Here are a few professionals you should consider working with when you sell your business so you have experts helping you make the best decisions for your unique business sale.

Attorney

An attorney with experience in mergers, acquisitions, and transactions can be a valuable partner for you when you sell your business. Your attorney can answer all of your legal questions and advise you on a number of hurdles you can experience during the business sale process. They can also be helpful when you are choosing the right buyer from the qualified suitors.

Accountant

There are a number of financial decisions during the business sale process and an accountant with experience in tax codes, especially relating to business transactions, can be a great advisor to have on your side. Your accountant can help you structure your deal to give you the most favorable tax outcome and protect you from unnecessary fees and costs.

Business Broker

When you sell your business, the business broker is the most valuable member of your team for managing the overall business sale process and connecting you with the right attorneys, accountants, and other professionals who can help you. The business broker will help you valuate your business, prepare your business for sale, promote your listing to investors and the market, evaluate the prospective buyers, negotiate the final deal, and advise you throughout the entire process. An experienced and trusted business broker is indispensible for a successful business sale.

Starting a Business

Starting your own brand new business can be an exciting proposition. You are going to start with a blank canvas and build your business from the ground up. As a new business owner, you will do everything from researching the products and services you plan to offer, creating a business plan, securing real estate for your business, and much more. While challenging, you will have the opportunity to go from zero to unlimited profits with your brand new business.

Along with all of the great promises of starting a new business are a number of risks. Unfortunately, the majority of start-up businesses will fail during the initial years of inception. Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited, says that as much as 40 percent of new businesses fail in the first year and 80 percent fail within five years.

Buying a Business

Buying a business is a great way to manage your risk as an entrepreneur and still have the same opportunities to create tremendous profit for yourself.

There are a number of benefits with buying an existing business:

• Proven Concept – As a business buyer, you already know the business concepts works so you are taking on less risk. It will also be much easier to secure financing since the bank has a historical track record of the business to analyze.
• Established Brand – The previous owner has already invested in marketing the brand and making a name for the business in the community, which you will be the beneficiary of on day one as the new business owner.
• Customer Relationships – Once you buy a business, you will also be buying relationships with an existing customer base and vendors, which the previous business owner invested years to build and grow.
• Dedicated Focus – As a business buyer, you can dedicate all of your focus and time on growing the business, since all of the research, infrastructure, marketing, and other business tasks are already moving forward as the foundation.
• Experienced People – When you buy a business, you will have an established team of employees who have experience managing the day-to-day operations of the business who will be a valuable asset for you during the transition process.
• Cash Flow – Your business is going to have cash flow from the start with funds dedicated to paying your salary, while new start-up owners often will go for years with no salary in an effort to build the business for the future.
• Calculated Risk – While new business owners are investing in unproven strategies, you will be in a better position to make investment decisions and calculating risk when you buy a business with a proven strategy and historical data to analyze.

Here are a few things you can do to increase the value of your business sale:

1. Improve Your Cash Flow

The start of the business sale process can be a challenging and stressful time period. You are already working hard to manage your business and you are starting to accept offers from prospective buyers. Remember, most prospective buyers are going to need a loan to purchase your business and the business’ profits will be a major factor in determining monthly rates for the loan. You have to do everything you can to maximize your profits and cash flow so you can increase the value of your business in the eyes of the investor.

2. Increase Your Sales

Your goal is to prove to the prospective buyer that your business is going to make them more money in the future once they buy the business. The best way to do that is to present a trend of increases sales and revenue, so its really important to continue improving your sales figures in the years, months, and days leading up to your business sale. The increase in the number of sales will help influence your prospective buyers to increase the bidding price for your business.

3. Setup Your Automation

A successful business with proven potential for growth is attractive to a prospective business buyer. A successful with proven potential for growth and has established automated business processes is even more attractive to a prospective buyer. An investor is going to be willing to spend more on an automated business rather than one which is going to require a greater degree of manual labor and involvement. Start establishing automated business practices and business systems before the business sale process to increase the potential return on investment and increase the value of the sale for you.

4. Leave Your Business

While you want to be involved with the business sale process, the less involved you are with managing the business the more confident the buyer can be that it can be successful without you. As the business seller, you want to demonstrate to the buyer that the people you have empowered to manage your business can do it successfully independently. The greater the buyer’s confidence, the greater the potential selling price will be.

5. Organize Your Paperwork

Your financial records, legal paperwork, and responsibilities are part of the overall presentation of your business’ professionalism and efficiency. The better you can communicate your business’ history and where you are today, the better the investor can project the future vision and potential of your business once they have made the purchase. It is best to prepare all of the paperwork and documentation before the start of the business sale so it is ready for a prospective buyer to review right away.

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