7 Steps to Take Today to Ensure a Top Dollar Sale Tomorrow

When you sell a house, you often make small changes to it to increase the potential sale price and ensure it doesn’t stay on the market long enough to get stale.

You might do things like replacing all of the flooring to make it uniform, fixing up the yard to create better curb appeal, and touching up the paint on the home to ensure a flawless finish. All of these efforts translate into a higher asking price and a quicker sale. When you are selling a business, it’s not much different.

There are a lot of steps that you can take to alleviate the concerns of potential purchasers before they have a chance to examine your business closely. Let’s take a look at some of the steps you can take today to ensure your business is worth top dollar tomorrow.

1. Get Your Financials in Order

While you should always run your business like it is for sale, many business owners make snap financial decisions that can hurt them when they go to sell. Make sure that you are being mindful of the finances of your business and choose a time to sell when it is doing well. No one likes to jump aboard a sinking ship.

If you are having trouble financially, you can talk to an accountant to find places where you could be saving money. You can also look for new ways to diversify your business and add new revenue streams.

2. Continue to Grow Your Business

Even if you know you will be selling your business soon, you still need to maintain the business as if it will be yours for years to come.

Continue to reinvest your profits into additional resources and infrastructures. By upgrading the technology that your business has or hiring on more experts, you increase the value of your business significantly.

3. Ensure Favorable Terms for All Leased Property and Equipment

Anyone who buys your business is going to ask about all of the leases that you have and how long they will last. They want to be sure that the terms are favorable and that they will have the option to renew.

Before you sell, have a conversation with your landlord and other leaseholders about the transition in ownership and solidify a plan, your buyers will be grateful.

4. Foster Positive Relationships With Union Workers and Vendors

When someone purchases your business, they will likely want to talk to some of your vendors to continue relationships with them. And if you have union workers at your business, then they will have to begin negotiating with them as well.

Make sure that you have been fair to each of these groups so that you can encourage them to continue to do business with the person who purchases your company.

5. Handle Environmental Impact Issues

If your company has an impact on the environment and you have been ignoring those issues for a while, there is a good chance it will come out in the sale process.

Make sure that you handle any potential contaminants that you are putting into the ecosystem properly. You should also have a well-developed system for removing waste and recycling at your facilities.

6. Diversify Your Customer Base

If you have one large client that makes up the majority of your sales, then you will need to diversify your customer base in order to secure a high offer. Although your client may have been consistent while you were the owner, it is a coin toss whether or not they will want to continue to do business with the new owners.

By diversifying your customer base before you put your company on the market, you will make your business much more appealing to purchasers.

7. Get Your Team on Board

No one wants to buy a business with no employees. They need people on their team who know what things were like before they purchased the company so that they can make the proper changes.

Make sure your team is on board with the idea of a sale and keep them informed as you go through the sale process. If your employees know that they have a high chance of continued employment after the sale, they will be much more likely to stay and will be counted as an asset of the business.

Where to Go for Help

Although this article has lots of helpful advice for preparing your business for a sale, it varies what individual buyers are looking for in a company.

In order to have the most information on the market that you’re in and the most access to potential buyers, you need to work with a business broker. At Dolan Sales, we can help at every stage of the sales process. Reach out to us today even if it will be a year or more before you are ready to put your company on the market. We can help you come up with a plan that will ensure you recover every dollar that your business is worth and then some