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What a difference has the last decade in the way business is conducted around the world. I am referring as the title suggests to how ubiquitous the internet has become and how central it has become to our existence. Certainly, every teenager and even pre-teens learn ways to use the internet from Facebook to Twitter to Xbox to Ipod.
Just as in personal living, the internet has contributed to a virtually unlimited ways to monitor, manage, handle your business affairs. Not just in operating your business, but when it comes to selling your business, the internet offers countless ways to streamline and guide your process to a more efficient way to prepare and even consummate the transaction.
Now let us review the major steps involved in the selling process and how the internet can help you along in the process. The first step to selling a business is to get your house in order. This means that you begin to gather all the relevant information about the business and the documents that go with it in an orderly fashion. You should include all the legal documents starting from articles of incorporation, by-laws, board meeting minutes, all material contracts and agreements, tax returns for at least the last 3 years, more if they are available. Also collecting the latest financial information including the balance sheet, income expense statements, asset/inventory list etc. is an important step in the process. One of the latest online tools in collecting and sharing the documents is the use of virtual data rooms. These are electronic repositories for storing your documents and there are several providers that you can investigate. Several of the business brokers and private equity groups provide this as part of their services, but as an independent seller you can avail of these services as well. This is a very convenient way for the seller to upload the documents once and provide access to various interested parties in a controlled fashion. It can be a very valuable service to the seller and will also appear very professional to the prospective buyers.
The next critical step in the selling process to develop a good idea of the value of the business. It is critical for the seller to approach the business valuation question from the seller’s perspective. While the seller has a lot of emotion apart from real dollars invested in the business, the buyer will likely be more objective and will look at the business more as an investor and hence will be interested more in financials and the expected returns. There are business appraisers and valuation companies that provide a great service and the seller can easily research them on the internet. In fact the seller should search for valuation firms that specialize in the kind of business the seller has and they should have the experience valuing a similar business. There are several providers that are available online and will collect your business information online and provide a detailed valuation report.
The next major step is to list the business for sale. There are many worthy online listing services that provide wonderful opportunities to list you business for sale. Typically the seller should pick a handful of such services, keeping in mind the reach, user friendliness and the service levels provided by the site. So take your time to browse the site and understand the tools and functionalities provided by the site and make your decision. Keep in mind that the sites should rich in content and at the same time not very cluttered so as to turn off the potential buyers.
The above are just a few areas where the sellers can find online providers that will make the job of selling your business easier. There are plenty of other tools that are available online, so take your time to do the research and take advantage of the incredible range of solutions available online.
BuyTradeBiz.Com is internets newest business for sale and franchises for sale listing website. This is the site for you if you are looking to sell a business or buy a business or if you are looking to buy a franchise business.
BuyTradeBiz.com is a multi-national marketplace for buying and selling businesses of any size, type, price, and location. We are an online advertising service that helps business owners and franchises sell their businesses by connecting them with prospective buyers. We provide a comprehensive range of services to facilitate the buying and selling of businesses and franchises. Our objective is to develop into the leading provider of online listings for businesses and franchises for sale, as well as provide the most extensive source of information pertaining to the process of buying and selling businesses.
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010
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