To sell your business well, run a process. Get your financials and documents ready before anyone asks. Tell the buyers who'd want your kind of business before you open the books. Then set a date when offers are due, so they compete. Pick the offer that fits what you actually want, which isn't always the highest one.
Most sellers don't run a process. They take a phone call.
Here's how most owners sell. Someone they know says they might be interested. Or the first buyer who calls gets the whole conversation. The owner hopes it works out.
It usually doesn't. On average it takes over 12 months to sell a business, and only about 30 percent of sellers who try actually close. Those numbers hold whether you're selling a business that pays its owner $500,000 a year or one earning $10 million.
That's not a market problem. It's a process problem. A seller who talks to one buyer has no bargaining power, no timeline and no way to know what the business is really worth.
We've sold our own businesses. We've helped a lot of owners sell theirs, and we've bought plenty on the other side of the table. The ones that go well look the same every time. There are five steps. We walk through all five in this short video.
Step 1: Decide you're actually selling
This sounds obvious. It isn't. A lot of owners "test the market" for a year and never commit, and buyers can feel it.
Committing means answering a few things up front. Are you selling on your own, with a broker, or with an advisor? What do you need out of the deal besides the price? How long are you willing to stay on after the sale? You don't need every answer on day one. You need to have decided you're doing this.
If you're weighing who to hire, we wrote up what a broker and an advisor each cost you.
Step 2: Get your financials and documents ready first
Before a single buyer sees anything, pull together your most recent quarterly financials and your year-to-date numbers. Over the next month or two, build out the rest: your last full year, your trailing twelve months, and a projection for the rest of this year.
Here's what we ask every seller for first:
- Three years of financials: tax returns, profit and loss statements, and balance sheets.
- Year-to-date financials, broken down by month.
- Your trailing twelve months, broken down by month.
- An operational overview.
Then build the whole document set. Leases, contracts, customer lists, employee details, licenses.
Here's the part most sellers get wrong. Every business has blemishes. A customer that's too big a share of revenue. A lease that's about to expire. A year that was down for a reason. Put those on the table yourself, up front.
If a buyer finds one after you've signed exclusivity, you've already given up control. They'll either cut the price or walk. When you disclose it first, you control how it's told, and it gets priced once instead of used against you late.
Step 3: Tell the right buyers before the books are open
Don't wait until everything's perfect to start talking. While you're finishing the documents, reach out to the people who'd want a business like yours. Individual buyers, other companies in your industry, family offices, private equity groups.
Keep it short. Here's the business in a few lines. We're getting ready to run a sale. If you're interested, we'll put you on the list and send the full package when it's ready.
Two things happen. Buyers talk to each other, so the word spreads to the right people without you broadcasting it. And the larger buyers, the ones that need a committee to say yes, start having that conversation internally before you ever send a number.
This is where your advisor matters most. An advisor who already has a list of buyers can start this on day one. A broker who lists your business online and waits usually can't. That's our honest view, and it's why we built our business around buyer relationships instead of listings.
Step 4: Set the dates and stick to them
Once the documents are ready, you send them out and schedule meetings over the next few weeks. Then you tell every buyer the same thing. Offers are due between this date and this date. We'll pick who we're moving forward with on this date.
Then you hold those dates.
That's what turns a conversation into a competition. Every buyer knows other people are looking. Nobody wants to lose the business because they waited. We call it a little bit of FOMO, fear of missing out, and it's the single biggest thing that moves a seller's price.
It also keeps you in control. You set the timeline. You control what gets shared and when. Everyone's working off the same documents, so there's less room for someone to argue about what they were or weren't told.
Step 5: Pick the right partner, not just the biggest number
When offers come in, read all of them. The highest price isn't automatically the best deal.
Depending on the size of your business, a buyer might want you to keep some ownership after the sale, or stay involved for a while. So look at what each offer actually asks of you. One buyer might let you step away early. Another might offer you a second bite of the apple, a share of what the business is worth when they sell it later. If either of those matters to you, it can be worth taking a little less up front.
Here's one from our own deals. We had a client selling a financial firm with six locations. He was going to go with the larger private equity firm, because it was more money. But he really liked the family office. He thought he could work with them long term and get a second exit at a larger number. So we called the family office back, told them they weren't the best offer, but that we wanted to work with them, and asked for their best offer. They came up to the same number as the highest offer. It became a massive win for the seller.
This is also where you negotiate. You've got several offers and a date, so you can go back to the buyer you like best and ask them to fix the part you don't.
Frequently asked questions
How do I sell my business?
Run a process. Get your financials and documents ready first, tell the buyers who'd want your kind of business before you open the books, set a date when offers are due, and choose the offer that fits what you want. Owners who take the first call usually get less and wait longer.
What documents do I need to sell my business?
Start with three years of financials (tax returns, profit and loss statements and balance sheets), year-to-date financials broken down by month, your trailing twelve months broken down by month, and an operational overview. Leases, contracts, customer lists, employee details and licenses come next.
How long does it take to sell a business?
On average, over 12 months, and only about 30 percent of sellers close at all. A seller who has documents ready and buyers lined up before going out can move much faster. We break the timeline down stage by stage in how long it takes to sell a business.
Should I sell my business myself or use a broker?
You can sell it yourself if you already know the buyer and the deal is simple. For most owners, the value of help is the list of buyers. An advisor who already has relationships with buyers can start creating competition on day one. A broker who lists the business online usually starts from zero.
How do I get the best price for my business?
Make buyers compete. Tell several of them about the business early, give them all the same documents, and set a firm date when offers are due. Disclose problems yourself before a buyer finds them, so they get priced once instead of used to cut your price late in the deal.
Is the highest offer always the best one?
No. Look at what each offer asks of you: how long you stay, whether you keep some ownership, and how the price is paid. A slightly lower offer that lets you step away sooner, or pays you again when the business sells later, can be the better deal.
The short version
Decide you're selling. Get your documents ready, blemishes included. Tell the right buyers early. Set a date and hold it. Pick the partner, not just the price.
None of that's complicated. Most sellers just skip it. If you want to know what your business might sell for before you start, run your numbers through our valuation calculator, or read how buyers actually put a price on a business.
When you're ready to talk about running a process for your business, start here.
