So you own a privately held business and you’re thinking about selling the company, but have you put in the necessary leg work to hire an appropriate business broker? A
business broker who has extensive experience in your niche, and in the practices associated with selling a company, can pave the path for you and make it that much easier, and advanced planning is extremely important when you approach this.
Multiple parties might be involved in the process of helping you list your company for sale and following through to the closing table. These include your accountant, your business broker, and your attorney at a minimum. The first step when identifying an attorney to assist you with the sale is to ensure that this person has the right level of experience in both selling and buying a business. Ask for someone else who has more experience if the attorney you originally contacted doesn’t seem confident in their ability.
Make sure that your CPA or accountant also has business sale experience in the same area. You can ask for a referral to someone else or reach back out to your business broker or lawyer for further recommendations. It’s a good idea to meet with your accountant at least one to two years before you intend to
sell the business. This is because it gives you the biggest long range view of looking at your balance sheet and income statements. Selling a business with the help of a business broker can make it much easier for you to design and implement a plan that helps you get maximum revenue out of your sale by improving your financial statements as much as possible.
This makes it that much easier to ensure that you have a strategic buyer who pays for the full value of the company and that you can walk into the negotiating room confident based on your business valuation. Remember that after listing the company for sale and engaging with the prospective buyer, you will enter what is known as the due diligence investigation.
When selling your business with the help of a business broker, your attorney, your accountant, and your business broker can all advise you if there are any additional steps that you must include when it comes to preparing for the due diligence investigation. Some of the questions to ask include:
- Are my legal documents up to date?
- Are all of my core contracts with vendors in good shape?
- Are my books and records very organized?
Detailed discussions with your business broker, your accountant, your lawyer, and other members of your professional team can help you to identify who will be managing which primary areas of responsibility. It can be very overwhelming to approach this selling process without the support of a knowledgeable business broker.
This is why the team at Website Closers relies on their extensive experience in the field and helps you to navigate the business selling process so that it is as easy as possible for you to accomplish your goals. A consultation with a dedicated attorney can make a big difference in the outcome of listing your business for sale. Finding a strategic buyer who moves through the negotiation phase much more easily can be extremely valuable to you.
