Time to Sale Your Business?

Over the years, I have been involved in the sale of quite a number of businesses. The process is not as easy as it might seem. My experience was first hand as I was actively engaged in selling my business. It wasn’t large, but many of the same principals apply.

This business, as many others, began when I was bouncing ideas off my fiancée and some friends. An idea was hatched and a new baby business was born. The market was right and it grew, but not without a great deal of marketing, investment in training and equipment, and hard work.

After a number of years it was time to sell the business and move on to another endeavor.

Enlisting the help of my fiancée, an experienced business broker, we set about marketing my business for sale.

The only reason I mention this is I know what you as an owner will be or are going through when you are in the process of selling your company.

As the munchkin said in the “Wizard of Oz,” the journey begins with the first step.

Let’s go through the preparation stage.

You may decide to sell you business on your own and hope this guide will help you on that course. I would suggest finding a good business broker. There are good business brokers, bad business brokers and ugly business brokers. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

But you know as well as I that the bad are out there. My best suggestion is find one associated with a state or national association. Here in Florida, there is the Business Brokers of Florida http://www.bbfmls.com/ and the Florida Business Brokers Association http://www.fbba.com/. The national organization is the International Business Brokers Association http://www.ibba.org/.

These organizations provide training and support to their members as well as multiple listing services to get your business the highest amount of exposure.

Of course if you want to market your business there are internet marketing sites that you can list a business for sale.

One site is BizBuySell http://www.bizbuysell.com/. It may have been the earliest site and is used by business brokers and privately held company owners to expose buyers to businesses.

There are many in the same veil and a search of the web will give a host of similar sites.

Now that you have decided if you are going to use a professional or go it alone, it’s time to move to the next step.

1. Prepare a packet of information for the buyer. This packet should contain, but is not limited to:
a. Profit and Loss Statement with balance sheet for year to date. That means from the first of the year until the current month. You should have received this from your Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Many sellers have these in their desk and don’t know what they are or what they mean. Of course you do. These will have to be updated as the process continues. A business usually doesn’t sell in a day.
b. Corporate, Limited Liability or Sole Proprietor tax returns for the past three years. Buyers purchase companies based on the financials.
c. A cash flow analysis. This a list consisting of your gross annual sales or revenue, cost of goods, gross profit and net profit. The net profit is then added to any perks, benefits, or nonrecurring expenses.
Nonrecurring expenses would be new office furniture, new air conditioning unit, etc. I think you get the idea.
d. Create an equipment list. Many of you have them and some don’t. It needs to be up to date. Some buyers will request not only a list of equipment, but date it was manufactured and serial number. It is not a good idea to put a value on the individual piece of equipment but a total of all equipment on the list. Why? Because I say so, trust me or call your local business broker.
If you own a large business with a lot of equipment call me and I will list it for sale.
Seriously, there are companies that have certified machinery and equipment appraisers. An excellent source is NEBB Institute http://www.nebbinstitute.org/ This organization trains and qualifies machinery and equipment appraisers.

2. The next step. Now you have to decide how much to ask for your business. We had an owner call us and wanted to sell his business. After listening to him and gathering the basic information on his company and revenue and net profit numbers, we politely asked him what he wanted for his business. Every buyer has a number in their head. It was netting very low numbers to the owner. We asked and he said he wanted $3 million dollars. “What?” we asked? $3 million? How did you come up with that number? “That’s what I want!”

My point is to evaluate your numbers and come up with a reasonable sale price or it WILL NOT SALE.
Your CPA can help if they are familiar with acquisitions and sales of businesses and they are out there. But many will give the owner a false sense of what the business is worth and you will sit on the business, while you would prefer to sit on a beach in a tropical island. The situation is to call the business broker or (you see I always give you an out) there are business valuation companies that will gather all necessary information and give you a written valuation of your company’s market price.

The caveat is they are usually a little expensive, but you have a nice packet to hand to the buyer.

3. Next step. Look around your office and/or plant. Is it clean? You have been working here for years and after a while of working hour after hour, you get accustomed to the way the place looks. Time to step back, look at it through new eyes or grab someone off the street and ask them to look at the office, the plant, the carpet, the walls and even the ceiling, could they be cleaner? Maybe time to change carpet, take the Playboy pinups off the walls.

These days, real estate sellers are hiring staging professionals to evaluate and make suggestions on changes in décor. Let me tell you a little tale that is true.

A business owner in Tampa had a janitorial supply company that he wanted to sell. It was located in a warehouse. He was a salesman and knew there had to be some changes in order to sale his business. A complete renovation of his office overlooking the warehouse and the buyers fell in love with the office and purchased the business on the spot. The power of seeing themselves in the business!

Come back and we will have more information. This is a start. There is so much.