Take Charge of Your Future: Simple Steps to Sell Your Business
Have you recently decided to sell your business? Selling a company is a significant life change, and the sales process can be complex.
While there are many steps involved in selling your company, the process breaks down into three phases — choosing the time to sell, optimizing your company to attract buyers, and confidently navigating the closing. Here’s a closer look.
Knowing When to Sell: Recognizing the Right Time
When you’re selling a business, timing matters more than you may realize. Pinpointing the right time to sell can be a challenge, but the following factors play a significant role:
- General market conditions
- Your business’s overall performance
- Your company’s value
Some business owners rush into selling their companies. Others get stuck waiting for the “perfect” time to sell. Business brokers are intimately familiar with the business landscape, and your broker can offer skilled guidance on how to time your sale.
Making Your Business More Attractive to Buyers
If you take the time to make your company more profitable before sale, you may be able to significantly increase your asking price. The exact steps to take will vary based on your industry and your individual company, but these are some ideas:
- Diversifying your customer base
- Streamlining operational processes
- Cleaning up and organizing your financial records
- Making sure your company can run smoothly without you
- Identifying and mitigating supply chain risks
- Investing in staff training and retention
Before you begin taking these steps, it’s wise to get a baseline value for your company. A quick online valuation calculator can give you a general idea of what your business is worth. However, before you put your company on the market, your business broker can help you get a highly accurate, professional valuation.
Closing With Confidence: Finalizing the Sale Without Regret
The process of closing can be highly complex. Once you’ve identified a buyer and that buyer is committed to your business, it’s generally best to allow your business broker, attorney, and tax professional to take the lead during the closing process.
Even when you do everything right, you could still find yourself facing seller’s remorse once the sale is completed. One way to mitigate any sense of regret is to focus on the future.
If you’re like most people, you have a plan for life after the sale. Maybe you’re gearing up to buy a new company, going on a vacation, or using sale proceeds to fund your retirement.
When you keep your eyes on what’s to come instead of ruminating over the sale and what could have gone better, you can move forward into your next chapter without regret.
Never Underestimate the Difference a Broker Can Make
Whether this is your first time putting a business on the market or you’ve sold multiple companies before, enlisting the help of a business broker to sell your business can increase your chances of a profitable sale.
However, your broker can assist with far more than just the sale itself. Preparing your company for sale involves a series of decisions, and your broker can help you make the right choices to power your future.
Get the Best Results When Selling Your Business
At Sunbelt Business Brokers, we’ve helped owners of small and medium businesses take on the sales process since 2015. We tailor our marketing and sales processes to your business, and we get results. If you want to learn more or you’re ready to sell your business, contact us today!