Selling a business that you have lived and breathed for years if not decades is not easy to do.
Although you want to retire or move onto new ventures letting go can be hard. You’re invested not just in the shares and the bricks and mortar, but also in the employees and customers who might also be friends and neighbours.
It’s great if you can find a buyer who is going to have the same values and vision as you for the business, but at the end of the day the buyer is not you so some things will change. You need to prepare yourself so that you are ready for the sale process, not just financially and in terms of tax planning, but also mentally.
Also, the process can seem overwhelming, you’ve run your business successfully so having to answer a million and one questions or find a million and one long misplaced documents can feel like insult on top of
injury. Try not to take it personally, the buyer is starting from scratch so needs to know about things that you take for granted (and if the buyer is raising bank finance, the bank will want everything in triplicate).
Then the legal documents will land, and the small print and level of detail can be all too much.
Take a deep breath. We’re here to help you through the process from start to finish. We’ve done it before we know what’s reasonable and what’s not, which fights to pick and which ones to walk away from. We’ll get you through the process, but we can’t guarantee that you’ll enjoy the journey.
My top five tips for sellers are:
- Allocate time to spend on the sale process.
- Talk to your accountant about your tax position.
- Check the property deeds / lease, are they in the business name or your personal name (and have you given a personal guarantee for any leasehold property).
- Make sure your business accounts are up to date.
- Appreciate that even once you’ve found a buyer the process can take 2 / 3 months to complete.
