Selling Checklist
Thinking About Selling? Here are some tasks business owners should consider completing before going to market to help their businesses sell. Remove any items not included in the sale. That family heirloom portrait behind the counter of Grandfather William, founder of the business, should be removed. Remove or repair any non-functioning equipment. Prepare an operations…
Is Your Business Saleable?
Many business owners probably have asked themselves this question. There are many unique and different types of business. Some fill very small niches while others have carved out a unique product or service while still others require a unique or very specialized talent, knowledge or experience. An owner of a “unique” or at least unusual…
You Want How Much for Your Business?
This is often a prospective buyer’s first response when given the price of a seller’s business. This is especially true today when many excellent and profitable businesses have few hard or physical assets. For years, buyers, and even business appraisers, have called the difference between the actual physical assets and the asking price as “blue…
A Business Owner’s Report Card
How does someone else, for example, a potential buyer, rate your business on the issues listed below? Rate your business and yourself on the time-honored “A” to “F” scale. You can even use a plus or minus. What’s your average? Too many business owners operate on gut feel or “from the heart.” Nothing wrong with…
Is It Time to Make Some Changes?
One of the major advantages of small and mid-sized businesses is that it is much easier to make changes with this category of business than it is with the larger kind. The larger company can become so mired in bureaucracy that it can’t turn on a dollar much less on a dime. Changes can be…
Selling Price Defined
When the time comes to sell your business, what makes up the selling price. What is it that you are selling and the buyer is buying? It is important that the selling price be defined in such a way to avoid any confusion. Below you will find some sample wording used by business intermediaries to…
Questions Business Buyers Want Answers To
If you are even thinking about selling your business, it’s important to know the questions that buyers generally want answers to. For example, the first question almost always asked by buyers is: If this is such a good business why is it for sale? How you answer this question can make or break a sale.…
What Happens If?
You may not have any intention of selling your business today. But, what happens to your business if you get hit by a truck, fall ill or are injured in some other way making you unable to operate your business for a fairly long period of time? Will your spouse step in? Do you have…
Increasing the Value of Your Business
Considering selling your business? Just want to increase the value of your business? Here are some areas to look at that can fairly quickly increase profits, which are, after all, a main building block in creating value. • PRICING: Are the prices of the products or services set too low? Owners too often continue with…
Unreported Income: “Show Me the Money!”
Prospective buyers don’t want to hear about “what the business really makes” – they want to see the books and records that show what is down in black and white. Here is the old story about proper accounting procedures, or lack of: A Greek restaurant owner had his own bookkeeping system. He kept his accounts…
