Selling your Business is a complex process. If someone says its easy, I would suggest either it’s a very very small business (which can also be complex) or that someone has not gone through the process. I am a business broker with primary focus on South Carolina and Florida. I have personally sold my business that I started and built, bought and built multiple other businesses, and assisted other business buyers and business Sellers as an advisor and broker. As with all of my articles, these thoughts, ideas, suggestion are based on my personal experiences.
Business Owner know their business. Much of this knowledge is based on familiarity. The longer one owns and runs a business, the less you experience situations that are new. But selling your business is a new experience even to the business owner that’s been operating for 20, 30 ,40 plus years. When trying to sell your business, You don’t know what you don’t know.
Selling your business you need to:
- Know how to get your business ready to sell
- Speak to trusted advisors significant others including spouse, lawyer, CPA, business broker and others. While maintaining circle of confidentiality.
- Plan on the process taking X amount of time. ( So often its longer than anticipated)
- Plan on the process to produce some unknowns and situations to address
- Plan on running your business while business selling process is undergoing. One of the biggest reasons a business owner hires a business broker it that the owners schedule is already full and selling your business is almost like adding another fulltime job to an already full day.
- Plan on what you will be doing after selling your business.. Plan on the financial changes, lifestyle changes, and most often the least understood emotional changes. You will feel different after selling your business. Its hard to imagine that feeling until they occur, but foremost the responsibility that follows you as a business owner for multiple decades slip away. That should be a very good feeling.
Every business sale has unique problems and situations. The ability to work through those situations often are the difference between deals that consummate and those that don’t. You as a business owner may not know what you don’t know when selling your business, but you can surround yourself with people that have been through the process.
Scott Messinger is a Professional Business Broker working with business sellers and Business Buyers in Anderson South Carolina, Greenville, the Upstate South Carolina, Florida, the USA, and internationally. For further infomation email at Scott@GatewayBusinessAdvisors.com
