Here are some of the obvious, and not so obvious, steps you can take as you get ready to sell your business:
- Clean the premises
- Organize the books and records
- Deal with any customer/vendor/employee issues prior to the sale
- Try to increase revenues without sacrificing margin (increasing revenue is important to the buyer as they analyze trends)
- Diversify the customer base (customer concentration is a risky issue for buyers and their lenders)
- De-emphasize owner’s personal role in the business by not being the only decision maker
- Get other employees involved in customer and vendor contact
- Develop a management team or a right hand person
- Build infrastructure to further reduce dependence on the owner
- Reduce the # of family members working in the business, especially if they will be leaving
- Reduce the amount of owner’s perks that are paid for by the business
- Don’t live out of the business checkbook
- Sell or remove unnecessary or personal assets
- Adjust inventory to a normal level
- Other smaller items include: update website, renew leases, eliminate unproductive employees, collect past due accounts receivable
