Sellers:  When a business owner decides to sell, first questions are generally ‘how much’ and ‘where do I find a buyer’ and ‘how do I keep it quiet and maintain confidentiality.’ 

Selling a business should begin with a plan and a detailed strategy that pre-addresses and prepares for these and other questions that will arise from the process.  Our suggestion is, approach the selling process quietly. Don’t start by floating trial balloons around the business, around your industry, or on the internet, on business-for-sale websites, or anywhere. Begin by quantifying the business you are offering for sale and exactly what you want for it, and be ready to justify and defend that price and to provide full disclosure at the appropriate time.

Buyers:  For a business buyer, first questions are generally ‘what is it, where is it, what size’ and ‘how much’ followed soon by ‘what is the information’ in support of all this?

A business buyer should be ready to commit to absolute confidentiality and to provide buyer’s full disclosures at the appropriate time. The seller will want assurances and demonstration that the buyer is ready, willing and able, and comes with a sincere buying interest.
BUT, where to Start ….

Since 1999, Business-Trader.com has been a business-for-sale Ad service, and most business owners or agents coming to Business-Trader.com today will probably be those looking for a site on which to post a business-for-sale Ad; and most buyers, looking for a business to buy. 

Others may have come to the site by invitation, and are now just browsing for ideas.

In any case, let’s start the discussion at the point of placing an Ad, although “placing an Ad” may be read generically as “any form of introduction to a buyer” that there is a business-for-sale; the Ad being a broadcast introduction; a phone call, a letter, a one-on-one presentation perhaps, being the targeted introduction.

In either case, the purpose of an Ad/Introduction is to be noticed … but, not necessarily by just anyone. Ideally, it is to be noticed quickly by the right party and by the right party only. And while just the right party is generally more than can be promised, a quantified and targeted Ad containing relevant factual information can help narrow it down to the right few perhaps, saving time and effort and limiting exposure. The same would be true of any form of introduction to any buyer who you think may have an interest in the opportunity.

Website Ads that base their appeal on sweeping claims of “unlimited potential” or “great opportunity” will go unheeded by most serious buyers. Ads that list all the benefits of the business; tell what the business does, where it does it, even how much it does and what it owns, rather than what it earns, are sometimes ignored as well.

As a result, Business-for-Sale sites can become cluttered with the Ads that have not been noticed in any productive way; .... sites cluttered with Ads for businesses that have not sold.

• If you’re a seller, you don’t want your Ad to become part of, or lost in that clutter.
• If you’re a buyer, you don’t want to have to wade through the clutter.
• And, clutter may include buyers as well; those who are not as much buyer as looker with no serious or capable buying intent.

Similarly, any form of introduction to an opportunity, that doesn’t meaningfully address the opportunity at hand, is apt to go unnoticed as well.

An effective Ad or Introduction is one that DOES NOT DISCLOSE who you are, and does not identify the business by name or description, but DOES identify type of business, general location, size, summarizes sales, earnings, and a general description of activity. An effective Ad is one that prices the business at fair market value, and an Ad that provides a summary of relevant fact a buyer can begin to measure.

But before the Ad or any other form of Introduction, what is that fair market price, and on what basis and how is that price measured, and how will that price measurement be supported.  And there are perhaps several.

The next to section pertains to pre-“for-sale" questions. Timing, Pricing, Confidentiality and Disclosure, Preparation, Share vs. Asset Sale, followed by a step-by-step walk through of the seven selling steps, including Pricing and Presentation.