3 Tips for Selling a Business to Pump Up Your Price

Want to increase the sales price of your business by two or three times? Who wouldn't? Do you realize that of all the businesses that are put on the market, seventy percent of them never sell? Follow these 3 steps and no only will you sell your business but you will increase your sales price at least two or three times. 1. Put in Systems. When people call your business, which answers the phone? Do they say the same thing each time and follow a script? When the customer comes in, do you create a true experience for them? Are they greeted the same way each time so the experience is recreated? When you meet with the customer, do you use the same words to close the deal and get them engaged? Or do you just wing it? Once you have the business, do you do it according to a checklist every time? Are the products or documents used the same way every time? Do you produce the same high quality work product every time without fail? Once the business is completed, do you follow up with your customer once a month? Will that contact happen even if you are not involved? Has each contact been planned out in advance? Do all of your employees know their jobs and one other person's job also? Do they have scripts and checklists? Do they know exactly what you expect of them and how you measure their performance? How do you measure your company's performance? Do you know how many leads were closed? Do you know the return on investment from your advertising? Do you know your payables and receivables and check them weekly? Do you have regular financials that are accurate? Do you get flash reports every week so that you can review your whole business in thirty minutes or less? Guess what questions a prospective buyer will ask when they start looking at your business. There are six systems that every business must implement. With them, your business is an investment. Without them, you can cut your sales price in half or more. 2. Prepare Your Business For Sale. Every business will be sold. No owner lives forever. Whether the sale is to family, employees, other stockholders, or third parties, the business will be sold. The failure to sell will probably end up as a liquidation but even that is a sale of sorts, just not the one you want. When a person is ready to retire, they begin to think about selling their business. Unfortunately, the preparation needed to start two or more years prior in most cases. The thought of retirement brings on a natural beginning of not working as long hours as before. Usually the result is a decline in income. If you want to sell a business, do it when the income is rising, not falling. Every business has a natural cycle when sales are rising and when sales are falling. The trick is to sell when sales are rising. If you sell when sales are falling, your price is falling also. 3. Form A Good Sales Team. If you were buying a business, would you prefer one the regular consults with its lawyer and perhaps its accountant or one that only gets advice when in trouble? Would you rather have a business that plans in advance and avoids trouble or one that hops from one fire to another? The buyer for your business thinks just like you do. You need to prepare in advance and have good advisers that look out for you regularly. Buyers know that means your business will be easy to check out for due diligence and is unlikely to have a minefield with surprises. Guess which business will sell for more?