better price.
“It was worth the work,” he said.
He now reviews his financials quarterly with the same dispassionate eye.
“If you look at your financials without the personalities, if you simply look at your top line revenue and your resulting profit, ask yourself, ‘Would I buy this company?’”
