{"id":561129,"date":"2012-06-27T04:32:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T08:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vrbbd.wpengine.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/ten-steps-successful-sale-business\/"},"modified":"2022-01-31T12:44:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T17:44:17","slug":"ten-steps-successful-sale-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/ten-steps-successful-sale-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Steps to the Successful Sale of a Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>1. Make sure you have a valid reason for selling your business. Don&#8217;t decide to sell because you have had a bad week or because moving closer to the grandkids sounds like a good idea. Also, don&#8217;t decide to &#8220;test the waters&#8221; just to see what sort of price your business will command. Before you decide to sell your company, focus on your true objectives. The first thing a prospective buyer will want to know is the reason you are selling. The more valid the reason you offer, the more serious the buyer will be.<\/p>\n<p>2. Don&#8217;t wait until you have to sell, for either economic or emotional reasons. You don&#8217;t want anxiety to force you into accepting a deal that&#8217;s not good for you&#8211;or for the buyer. During the two months preceding the new year, sellers always say that they don&#8217;t want to sell until the after the first of the year. This delay can be an unfortunate one.<\/p>\n<p>3. Once you have made the decision to sell&#8211;and before talking to your business broker&#8211; you should gather the information needed to market and subsequently sell your business. Here&#8217;s a list of the key items:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Three year&#8217;s profit and loss statements<\/li>\n<li>Federal income tax returns for the business<\/li>\n<li>List of fixtures and equipment<\/li>\n<li>The lease and any lease-related documents<\/li>\n<li>Copy of the franchise agreement (if applicable)<\/li>\n<li>List of loans against the business with amounts and payment schedule<\/li>\n<li>Copies of any equipment leases<\/li>\n<li>An approximate amount of the inventory on hand<\/li>\n<li>Names of outside advisors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>4. Remember that you are part of the marketing team. Your business broker can&#8217;t do it all&#8211;and might even ask you to come to an office meeting to tell the rest of the staff about your business. Follow your broker&#8217;s advice about dealing with prospective buyers&#8211;there&#8217;s a right and a wrong time to meet them.<\/p>\n<p>5. Confidentiality works both ways. The broker will constantly stress confidentiality to the customers to whom he or she shows your business. However, as the seller, you must maintain confidentiality about a pending sale in your day-to-day business activities.<\/p>\n<p>6. You, as the seller, should put yourself in a prospective buyer&#8217;s position. The next time you go to your place of business, pretend you are a buyer looking at it for the first time. How impressed are you?<\/p>\n<p>7. Just because you are selling, now is not the time to let the business slip. It&#8217;s important that prospective buyers see your business at its best: bustling, and showing no signs of neglect. Here are a few areas to focus on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep normal operating hours. There is a tendency for sellers to &#8220;let down&#8221; when they put their business up for sale.<\/li>\n<li>Repair signs, replace outside lights, and do a general spiffing-up for first impression purposes.<\/li>\n<li>Tidy the outside premises (if appropriate).<\/li>\n<li>Spruce up the interior as well.<\/li>\n<li>Repair non-operating equipment or remove it.<\/li>\n<li>Remove items that are not included in the sale.<\/li>\n<li>Maintain inventory at constant levels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>8. Engage an outside professional who understands the sales process. David Gumpert, former Harvard Business Review associate editor said, &#8220;Inexperienced lawyers are often reluctant to advise their clients to take any risks, whereas lawyers who have been through such negotiations a few times know that&#8217;s reasonable.&#8221; If you are going to use a lawyer, use one who is seasoned in the business sale process.<\/p>\n<p>9. Be flexible! You need to keep the ball rolling once an offer has been presented. Study it closely. Just because you didn&#8217;t get your asking price, the offer may have other points that will offset it, such as higher payments or interest, a consulting agreement, more cash than you anticipated or a buyer that you are comfortable with. You have probably spent years building your business&#8211;you want it to continue to be successful. The right buyer may be better than a higher price, especially if there is seller financing involved, and there usually is. If you must counter-offer, do so only on those points that are really important to you. Be willing to &#8220;horsetrade&#8221; if you must to complete the deal. There is an old adage that the first offer you get is probably the best you will ever get&#8211;and it&#8217;s true.<\/p>\n<p>10. Remember that most successful transactions are successful because they create a win-win situation for everyone involved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. Make sure you have a valid reason for selling your business. Don&#8217;t decide to sell because you have had a bad week or because moving closer to the grandkids sounds like a good idea. Also, don&#8217;t decide to &#8220;test the waters&#8221; just to see what sort of price your business will command. Before you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-selling-a-business"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrbusinessbrokers.com\/vrbbgreenbay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}