Tag Archives: Greenville Business Broker

Planning to Sell Your Business

By | |
Comments Off on Planning to Sell Your Business

Planning to Sell Your Business

By Scott Messinger

Planning to sell your business may be the most important component when selling your business. When selling your Greenville SC business or Florida Business many aspects are important- Price, transition, taxes, contracts, financing, employees. But Planning to sell your business should be at near the top of the list. Too often small business owners run and grow their business for 20, 30 plus years yet fail to properly plan to sell their potentially significant asset. As a professional business broker helping business sellers in Greenville SC, Anderson, Upstate and most of South Carolina and Florida I work with businesses of varying sizes. While I work with many business with values of $1M +, many of the businesses I work with are considered Main Street businesses. (those with values under $500k. As a professional business broker I participate in quarterly surveys among 300+ Merger/Business Sale Professionals. A most recent survey shows that business owners are not planning/preparing as much as they should. (See below graphic).

As you can see above- maybe the 1st step in selling your business should be in developing a plan…. to plan. How does a Greenville small business owner selling their business , South Carolina Business Owner or Florida Business Owner begin to selling their business?

  1. Seek the advise of trusted professional that know the actual current market. This discussion/process would focus on steps or measures you may want to take with your business. Measures to prepare your business includes steps related to your systems, cleaning up any financial issues, and consideration of any potential transition issues. You need to understand the timeframe involved with selling your business. You need to understand potential value of your business. If you want to sell your business for $1M and its only worth only $500k you need to either change your business or change your expectations.
  2. Act on the advise and suggestions that you receive.

Scott Messinger is a Professional business broker working with business owners and business buyers in Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg, Easley, Greer, Upstate South Carolina and Florida.Former/current business owner that has Personally bought 9 businesses. For more information or Confidential discussion contact me at Scott@GatewayBusinessAdvisors.com

Selling Your Business- What You Dont Know

By | |
Comments Off on Selling Your Business- What You Dont Know

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.

Selling Your Business
Selling Your Business

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:

  1. Know how to get your business ready to sell
  2. Speak to trusted advisors significant others including spouse, lawyer, CPA, business broker and others. While maintaining circle of confidentiality.
  3. Plan on the process taking X amount of time. ( So often its longer than anticipated)
  4. Plan on the process to produce some unknowns and situations to address
  5. 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.
  6. 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