How to sell a business quickly and profitably? How to sell a business the right way?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

These days a lot of talk is devoted to how to build a profitable business, organize your own business, create some kind of income-generating enterprise. In fact, as practice shows, there are a lot of people who want to do business. Even those who are far from the world of business would like to try themselves as the head of a company. However, today we will not talk about that.

The article is devoted to a slightly different topic. It will be useful for people who, on the contrary, want to get rid of their enterprise, want to find a way to sell the business and at the same time remain in a fairly favorable economic position. In it, we will discuss a number of aspects related to such a sale. It is not only about the direct search for a buyer, but also about the various measures that should be taken before the sale. In general, we will talk more extensively about how to sell a business, offering our advice on a particular issue.

Preparing the reason

First of all, if you decide to get rid of your enterprise, we would recommend that you clearly define what is the reason for the sale and whether it can be called to the buyer. One thing is your personal preference. An example would beserve as a situation when you want to change the vector of your activities and, say, start organizing a completely different company. Or, say, you are basically tired of entrepreneurship and want to take a break. Then you can honestly tell the buyer about it, who will certainly ask this question.

A completely different situation is when you are looking for information about how to sell a business because of its unprofitability, the risk of collapse or the difficulties that threaten the enterprise in the future. Of course, it is undesirable to talk about this, because, depending on the nature of the difficulties, not every person will take up the management of your enterprise and, accordingly, its purchase. The same applies to profits: the obvious fact is that the more an enterprise earns, the more expensive it is sold. If your business scheme is unprofitable, it will be bought from you, most likely for next to nothing. In this case, we recommend that you either agree to a lower cost, or go through a difficult period in the life of the enterprise, reach some kind of profitability, and then prepare for its sale. Then you can help out much more.

Future plans

We are all human, including your customer. And man is a creature that simply has to plan his future. We try to make plans, sort out possible scenarios and do everything to look ahead. In the case of business activities, the situation is absolutely similar. And the buyer who is interested in your offer will also want to know what he can achieve, wherehe should move in the future, what profits he will receive. All this must be included in a business plan for your project and provided to the future buyer. This will not only help you find someone willing to pay for your case faster, but also get the most out of the deal.

If the state of your business is such that it has no prospects for the future, we advise you to think about selling in parts, that is, getting rid of the assets that make up your company. To do this, it is necessary to conduct a correct assessment in order to understand their market value.

Time

Because you are looking for information on how to sell a business, time is your best friend. After all, the older a particular enterprise, the more expensive it can be estimated by the buyer. This is especially true if your business is successful and paying off.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. A person who wants to enter a particular business niche is ready to acquire an already functioning (and perhaps even unprofitable) enterprise operating in this area. And for you personally, this is the best option on how to sell a business quickly. The buyer wants to start work as soon as possible, but you, on the contrary, want to get rid of the rights to your enterprise and receive compensation for this. For anyone who is looking for information on how to sell a business (whether it is an individual entrepreneur or any other organizational form, it doesn’t matter), finding people who want to try their hand at your niche is the best strategy for a successful sale and profitabledeals. And using time as a factor in adding value to your enterprise is a good tactic.

Documentation and legal support

This advice, while very obvious, is of great importance. Turn to professionals when it comes to selling your business. Fix all the rights and obligations of the parties, write down every little thing if you want everything to work out in the best possible way. Otherwise, how to sell a ready-made business (IP) and be sure that you will not be deceived?

Where we are talking about monetary relationships (and even more so about such large ones, as in the case of the sale of a company, for example), you should not abuse the honesty of other people. It is better to try to use all the tools that will protect you in the sales process. This is the answer to the question of how to properly sell a business (IP or LLC, it doesn't matter).

Look for your buyer, don't wait for him

One interesting tip on how to sell a business quickly is to find someone willing to pay for your business. The mistake of many businessmen can be called personal expectations. They are waiting for the buyer to come to them and pay the money. They believe it will happen very soon. However, this approach cannot be called correct.

If you want to know how to sell a ready-made business quickly, think about who can really buy it from you. We are now talking about such a specific product that a simple visitor "from the street" will not be able to pay you for your enterprise. re althe buyer can be either someone who is just starting in this area (unlikely), or someone who already has experience in this business niche and knows what can be squeezed out of it. Most often, such people are the owners of a network of some points for the provision of services, the sale of goods, and so on.

Let's take a simple example: you own a restaurant and you are looking for how to sell your business to make the most of it. In this case, it is best to write to the owners of restaurant chains, mostly similar in theme to your establishment. It is possible that a person will seriously consider expanding his business by acquiring yours. So selling your business may not take so much time, the main thing is to look for a buyer, and not passively wait for him.

No, in fact, if you advertise for sale on various business forums and bulletin boards, some people will be interested in you anyway. Only which of them can actually contribute the entire required amount and who plans to develop your business further, no one knows. Therefore, in order to understand this, make suggestions. Communicate with potential buyers, offer them your business - and who knows, you might interest someone enough to continue discussing a future deal.

Hear the buyer

Another piece of advice I would like to give to a business seller is to develop the ability to listen to the person who wants to buy your business. You need to find out why he wants to buy your business, whatis going to do with him, what plans he has for the enterprise. You need this information to help you prepare for how to properly submit your project. After all, you can do it in different ways, changing approaches to describing and characterizing a business, changing your outlook on prospects. This technique will make it possible to meet the expectations of a person who wants to buy your company. Applying it is the best key to how to profitably sell a business. Just convince the buyer that he can achieve the desired results by owning your company (customers, employees, assets). How to do this, you will see after you understand the goals of this person.

Protection

Another crucial point for anyone who wants to know how to sell a business the right way is protecting your business. At first glance, this is not so obvious, but in practice there are different situations. Including there are cases when, under the guise of a buyer, a person comes who in the future will simply steal your business. How does this happen? Read carefully so you don't lose your case.

So, this paragraph is addressed, rather, not to some owner of a particular enterprise or institution, but to the owners of a business operating in the service sector. For example, this may concern the owner of a travel agency. After all, as we know, the most valuable tool of such enterprises is not a rented office with office equipment, but a customer base and managers working with it. How many different stories are there aboutemployees of the company stole its base, after which they started their own business! The same goes for selling a business.

There are stories when a person came to the company under the guise of a buyer and found out certain facts about it. Subsequently, he contacted key managers of this company, offering them a solid fee for starting work with his base in favor of another enterprise. Having lured people away, such pseudo-buyers actually destroyed the entire business of the real owner of the base, creating their own structure in return. At one time, this became a real problem in the market: it is quite difficult to protect your base from theft, given that other people have to work with it. Plus, the same situation can be repeated in relation to the technologies used in production, as well as other not so obvious innovations and solutions operating in your business.

Protection mechanisms exist. Moreover, they are actively used by many companies. The customer base, for example, is tied to the enterprise itself, not giving full access to it to managers and salespeople working on the phone. With technologies and different know-how, the situation is similar: you can tell the buyer that there are some ways to improve the financial performance of the business, “secrets of production”, which, alas, you cannot reveal to the buyer at the acquaintance stage. Thus, the results of your labor will be safe.

“Training” on competitors

Are you not sure if you listed everything in your business description? Have all the information that may be of interest been published?the buyer and will be the best reference points for him? You don’t know how the negotiations will go, what you need to answer some of the questions and what to do if you do get a call? The solution to all these and many other problems is very simple. It consists in "training" on your competitors. What do you mean?

If you want to know how to sell a business with debt or how to make the most out of your business, you can simply find competitors selling a similar type of business and write to them as a buyer. Believe me, they will provide you with as much information as possible regarding their company (since the seller will most likely be interested in selling).

This “training” is very useful. You immediately see the line of behavior of the buyer from the side, notice the questions that your buyer wants to ask, mark the best answers that should be given.

Intermediaries

Today there are a lot of companies helping to get rid of their business. If you do not want to do everything yourself, you can ask for help from one of them, describing the essence of the task. There are no difficulties in finding a company that will help sell a business. There is a huge amount of contact information, and you can easily find feedback on the work of intermediaries. True, you should be prepared for the fact that you will be charged a commission for the services rendered. On the other hand, professional business sellers may have their own appraiser who will help you, in turn, earn more for the individual resources used in your business.

Conclusions

In fact, to thisAn important stage in the life of any entrepreneur and businessman, like selling a business, can be treated differently. For some, this situation can mean a serious loss and carry some kind of negative connotation: they say, they gave away what they tried and worked on for so long. On the other hand, the same procedure can be considered as the next stage in your business career, as an opportunity to create a new project and earn more from it.

In any case, for your enterprise you will be able to gain some funds, the amount of which will also depend on the further mood of the seller. After all, someone understands that his offspring should be valued much higher, while someone, on the contrary, is very pleased with the deal and is glad that he finally got off the hook with this project. Each of the business sale stories is unique, they happen to people, and there is nothing terrible or reprehensible in this. On the contrary, perhaps in new hands your project will bring more value, become more profitable and create new jobs.