Selling Your Business Yourself: What You Need to Know

Among business owners, there seems to be a common theme when it comes to retiring or selling your business or company: I’ll just do it myself.

Although you might feel that you are sell a business the most qualified person to sell your business since you do know your operation the best, sadly this is a very complicated transaction and many owners quickly find out that selling is a lot more complicated that it appears.

Here are some reasons why you may want to reconsider selling your business yourself:

• Anonymity and confidentiality. Imagine trying to yield all the buyer calls while running your company. Running the business is what you do best. Let someone else sort through the tens of calls that you will get.
• Law, Accounting and Taxes. Selling often requires several professionals and sadly some are good and some are not. Get the wrong accountant on your team and you will be paying far more in taxes that you should. An experienced business broker already has vetted out the right professionals and makes building your team easy by reducing the risk.
• Effective Marketing Material. Since you probably have never sold a business, you are likely not aware of how to prepare an effective marketing package and where to market your business. Experts in selling businesses do this on a daily basis and know exactly how to build a solid marketing package to secure the highest price.
• Determining the Right Selling Price. Determining the price of a business is based on many factors. Using a rule of thumb might seem like the right thing to do to value your business, but depending on your business it severely over value or undervalue a business. Business Transfer Professionals use proprietary databases and software that provide valuable information to determine the appropriate selling price in the current market.
• Limited Marketing. Although you might be savvy about marketing what your business does, marketing your business to a large enough buyers pool takes time and expertise. You may not have the ability or time to contact, screen and qualify a large group of prospects to find a qualified buyer.
• Limited Time. Since you know how to best run your business, your time is truly best spent in running your business to show the best numbers possible to a potential buyers. Taking time away from your business can (and does) reduce the selling price. Leveraging the time of a professional allows you to get the most for your business.

Using a trained professional that is knowledgeable and skilled in business transfers, can make the sale of your business a pleasant experience and remove all the hurdles commonly experienced.