Selling your business can be an emotional moment. You’ve poured your heart and soul into making a business viable, before letting someone else take over. At this moment you can easily make mistakes and lose out on the money you deserve. But these mistakes can be easily avoided. Below, we explore the five mistakes to avoid when selling your business.
Get prepared
Planning is key when selling your business. Selling quickly could see you lose money – preparation can help avoid this. Try regularly updating a sales portfolio to share with interested parties, consistently updating your records and maintaining your business history. With these details to hand you should be able to make progress with a legitimate buyer. The buyer will also be much more confident if they can see that you’ve thoughtfully prepared for selling, rather than seeing that you’re urgently attempting to offload your business.
Representation and advice
The chances are that you won’t have sold your business before and might need outside expertise to help. When you sell your business, it can help to seek out professional advice or even representation. Deals can be complex: there’s payment structure, tax, retention of employees amongst other pertinent issues. By having advisers to walk you through the process you can avoid any nasty surprises.
Promote your business
When discussing bids you can help encourage potential buyers. Buyers will look to you for passion, enthusiasm and reasons why your business is worth buying. Don’t leave the marketing fully up to other departments. Ensure that you’re there promoting your business to any potential buyers.
Valuation
Working out a fair valuation is key. Setting a valuation that’s too high can put off potential buyers but setting a low valuation can see you miss out. Even if you’re feeling burnt out with the business, make sure that you finish it off appropriately. Get advice on a suitable valuation and stick to that price even if it takes a little longer.
Confidentiality
During the buying process you’ll need to act professionally. Leaking the sale can unsettle the buyer and shareholders, risking the deal falling apart.
Selling your business doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process. If you ensure that you have the appropriate advice, valuation, planning and marketing you should be all set to receive a reward for all of those years of building your business.