There’s no doubt that selling your business can be a difficult process, but it can also be a rewarding one, as an entrepreneur, you’re no stranger to the ups and downs of owning your own business.
You’ve built something that’s worth something, so why not reap the rewards of that hard work? If you’re thinking about selling your business, it’s important to understand that there are a few things you need to know before getting started.
Understand your business
Before deciding on selling a business, you need to understand your business, you need to know how profitable it is, what makes it unique, and what benefits it provides to its customers.
Asking these questions will help you better prepare your business for potential buyers. Once you have a better understanding of your business, you’re ready to start marketing it.
Understand the market
You will need to understand the market such as what’s going on in the local economy? What’s happening in the broader market? How is the overall economy doing?
All these things factor into the price that you can get for your business, if the local economy is struggling, the market may be too and it’s important to keep these things in mind when determining the price you can get for your business.
Be realistic about your pricing
When you decide to sell your business, you need to be realistic about your pricing, you can’t price your business too high, or it could be a deal-breaker, but you also can’t price it too low.
And you definitely can’t price it too low and risk losing money, when pricing your business, you need to consider how much it’s worth.
There are multiple ways to determine the value for your business, you can use an outside appraiser, or you can use a business valuation, either way, you need to determine a value for your business.
Give potential buyers a look at your business
When you’re marketing your business, you need to make sure that potential buyers get a look at your business.
You can use a listing agent to help you sell your business or you can have a real estate agent show it to potential buyers, either way, you need to let potential buyers see your business so that they can get a feel for it.
It’s important to remember that potential buyers are going to see your business from different angles and through different lenses, you need to make sure that all potential buyers have an equal opportunity to see your business.
Don’t forget to create goodwill
When your business is for sale, you don’t want potential buyers to walk away from the deal with a bad impression of you and the best way to do this is to create goodwill during the sale of your business.
It can be as simple as making an effort to show up on time for meetings or it can be as complicated as staying on good terms with your employees.
Whatever you do, don’t make your employees, or other stakeholders, wait for you and it will only make you look unprofessional and unappealing as a business owner.
