Selling a business, whatever reason may it be, is a painful process for any entrepreneur. After he has dedicated his ideas, time, money, hard work and poured his soul for the development of it, it will be a difficult process for any business man to wind off his business. Definitely most of them are not ready for a decent exit. It is natural that people always plan for starting and developing but never for a decent exit.
John Binkley Dallas, professionals in guiding middle market men to mergers, acquisitions and to close off deals, help to wind off the business in the most profitable way. According to them, business owners need to follow some important techniques so that they can enjoy profitable transaction.
Keys for successful sale
Accuracy
This is the foremost needed key towards a successful sale. Being accurate is a sign of dedication and sincerity. It reflects the organized nature of the establishment. Especially, accuracy must be maintained in the projections of offering memorandum, arriving at the projections during marketing and in value assessment while the deal is rounded off. The historic projections of 3 to 5 years shown and the future forecast must be realistic. Buyers are more interested in the future prospects of a business and hence they will do their own research and find out the truth. In case it varies a lot from their findings, they will not trust the seller and go away.
How to identify prospective buyers
As the first step, awareness of right buyers is very much important so that it will enable the seller to approach the right buyer. In addition, the research done for finding out the prospective buyers will give surprising facts, which will be useful for prospective sales. Secondly, research on previous sales done on the same market is very mush important to learn the reality. Annual publications like Business Reference Guide and other such resources can be referred. This will greatly provide the idea for a seller about the buyers’ method of valuation, how they value companies similar to the sellers. Online tools will be also helpful in this matter.
Family Dynamics
The process of selling will become too complex when there are family members working in the company or business. They will have emotional attachment towards the business and change of ownership will definitely cause inconvenience to both the parties. Buyers will normally think over this issue twice. They will not encourage such kind of people working there. Moreover, the seller must make arrangement for spending his time in the house after getting out of the business.
Professional evaluation and its benefits
For selling the business with the maximum profits, professional evaluation is a must so as
- to establish certain benchmark value to the business
- to recast the past financials
- to raise problems faced in the market and
- to get better knowledge on the attractions of the business.
Thus, it is always best to do a complex thing like selling the business to prospective buyers with the help of professionals.