Selling Your Business – Essential First Steps

Are you thinking about selling your business? We assist small business owners with management transitions. For clients interested in selling their businesses, we help them focus on these essential first steps:

1. Understand your business exit motivations

Why do you want to sell your business? Perhaps you want to start a new business or focus on other pursuits. Maybe you are burned out, at odds with your business partner, or ready to retire. It is important to understand what is motivating your decision to sell your business. Your current perspective and emotional outlook can affect your approach to the sale and the timing of your business exit.

2. Prioritize your sales goals

It is good to start a business sale process with a clear idea of your desired outcomes. Are you looking to sell immediately? Is a high sale price the most important factor for you? Do you want to remain involved in some capacity? Do you have preferences for who buys the business? Do you want to influence how the business operates after you sell? Is a cash sale necessary or will you consider seller financing? Clarifying what you want will affect the sales approach you take.

3. Assess your business’ current condition

Is your business a good sales prospect? Is your business likely to attract a buyer? Are there areas of the business that will need improvement before you sell? When looking at each aspect of your business, you must try to understand the business from a potential buyer’s perspective. You need to consider your sales and profit history, the business’ financial condition and your products or services. For a brick and mortar business, look at your business location, your facilities and your equipment. To be a good sales prospect, your business may need to retain your employees and your clientele…and perhaps even you for three to six months!

4. Assess the current value of your business

How much is your business worth? Valuing your business helps you set an asking price. There are different ways to determine the value of a small business. You will need to consider your tangible and intangible assets and the business’ prospects for growth. You can hire a business valuation expert to do a business appraisal or work with a business broker to request a Broker’s Opinion of Value. With recent tax returns and financial projections in hand, it may be sufficient to work with us to do some simple calculations to estimate a realistic amount.

Now you are ready

Once you are clear on your motivations, your goals, and the current condition of your business, you are ready for one of these next steps:

• Prepare to present a sale-ready business to interested buyers.

• Invest the time to make your business more attractive to buyers and increase its value. (This would start with an action plan and timeline for each area of the business that needs improvement.)

• Offer to sell the business at its current sub-par condition (knowing you may have lower interest and/or a lower sale price).

• Continue to operate the business as well as you can and close it when you are “done”, selling any tangible assets.

We can help! We work with clients through these initial business transition steps. We review the current business so you can consider a business sale. We help with business improvement action plans to improve the value of your assets (even if you do not sell right away). We help you compile the documentation necessary for a business sale. Learn more.

Taking Action

At Paul Terry & Associates we help small business owners build successful and sustainable enterprises. Our consulting process is focused on clear assessments, careful advice and taking action. Central to our approach is business action planning.

Your passion and a strong vision for your enterprise may have launched you into small business ownership. However, a great idea alone won’t make you a successful business owner. You must turn your initial ideas into realistic goals with a specific plan for action.

Whether you are an emerging entrepreneur or an experienced business owner entrenched in the complexities of running a business, business action planning can help you identify measurable goals and create specific steps to reach your desired outcomes.

Every area of your business – customer/client relations, business operations, ownership expansion, and your eventual exit from the business – can benefit from action planning. So how do you begin?

DEFINE YOUR GOAL

Put it in writing. Writing down exactly where you are today and where you want to be in the future will force you to think concretely. Taking the time to write down your goals may spark some new ideas, too.

Be S.M.A.R.T. – that is, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely/time-bound. You need to be able to clearly state what you want to achieve and your goal needs to be concrete and doable. Initially, steer clear of goals that might take you three to five years to achieve. Once you get comfortable with the action planning process, you can use it to tackle bigger, longer-term goals. For now, stay focused on something you can attain within a year’s time, or even less.

SET YOUR ACTION STEPS

Take it one step at a time. You are much more likely to attain your goal when you identify specific steps to reach it. Each step needs a realistic deadline and an estimate of how much it will cost you—not just in dollars but in your time and other resources.

GET SUPPORT

Everyone needs someone to lean on. Trusted advisors and people in your business support network are essential during this process. They can be a sounding board while you create your plan and they can keep you accountable once you have a plan… every step of the way.

USE YOUR PLAN

Long and pretty isn’t necessary. A business action plan isn’t a fancy document—it’s a usable one. It needs to be accessible and referred to frequently. It might help to set reminders on your calendar to review it so that you can stay on track and make adjustments if necessary.

Still feeling daunted by action planning? We support clients through the action planning process every day –helping them create relevant goals, identify specific action steps, measure results and stay on track. How can we help you build a successful outcome?