So the sales proposal has gone out to your list of prospects and has been followed up by your M & A Adviser who has discussed the opportunity and registered the response and level of interest.

The next stage is to invite in the companies that have expressed serious interest. You will present the opportunity to them on designated days with designated time slots. They will also be given the opportunity to present to you but as with the M & A Adviser Beauty Parade you may want to give them the opportunity to present back to you at a second designated date and time.

Remember this is very much a two way process, you are selling the opportunity to them but they are also selling themselves to you. ( they know that they are probably not the only potential buyer- because they know that you are running a process that will identify multiple potential buyers ).

The actual content of the presentation will be discussed elsewhere but it will include the key points highlighted previously in the sales proposal.

The M.D. will typically lead the presentations and probably the only people attending from your company at this stage will be the M.D. and the F.D. The M & A Advisers will also attend but take a backseat role.

From the prospective purchaser you would expect to see the key decision makers attending – ideally all of them. Again the fact that they know that they are in a competition usually makes them field their best team. If they don’t then you may question their commitment.

These presentations are a really great opportunity for the prospective purchasers team and you to get to know one another. Remember people buy ( companies ) from people. Relationships made at this stage will likely determine the outcome of the process.

Either at this presentation or a second one you will want to see indicative offers from the buyer.

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This blog post is a part of a series of posts describing The Sales Process – you can access the other parts of the series from the links below: