To prove to a potential buyer of your business that you truly have a differentiated product, you need to be able to sum up what your company does in a single sentence.  It shows you have the discipline to think this one through and it also positions your company as a strategic acquisition in the mind of the investor or buyer.

The Company Sentence is one of the first documents you need if you want to sell your business for high multiples.  We spend hours with clients distilling the essence of their company into a single sentence just so that we can tell prospective buyers quickly what we have for them.  Don’t forget that your Most Probable Buyer is probably a very busy person - we might only get 30 seconds on the phone to pitch them, so it has to be short, impressive and full of information.

The Company Sentence is different to the Tag Line.  The Tag Line might have as few as three words and does not actually have to be a sentence.  The Tag Line is the “Who we are,” whereas the Company Sentence is the “What we do.”

“It’s not good enough to be pretty good at everything.” says Bill Taylor, founder of Fast Company, in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network. “You have to be the most of something: the most colourful, the most responsive, the most focused.” 

So what your company does has to the “most” of something and be summed up in one sentence.  This is for the benefit of your customers and for the benefit of potential purchasers of your business.

The Company Sentence is a definitive statement about what’s different about your business and the difference your business makes to specifically identified customers. The Company Sentence differentiates your business from the others in your sector in a way that potential acquirers can instantly see if there is a strategic value in buying it.

Don’t forget, buyers are constantly thinking to themselves, “Is it cheaper or faster to buy this business than to set up a similar business ourselves?”  Your Company Sentence has to show why it is better for them to simply buy you.

Here is an example of a Company Sentence:

• “We organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” (Google).

We like this one.  Google is actually a tremendously complicated company that spans search, advertising, mapping, research, augmented reality glasses and even driverless cars.  The company doesn’t, however, waffle on by saying, “We are a multi-faceted/multidisciplinary group of companies spanning search, advertising, mapping and future technologies etc. etc.” It avoids the dreaded “MBA Speak.”

What it does do is sum up the business in a single sentence that explains its activities in a meaningful way.  We hate to think what it cost in fees for the branding agency, or in management time in trying to distil everything into one sentence, but the result is outstanding.

The point is, if you are going to achieve cut-through and get onto the radar of a strategic acquirer, you have to be able sum up all your unique qualities like Google can.

Bill Taylor’s article points out that some important US presidents can be summed up in one sentence:

• “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” President Lincoln.
• He lifted America out of a great depression and helped it win a world war.”  FDR.

Now, to do your Company Sentence, we will assume that your business does not have as many facets as Google and that you are a player in a single niche or sub-sector of a market. On this basis, your Company Sentence can actually go further than Google’s.  What we propose is that you should also identify the problem you solve, say who you solve it for, say how you solve it and then tell them the “secret sauce” with which you solve it.

For example, if Google were still just a search company, its Company Sentence could be something like:

• “We have a search engine that helps internet users solve the problem of  irrelevant results by organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful – all with our proprietary algorithms.’

Okay, we are sure a marketing company could tidy it up a little, but you get the idea.  You also get the essence of what the company does really quickly – and so does a potential investor or purchaser.