Preparing to sell.
- Think carefully about your reasons for selling, your goals for the future and how you can pull your business into shape before the sale (if it isn’t already).
- A good strategy is to give yourself plenty of time to prepare your business before you advertise it for sale.
You could focus on:
- Showing year-round profitability.
- Reducing your costs.
- Building a strong management team.
- Maintaining high-quality products or services.
- Developing a unique product or service.
- Expanding your online presence.
- Creating a strong customer base to reduce your reliance on 1 or 2 large clients.
- Maintaining premises and making sure assets are in good condition.
- Signing shorter-term or longer-term leases – whichever makes your business more attractive to buyers.
- Using formal, written contracts rather than informal handshake or verbal agreements.
- Developing comprehensive business, marketing and succession plans to enable your staff to run the business when you sell it.
- Settling any outstanding legal or tax matters (e.g. warranty claims).
Improving these areas should strengthen your business, and make it easier for you to attract serious buyers.