Knowing When It?s Time to Sell a Business | Articles

Knowing When It?s Time to Sell a Business | Articles


Posted by valeri on June 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Selling your business

There are many reasons a business owner would decide to sell their business. Family commitments, financial, location and health are just to name a few.

It would be safe to say that it is one of the biggest and hardest desicion they are asked to take.

There are many issues before you consider selling your business. Thorough research and analysis of your business is needed to ensure that you make maximum profits when putting your business on sale.

The very first important thing is time. You must know whether it is a right time to put your business on sale or not. If you feel that the market is down, and the prospective of a good deal are not visible, you should think to hold back your decision. You can use this time to make your business is attractive to good deals from investors.

Below are some of the issues that you will need to solve prior and during the sale of a business:

Inadequate preparation

Negotiating with the wrong buyers

Failing to identify best buyer

Over-pricing the business, resulting in a reduction of interest and in some cases eliminating interest all together

Failing to understand buyer’s motivations

Structuring deal incorrectly

Failing to obtain full value – at least value your business with the help of a professional if you intend to sell the business alone

Waiting too long or selling too soon

When finding buyers, many sellers qualify people in a desperate attempt to get as many offers as possible. As a result, a lot of time is wasted with buyers that are not serious which could have been used with the serious potential buyers that have now lost interest

Not ensuring your partner/spouse likes the business too – if they don’t you’ve got problems!

Then, there are issues about tax and some governmental responsibilities that you might need to address. Changing of ownership and all other paper work needs to be done carefully so as to avoid any problems in future.

These are some of the main issues that you need to sort-out once you decide that you need to sell your business. When you are confident that you have worked out on all of them, you are ready to decide whether you should put your business on sale or not.

Businesses on Sale

It sounds somewhat difficult to put your business for sale; when in the traditional sense, business includes selling some products and services. But lately there are many causes that have increased the list of Australian businesses for sale.

One of the major reasons of businesses for sale is that people are looking to get the worth of their business. This feeling has another reason also, as many foreigners are looking for opportunities and they are moving to start new businesses. This may include buying already established businesses and opting for franchises of various types of businesses. Some of the business owners also feel that they can’t sustain the competitive market that is growing day-by-day, and they are forced to list their business details on Australian businesses for sale-lists.

There is one more reason for growing trends of businesses for sale, which is actually created by Internet! More and more people are looking to explore the possibilities of online work, which creates work-opportunities from home. Internet has opened new vistas for people who like to do lesser physical work, and love to work on computers. Though this reason is not as prominent as others are; but still, it has a great potential, and who know its potential, are adopting it with great success.