Updated on September 18, 2023

Transferring a business is an important step. What are your options to ensure your company’s continuity?

There are various transfer models. It’s up to you to determine which best suits your needs as well as those of your business, employees and clients. These models are:

• Transfer to a family member
• Transfer to an employee
• Hybrid model
• Sale to a third party

Transfer to a family member

Passing the torch to a family member is a model that many business owners choose. About one third of businesses are transferred to a family member, particularly when the person already works in the business.

There is a clear understanding of the corporate culture with this transfer model as well as a relationship of trust. The family heritage is maintained and the company’s reputation is enhanced.

One possible impediment to this model is that often there is only one family member to take over the reins. It can take two to three people to replace a business owner. Understandably, young entrepreneurs do not want to work 80 hours a week. They want a quality life.

Generational conflicts may also arise when a younger family members takes over the business. Business and communication models must be revisited to ensure that they better reflect the younger generation’s values.

Additionally, the tax rules that apply on a transfer to a family member are not as advantageous currently. Although changes are in process, this still needs to be considered for the time being.

Transfer to one or more key employees

Your employees already know your company, its culture and values. They can be very good candidates to take the business forward.

The transfer can be made to one or more employees or managers. These individuals are already committed to your company’s success and have the knowledge and experience to take over. This is a good way to highlight employees’ skills and helps retain the workforce.

That said, there is a difference between working for a company and becoming a shareholder or owner. There has to be a transfer of knowledge at that level. People need to know what they’re getting into.

The transition may also hit some stumbling blocks if the owner is not quite ready to let go and the successors are eager to assert themselves and make decisions.

Hybrid model

A mixed transfer involves transferring the business to family members and employees. This trend is becoming increasingly popular. Almost 66% of transfers are hybrid models, and this type of transfer combines the best of both worlds.

The business’s continuity is assured, and if the family members lack some experience, it is possible to put trusted employees in charge of certain key departments.

The challenge here is to ensure that you have the right people in the right place to perform the various tasks associated with a business, and not to be driven by emotional considerations.

It is also important to communicate well with the succession team so that everyone knows their role and thus avoids potential conflicts.

Sale to a third party

If the new owners come from outside the company, they must have the experience and knowledge to take over the business, taking its the specific needs and characteristics into account. They must also be willing to invest the time, money and effort.

One of the major challenges with this type of transfer is to establish and maintain trust. The buyer must not only have extensive knowledge of the business and the market, but also the leadership skills to motivate the employees.

It is also important to note that the transfer process can be longer in this context.

Professional expertise

Regardless of the transfer model, having a team of skilled professionals (accountant, lawyer, financial planner, tax specialist, transfer consultant, psychologist, etc.) is the key to ensuring that all goes as smoothly as possible and to have an effective succession plan.

People at the heart of the process

A business transfer should be prepared up to five years in advance. Put people at the heart of the process. This is probably the most important advice to remember.

Generating traffic on a website requires a strategy and a set of tactics to yield results in the medium and long term. Here are some tips.

How can you generate more traffic to your online store? This question will inevitably cross the mind of every entrepreneur. Whether you’re trying to attract your first client or your 50,000^th, generating more e-commerce traffic is a critical component to growing your business.

A well-designed, effective and attractive website is not enough on its own. It must be seen and found easily online through search engines. An example of this is a beautiful store with a great offer that meets the needs of potential clients, but is located in a remote area with no outside signage and no one knows it exists. It is not likely to be very busy… The same goes for your online store.

You can’t leave generating traffic on a website to chance. It is continuous work and involves numerous components. Positive results will be achieved by implementing a set of measures, with regular follow-ups.

In order to achieve and maintain your goals, you will likely need an internal and external team that specializes in e-commerce and Web marketing to implement and analyze your strategy.

Here are the steps and tactics to consider for generating, maintaining and growing traffic to your website:

• First of all, work on the strategy
• Optimize natural referencing
• Attract with content marketing
• Grow your community with social media
• Leverage content newsletters
• Invest in digital campaigns
• Foster partnerships with key influencers and sites
• Analyze your results continuously to adjust your content

Is your strategy aligned with your goals?

First and foremost, your digital strategy should be an integral part of your overall business strategy. This will help you determine who your target audience is, what the best ways to reach them are and which tactics will be most effective for each customer segment.

You may even need to change your business model to adapt to emerging needs and the environment in which your business operates and rethink your online sales approach.

Have you optimized natural referencing?

To be visible on the Web and attract traffic to your site, you must pay attention to natural referencing, commonly called SEO (search engine optimization). Various factors enter into the calculation of Google and other search engines’ algorithms. Remember that search engines want to deliver the most relevant content possible to their users. To do this, you must help them by giving them some keys.

Include key words in your meta tags

Meta tags are hidden keywords and phrases embedded in the code of your web pages. Titles and subtitles, the brief introduction, words describing your images, are among the most important meta tags.

You could also add rich snippets which can be reviews, ratings, prices and other factual data.

Offer rich content with appropriate keywords

It is important to be careful with the number of keywords you include in your texts. Repeatedly incorporating the same term, for example, could have the opposite effect on algorithms. Instead, think about writing rich content with keywords, but using all possible synonyms, including long tail keywords if relevant (phrases or questions sought by your customers) and, above all, have a clear statement that will guide your customers. The search engines will take this into account.

Integrate internal and external links

Naturally, your menu should include the most important links for navigating within your site, but incorporating links into your text can increase your search engine rankings, provided they are relevant to the reader. These links can help orient your reader within your site so they can quickly get to the service or solution they are looking for. They can also lead to recognized and credible external sites that will increase your website’s credibility in the eyes of search engine robots.

Find credible partners to point to your website

Build your site’s authority by identifying partners in your field. This could be sites that have a complementary offer to yours and have established credibility. When these sites point to yours, the algorithms consider that you are a reference in the field and they will take this into account in their calculation.

Guest posting on other websites is an effective way to generate backlinks, increase referral traffic and increase your site’s ranking in search engine results (SERP).

However, avoid duplicating content between the two linked sites, as this will have the opposite effect; you will be penalized in the algorithms calculation.

How do you attract with content marketing?

Content marketing is about creating eye-catching, informative and engaging content to naturally attract customers to your site. The content must be related to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and must meet your customers’ needs. This can be in the form of feature articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, guides or e-books, for example.

The goal is to generate content that responds to search engine queries, but also to stimulate interest in your site and offering. In addition to integrating the SEO elements already mentioned, you must create well-written and well-sourced content, taking into account certain characteristics specific to the Web. The more fluid and relevant your content is, the more captive visitors you will have and the more attention search engines will pay to you.

This content can be published directly on your website or on other platforms that will give visibility to your website in return. For example, videos on YouTube can reach a good proportion of a target audience among 2.6 billion users. Of course, relevant and high-quality content remains the key factor.

How can you grow and mobilize your community with social media?

Search engine algorithms will take into account the popularity of your content. It’s cause and effect. The more you’re seen, the more you will move up in the search results. To do this, you must use all the means at your disposal to make your site and its content known.

Social networks are an excellent channel to attract and generate traffic to your online store. First, determine which media are appropriate to reach your different target customers. Each media has its own appeal and you will need to adapt your hooks and content to each of these social media platforms in order to grow and engage your community.

Do you have efficient and attractive newsletters?

Promoting your content through newsletters is another effective way to increase traffic to your website. Emails, which are non-intrusive, generally have a higher open and click-through rate than other tactics.

Among the best practices to follow when sending your newsletters, consider:

• Proposing a catchy subject line to increase the open rate;
• Inserting a link or a button for a clear action that redirects to your site;
• Creating a newsletter format adapted to mobile devices;
• Personalizing your emails as much as possible by addressing your subscribers directly and offering them targeted content;
• Performing A/B tests to determine the success rate of your various mailings and optimizing them;
• Respecting the anti-spam rules: there are heavy fines if you’re not careful.

Have you planned digital campaigns?

Natural referencing will not always be enough. You will probably have to plan paid campaigns on other websites, on search engines (SEM) and on social networks. This will allow you to target your customer segments more precisely and reach them more easily. Of course, you will have to measure the results regularly to ensure that the budget invested has a consistent return.

You can opt for advertising on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn, depending on your target audience. Advertising on search engines, such as Google and Bing, can also be beneficial. Google has a broader reach that includes sites that are members of its network and affiliate sites like YouTube.

Who are your offering’s complementary influencers and partners?

Influencer marketing is about building relationships with credible influencers whose image and words are in line with your own brand. The trustworthy relationship that influencers have established with their audience could help you reach some of your customers.

There are influencers on the various social networking platforms, but also think about blog sites and press sites.

How do you measure traffic when all is said and done?

Knowing how to properly measure your traffic is crucial to understanding how to generate more traffic. Some tactics may not apply to every business. Your strategy must take into account your type of organization and target audience.

Analyzing your visitors’ journey and knowing the source of your traffic will allow you to customize your approach and better identify successful tactics. Several tools exist, but Google Analytics is the most widely used. However, you must understand how to use it.

The better equipped you are to measure your results, the better you will be able to adapt and continue the conversation with your customers, strengthen your ties with them and attract new ones. More traffic to your site means more conversion opportunities on your online store.

This article was written with Guy-Jacques Langevin, co-founder of Buzztroop.

The Grant Thornton International IFRS team has three new publications in the Insights into IFRS 8 series:

• Segment Information to Be Disclosed;
• Entity-Wide Disclosures;
• Other Application Issues and Standards Involving Operating Segments.

For entities that operate in a variety of types of businesses, geographical locations, regulatory or economic environments or markets, high quality management accounts are essential. They enable management to monitor performance, allocate resources and devise business and market strategies.

IFRS 8 Operating Segments requires much of this management information for publicly listed entities to be published externally, so that investors, analysts and other users of the entities’ financial statements can review an entity’s operations from the same perspective as management.

The Insights into IFRS 8 series considers key implementation issues, provides interpretational guidance in certain problematic areas and includes several examples illustrating the standard’s requirements.

Read the Adviser Alert below.