Celine Dufresne | Murphy Business Broker | Lakeland (FL) » How To Get Your Business Ready To Sell

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

How To Get Your Business Ready To Sell