How to sell business quickly and profitably? How to sell a business?

Today, a lot of talk is devoted to how to build a profitable business, organize your own business, create a certain enterprise that generates revenue. In fact, as practice shows, there are a lot of people who want to do business. Even someone who is far from the business world would like to try himself in the role of the head of a firm. However, today we will not talk about this.

The article is devoted to a slightly different topic. It will be useful for people who, on the contrary, want to get rid of their enterprise, want to find a way to sell a business and at the same time remain in a sufficiently favorable economic situation. In it, we will discuss a number of aspects related to such a sale. It's not just about the immediate search for a buyer, but also about the various measures that should be taken before selling. In general, we will talk more broadly about how to sell a business, offering your advice on a particular issue.

Cooking the reason

First of all, if you decided to get rid of your company, we would recommend you to clearly determine what is the reason for the sale and whether it can be called the buyer. It's one thing - it's your personal preferences. An example is the situation when you wanted to change the vector of your activity and, say, start to organize an entirely different company. Or, say, you are basically tired of entrepreneurship and want to rest a little. Then you can honestly say this to the buyer, who will certainly ask this question.

A completely different situation is when you are looking for information on how to sell a business because of its unprofitability, the risk of collapse or the complexities that threaten the enterprise in the future. Of course, talking about this is undesirable, because, depending on the nature of the complexities, not everyone will take up the management of your enterprise and, accordingly, its purchase. The same goes for profits: the obvious fact is that the more a company earns, the more expensive it is sold. If your business scheme is unprofitable, you will buy it, most likely, for a pittance. In this case, we recommend either agreeing to undervalued prices, or to go through a difficult period in the life of the enterprise, to achieve some profitability, and then prepare for its sale. Then you can help out much more.

Future plans

All of us, including your buyer, are people. And man is a being who simply has to plan his future. We try to make plans, to sort out possible variants of the development of events and do everything to look ahead. In the case of business activities, the situation is absolutely analogous. And the buyer, who is interested in your proposal, will also want to know what he can achieve, where he should move in the future, what profits he will get. All this must be included in a certain business plan of your project and provided to the future buyer. So you not only can find a person who is ready to pay for your business faster, but also get the maximum benefit from the transaction.

If the state of your business is such that it does not have any prospects in the future, it is advisable to think over the sale of parts, that is, to get rid of the assets that make up your enterprise. To do this, it is necessary to conduct a correct evaluation in order to understand their market value.

Time

Since you are looking for information on how to sell a business, time is your best friend. After all, the more the age of a particular enterprise, the more expensive it can be estimated by the buyer. This is especially true if your business is successful and pays off.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. A person who wants to enter this or that business niche is ready to acquire an already functioning (and, perhaps, even unprofitable) enterprise that conducts activities in this area. And personally for you it is the best option of how to sell a business quickly. The buyer wants to start work as soon as possible, and you, on the contrary, want to get rid of the rights to your company and get compensation for it. For anyone who is looking for information on how to sell a business (the IP or any other organizational form does not matter), the search for people who want to try their niche is the best strategy for a successful sale and a bargain. And using time as a factor that increases the value of your enterprise is a good tactic.

Documentation and legal support

This advice, although very obvious, is of great importance. Address to professionals of the business when it is a question of sale of your enterprise. Fix all the rights and responsibilities of the parties, prescribe every little thing, if you want everything to turn out in the best possible way. Otherwise, how to sell a ready-made business (IP) and be sure that you will not be deceived?

Where it comes to monetary relationships (and even more so large ones, as in the case of a company sale for example), do not abuse the integrity of other people. It is better to try to use all the tools that will protect you in the sale process. This is the answer to the question of how to properly sell a business (IP or LLC, without a difference).

Look for your buyer, and do not wait for him

One interesting piece of advice on how to sell a business quickly is to find someone willing to pay for your business. The error of many businessmen can be called personal expectations. They are waiting for the buyer to come to them and pay the money. They believe that this will happen very soon. However, this approach can not be called correct.

If you want to know how to sell a ready business quickly, think about who really can buy it from you. We are now talking about such a specific product, that a simple visitor "from the street" will not be able to pay you for your business. The real buyer can be either one who is just beginning in this sphere (unlikely) or one who already has experience in this niche of business and knows what can be squeezed out of it. Most often, such people are the owners of a network of any points of service, sales of goods and so on.

Here's a simple example: you have a restaurant, and you are looking for how to sell a business to help out for it. It is best in this case to write to the owners of restaurant chains, mostly - similar in theme to your institution. It is possible that a person seriously think about expanding their business by acquiring yours. So selling your business can not take much time, the main thing is to look for a buyer, not passively wait for it.

No, in fact, if you submit an ad for sale in various business forums and message boards, you are in any case interested in some people. Only one of them can really make the necessary amount and who plans to develop your business further, nobody knows. Therefore, in order to understand this, make suggestions. Communicate with potential buyers, offer them your business - and who knows, you may be interested in someone sufficiently to continue discussing the future deal.

Hear the buyer

Another advice that I would like to give the seller of a business is to develop the ability to listen to someone who wants to buy your business. You need to find out why he wants to buy your business, what he is going to do with it, what plans he has for the company. This information is necessary for you in order to prepare for how to properly submit your project. After all, you can do this in different ways, changing approaches to describing and characterizing the business, changing the perspective. This technique will provide an opportunity to meet the expectations of a person who wants to buy your company. Applying it is the best key to how to profitablely sell a business. Just convince the buyer that he can achieve the desired results by owning your company (customers, employees, assets). How to do it, you will see after you understand the goals of this person.

Protection

Another important moment that everyone should pay attention to, who wants to know how to sell a business correctly, is to protect your business. At first glance this is not so obvious, but in practice there are different situations. Including cases, when under the guise of a buyer comes a man who in the future will simply steal your business. How does this happen? Read carefully so as not to lose your business.

So, this paragraph is addressed, rather, not to any owner of a particular enterprise or institution, but to business owners working in the service sector. For example, this may concern the owner of a travel agency. After all, as we know, the most valuable tool of such enterprises is not a rented office with office equipment, but a customer base and managers working with it. And how many there are different stories about the fact that employees of the company stole its base, and then started their own business! The same goes for selling a business.

There are known stories when, under the guise of a buyer, a person came to the firm to learn about certain facts. Later, he contacted the key managers of this company, offering them a solid fee for starting work with their base in favor of another company. Having enticed people, such pseudo-buyers actually ruined the entire business of the real owner of the base, creating in return its structure. At one time it became a real problem in the market: it is quite difficult to protect your base from theft, taking into account the fact that other people should work with it. Plus, the same situation can be repeated in relation to the technologies used in production, as well as other less obvious innovations and solutions in your business.

Mechanisms of protection exist. Moreover, they are actively used by many companies. The customer base, for example, is tied to the enterprise itself, without giving full access to managers and sellers working on the phone. With technology and different know-how the situation is similar: you can tell the buyer that there are some ways to improve the financial performance of the business, the "secrets of production", which you, alas, can not disclose to the buyer at the stage of acquaintance. Thus, the results of your work will be safe.

"Training" on competitors

Are you not sure whether everyone indicated in the description of your business? Have all the information been published from those that may interest the buyer and become for him the best benchmarks? Do not know how the negotiations will be held, that you need to answer some of the questions and what to do if you get a call? The solution of all these and a lot of other problems is very simple. It consists in "training" on your competitors. What is meant?

If you want to know how to sell a business with debts or how to get the most out of your business, you can simply find competitors selling a similar type of enterprise and write them in the guise of a buyer. Believe me, they will give you a maximum of information about their company (since the seller is likely to be interested in selling).

This "training" is very useful. You immediately see the buyer's line of behavior from the side, notice the questions that your buyer wants to ask, mark the best answers that should be given.

Intermediaries

Today, there are many companies that help get rid of their business. If you do not want to do everything yourself, you can ask for help from one of them, describing the essence of the problem. The difficulties are in how to find a firm that will help sell the business, no. There is a huge amount of contact information, and you can easily find feedback on the work of intermediaries. However, you should be prepared for the fact that you will be charged for the services rendered. On the other hand, professional business sellers can have their own appraiser, which will help you, in turn, help you out more for the individual resources used in your business.

conclusions

In fact, to such an important stage in the life of any businessman and businessman, like selling a business, you can treat differently. For someone, this situation can mean a serious loss and bear some negative connotation: they say that he gave what he tried and worked for so long. On the other hand, the same procedure can be considered as the next stage in your career as an opportunity to create a new project and earn more from it.

In any case, for your enterprise you will be able to help out some funds, of which the seller's further attitude will also depend on the amount. After all, someone understands that his offspring should be evaluated much higher, and someone, on the contrary, is very pleased with the transaction and is glad that he finally got himself started with this project. Each of the stories of selling a business is unique, they happen to people, and there is nothing terrible or reprehensible about this. On the contrary, it is possible that in new hands your project will bring more benefits, will become more profitable and will give new jobs.