Selling a business shouldn’t be a mysterious process done behind a black curtain and only understood by a select few. The more you understand how your business is valued, how to make it more attractive, and how the selling process works, the better equipped you will be. That’s why we regularly conduct workshops and webinars to help educate our clients. We want them to have a good experience and that’s hard to do if they’re in the dark.
Google is a powerful search engine, but you have to look no farther than WebMD to find out that virtually any symptom can be a death sentence. Hangnail? You could die. Information can be conflicting out there and difficult to understand. We have clients call and say “I hear that XYZ publicly traded company sold for 10X earnings, so I think I should be able to sell for that too.” The reality is that most businesses don’t sell for 10X earnings, that’s why that deal made big headlines in the Wall Street Journal.
Our advice is this: Seek out a reputable, experienced business broker whose personality and ethics match yours. It doesn’t matter where they are located as most business brokers have the technology tools to transact business anywhere. Start talking with them at least 5 years before you’re ready to sell and have them value your business. That way, if you don’t like the value, you have time to make course corrections. The trailing 3 years are key when selling a business, so try to avoid starting the conversation in that window when you don’t have time to make adjustments.
Read blogs from reputable brokers who are actually doing deals (not just academics who talk about them). Attend workshops and webinars, work with consultants who also deal in brokerage, and get serious about positioning your business for sale. When you do, you’ll realize that you will make FAR more than you spend on the back end when your business sells. Contact us to start the conversation and see if our team will be a good fit for you. Knowledge really is power.
