The Business Selling Process Made Easy

When it comes time to sell a business, there’s a lot of planning that goes into it. It’s not going to be a quick process and you’re going to need to take a few steps to get ready. If this sounds overwhelming, then have no fear, we have made the process easier by breaking it down for you. Take a look below to learn more.

Steps for Selling a Business

So, you want to sell your business and don’t know where to start? Check out our breakdown of each step we think is necessary to take before putting that for sale sign on your business.

Plan, Plan, Plan

To begin with, you’re going to need to do some thorough planning. There are a few things you should plan too. These include the following.

Identifying Objectives for Selling

This means thinking about what you want to achieve. Do you have a specific date you want to have sold your business by? And what price do you want to get for it? Are you willing to budge on this for the right buyer?

You should also consider continued involvement. Would you like to stay on as a consultant or in some other role within your business, or do you want to make a clean break?

These objectives are going to make it much easier for you to find the right buyer and make the transition as smooth as possible.

Get Some Advice

Getting advice from professionals like accountants, lawyers, business sales brokers, and more can help you to understand more about your business. This could include:

• Giving recommendations for adding value to your business
• Offering business valuations that are realistic
• Boosting your credibility with buyers
• Setting out all of your options for selling your business
• Expanding your list of buyers and helping you to vet them
• Giving you the chance to continue running the business while trying to sell it

Consider How You Might Restructure

Sometimes the way your business is currently structured isn’t what’s best for a sale. If you have physical premises, you need to consider whether these are too expensive for your buyer. The same goes for contracts, equipment, and more.

Speaking with professionals about how to properly restructure is a good way to get this done effectively.

Finally, Make Sure You’re Ready

Something that rarely gets considered in these lists is whether the seller is mentally ready. There are plenty of reasons that you may have decided to sell, including retirement, a change of career, and illness. So, making sure you’re mentally ready to face leaving your business in someone else’s hands is of the utmost importance.

Make Sure The Business is Looking Its Best

While we certainly don’t mean for you to start bolstering figures to make your business appear much better than it is, there are definitely some things you can do to make sure you get the best purchase price possible for your business.

Firstly, show a good financial record. Buyers are going to want to see a stable financial history from you as well as room for sustainable growth. You can do this by:

• Showing stable financial cash flow as best as you can
• Avoiding or bringing forward major purchases, depending on how it makes the business look
• Being realistic when it comes to depreciation figures and income timing
• Making realistic provisions for bad debt
• Selling underused equipment and assets to improve the financial position
• Ensuring that your stock management is efficient

On top of this, you want to show a buyer that you have good systems in place. This means showing your accounting systems can generate up-to-date reports as well as proof of a stable customer base, customer management systems, and more.

You should also show how you monitor KPIs, and actually act on them, along with ensuring you show how staff follow proper procedures. 

Lastly, you want to reduce the risk for the buyer. While there is always a certain amount of risk involved in buying a business, buyers will be more attracted to a business they deem low-risk. You can do this by ensuring your supplier contracts are concrete and up-to-date, implementing incentives so that key employees stay on, and tying up loose ends, like tenancy renewals etc.

All of these things will make the business much more attractive to buyers and will help when you begin sharing information with potential buyers. You want to show your business in the best light, without bolstering or enhancing, because a diligent buyer will root out the truth from the falsehoods anyway.

Market the Business

Marketing is one of those things you either love or hate; unfortunately, to sell a business, you’re going to have to do it. There are a few steps involved with marketing the business which we’ve set out below.

• Identifying potential buyers: You may have a buyer in mind, or a buyer persona, to who you can reach out. Having a buyer persona in mind will make it easier to identify solid leads and, if you’re using a broker, will narrow down their search.
• Approaching buyers: If you are choosing to use a broker, then they will make the approach for you. However, in the digital age, there are tons of ways to reach out without needing to employ someone to do so on your behalf. One of them is the Eden Exchange platform. As a one-stop shop for buying and selling businesses, you’ll find only active buyers on our site, meaning your business is being shown to people who actually want to buy it.
• Weighing the offers: Once you have offers coming in, it is time to start weighing them up. You may be deciding between 2 or 10 potential buyers so the best thing to do is create a list of things you want your new buyer to meet. You could also do some research on each buyer to find out if they’re the right person for the job.
• Payment: Next you’ll need to decide on a price and sort out payment with the buyer. After this, you can complete the deal covering all legal angles and working with your accountants and lawyers to make sure it is all done properly. 

Final Thoughts

There are many steps to selling a business and we’ve gone into a little detail about each of them. Remember that if this all feels a little overwhelming, you can reach out to professionals for advice at any time.

If you’re looking for a great platform to advertise and market your business to potential buyers, then look no further than Eden Exchange. We have an ever-growing community of active business buyers looking to get their hands on already successful businesses. We’ve facilitated thousands of sales in our time, and we can help you too. Get in touch now to find out more.

Who we are

Eden Exchange is an integrated multi-channel platform, simplifying business buying and selling. We match, refer and connect business buyers, sellers & brokers in an ecosystem that facilitates frictionless franchise, business and finance transactions. Visit www.EdenExchange.com and connect with our engaged and multidimensional transaction network today.