Be prepared to work hard on selling your business while experiencing various pitfalls that may seriously stress you. There is no perfect business to sell so the work involved in selling your business is intensive and full of legal issues and agreements. Business owners who try to sell his or herself eventually find that they get in too deep into areas where they have no knowledge or experience. At this point this business is almost surely suffering because not only has the confidentiality not been protected but the owner’s time has been taken away from running the business and placed on trying to manage their business for sale process.

FYI – business brokers generally work anywhere from 30-40 hours total on the businesses they’ve sold. And this time has been streamlined and reduced because of their expertise. So it goes without saying that business owners trying to sell on their own will spend more than 30-40 hours – do you really have that time to dedicate in a short period of time?

Next you should be prepared to consider all reasonable offers. The reality is that full offers would be nice but happens less than 5% of the time.  If you want your business to sell then you may have to consider taking slightly less than what it was originally valued at. This is also why a detailed market value analysis – covered elsewhere herein – is so beneficial. The ability to fully detail the price is a key to getting offers close to or at listing price.

Buyers are also taught negotiation meaning they may start low and look for you to negotiate back as well. So negotiation expertise is important to deal with buyers. Without it – buyers will drive you crazy.

Next be prepared to frequently meet with buyers. Most buyers are first time buyers and while they have to be qualified they do experience fears of the unknown. Buyers will want to meet with you – frequently more than once – prior to placing an offer. Having the expertise to structure the buyer from presentation to offer is another key ingredient in getting offers.

Last is that you have to be prepared to manage in upwards of 20+ contingencies before and after the offer process. Failure to understand these contingencies will almost surely result in a damaged or failed transaction.

FAILURE TO BE PREPARED COULD RESULT IN A FAILED CLOSING