Preparing to sell a business

It stands to reason that you will only be able to sell a business if you find someone who is prepared to hand over their hard earned cash. In order to convince them to do this preparation is essential and should be started as early as possible. Trying to sell a business without preparing properly will not only be a more complicated and stressful experience, but could end up resulting in a lower sale price being achieved.  

Make a point of highlighting the strongest reasons why your business would be a good deal for the buyer. Think back to when you bought the business yourself, what was it that really excited you? If you started the business from scratch try to remember the key reasons for creating the business. Try to call on that initial enthusiasm which you had when first starting out (and may still have) it is amazing how infectious it can be, your aim is to try and pass this on to the buyer.  

I have always suggested to sellers that they should put themselves in the buyers position when considering the sale of their business. Identify any areas of weakness and try to address the issues immediately. Many of these things may have been pushed to one side and not dealt with because of your intention to sell the business. Buyers like to see well organized businesses with good management procedures and a sense of order.  

Check that all of your financial records are in order, trying to sell a business, and achieve true market value without good financials is extremely difficult. Buyers are typically suspicious of business with a price tag which cannot be substantiated by the financial records. Put yourself in the buyers position again and ask yourself if you would pay top dollar for a business that did not have figures to back it up. In most cases the buyer will never have met the seller, why would he take the sellers word for anything?  


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