A new beginning can be exciting and rewarding, especially when you’re handed a big check for selling an established business to a larger company.
But it can also be bittersweet.
The day Bess Winston sold her Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm, the Winston Agency, to FINN Partners, a global marketing and communications company, she cried.
“For me, selling was really the Charles Dickens version of the best of times and the worst of times,” Winston said. “Nothing can prepare you for the day you close the deal.”
The upside of the October 2022 acquisition was the prospect of her company growing to a higher level than it could achieve independently.
“Alone, we could manage slow growth,” Winston said. “Selling would mean growing faster and demonstrating to clients that we had expanded capabilities.”
It also meant she could push aside concerns that she would have to dissolve her bootstrapped company if she ever decided to step away from running the business. An acquisition gave Winston the freedom to turn the page on a new life chapter, while the company she worked so hard to build would continue to live on.
“Selling means your baby has a home well into the future,” she said.
Selling the Winston Agency to FINN Partners
In a LinkedIn post sharing the news of the acquisition, Winston said selling her PR agency to FINN Partners — which she described as “a company whose values mirror our own” — meant expanding what the Winston Agency could achieve for its clients.
Prior to the acquisition, she ran a lean team composed of herself, two employees and some contractors. FINN Partners, on the other hand, is an international company with over 1,400 employees.
“FINN’s footprint is in three continents [with] 33 offices,” Winston said in a PR Week article. “To affiliate with that kind of powerhouse makes a difference to our clients.”
Winston turned to the Stevens Group, an M&A firm for PR agencies, to broker the acquisition. Even working with a broker, she told They Got Acquired, dealing with buyer negotiations and all the due diligence related to the sale was like “another full-time job” in addition to her dual roles as business manager and client services provider.
Settling on a purchase price was one of the most challenging aspects of the acquisition, she said.
“No one values your business the way you want them to,” Winston said. “So even though it’s flattering if someone offers you anything for something you essentially created from nothing, it can take the wind out of your sails when the number you land on is not what you hoped for.”
The terms of this deal were not disclosed.
Advice for entrepreneurs contemplating an acquisition
Reflecting on the experience of selling her company, Winston’s top advice to other founders is to ensure your business is unique, valuable and in high demand if an acquisition is the end goal.
“Make sure you hold yourself and your team to the highest of standards to deliver the kind of extraordinary work that brings in name brand clients or customers that would impress a buyer,” she said.
She helped the Winston Agency stand apart from competitors by narrowing in on a specialty niche: sustainability communications. While they were a small firm, Winston said “we were mighty and we punched above our weight class.”
Winston also warns entrepreneurs to consider what they’re getting into if they plan to sell their business and still work for the company under the new owners, a transition that can be challenging even when the buyer and seller are aligned. After her acquisition deal was finalized, Winston stayed on with FINN Partners for close to two years — first as a senior partner and later as a consulting advisor, according to her LinkedIn page.
“It can be hard to stay on after you sell your company,” she said. “You feel like a lame duck and sometimes, what may seem like a good fit in the beginning, just, well, isn’t. Know that and be ready to walk. In many ways, it ‘ends’ the day you sign the purchase agreement, even if you as founder are part of the transition to the new company.”
Winston’s focus since moving on is finding new career opportunities to bring her sustainability communications knowledge to a corporate board.
