by Murphy Business & Financial Corporation LLC
(edited by Murphy Business Broker Ron Buck)
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
