The Switzerland structure gets its name from the country of Switzerland.

So, If you know anything about the history of Switzerland it’s pretty amazing.

They gained their legal independence in 1648 from the Holy Roman Empire, and they’ve been obsessed with protecting that independence ever since.

They didn't join either of the two world wars. They didn't send troops to the gulf war. They didn't even join the United Nations until they had a referendum and the entire country voted to join.

They're obsessed with not being overly dependent on any one regime or faction.

And you should be the same with your business.

Independence is an essential factor for building a sellable company.

And the three most important groups you've got to make sure you're independent of are:

Number 1 – Customers. You can't be overly concentrated with a small group of customers. You've got to have a good number of customers, and not be reliant a few for most of your business.

The second group is employees. You can't be overly reliant on any single employee

And the third group, which is sometimes less obvious, is suppliers. You can't be reliant on any single supplier either.

So, there’s the groups: customers, employees and suppliers. You've got to be independent of those three.

Because, for a buyer coming in, they're going to look at your business, and if they see you're overly reliant on any of those constituencies, they're going to discount the value of your business, because that dependency, that reliance, increases the risk for them, and so they'll offer you less money.

So to improve your score, you need to make sure that you've got good diversification in your customers. That you're not overly reliant on an employee, and you've got good diversification in your suppliers as well.

3 Switzerland Structure