There are situations of economic, personal, and life nature when the owner of an online store makes a difficult decision to sell his site. How to prepare the resource for sale, where is the safest place to make a deal, and how not to suffer losses? Where and how to sell your small business fast? We will try to answer these questions in our article.
How to Sell Out Your Business?
Selling a business is a serious step for an entrepreneur, so it is necessary to approach this issue competently and carefully. Consider the safest scheme for selling your own company.
- It is necessary to find out whether the company is valuable (not necessarily financial) for buyers and whether it is promising. It may happen that it is more rational to liquidate the organization than to spend resources and time on its sale.
- Consideration should be given to whether the business will be harmed if information about its sale is made public. If the answer to this question is yes, then you should act as confidentially as possible. If the secrecy of the sale is not so important, it makes sense to cover the maximum number of areas that will facilitate the sale.
- Assessing the market value of the existing tangible assets, it is possible that the sale of the company in parts will be more profitable.
- It is worth asking about recent transactions for the sale/purchase of a similar business. It is good to find out the prices of similar business for sale, say WebSite Closers.
- Take care of a new business plan for the company, as well as a full set of legal and financial information.
- It is necessary to think over a tax minimization scheme before the deal is concluded.
- You can talk to the main consumers and suppliers about buying your business.
- It is necessary to assess how much competitors are interested in your business. But this should be done last, otherwise, there may be negative consequences even before the company is sold. First, you can use the services of intermediaries for negotiations.
- The sale of the enterprise should be done with the support of a qualified and experienced lawyer, which significantly reduces the risk.
- When making a deal, it is necessary to carefully study all the documents to be signed.
Where to Sell Your Business?
Here’s what you can do to find buyers:
- Place ads on thematic sites.
- Use social networks. You can post a post in a thematic group or on your page if there are potential buyers among your subscribers.
- Offer the business to employees or partners. 5-10% of ready-made businesses are sold to employees, and a little more – to partners.
- Offer the business to competitors. They often buy businesses from former colleagues to expand their network. But in such situations, it is important not to tell competitors too much and not to give away the customer base before the purchase or conclusion of the contract.
Who Can Help Me Sell My Business?
If you do not know how to sell your e-commerce business, a business broker can help you. In addition to selling a ready-made business, a business broker provides a number of services that can help many people. This list of services includes: attracting investments for various projects, as well as carefully checked and already operating projects or those that are preparing to open. A business broker will help you to package your business for sale, get the right meanings and show all the strengths of your business in order to accurately convey a well-honed business model to the business buyer.
How to Sell Your Internet Business: Conclusion
Before selling a business, you need to prepare information about profitability and processes. To do this, make reports for the last year: cash flow statement, profit, and loss statement, and balance sheet. Describe all available assets and business processes.
To determine the exact value of the business, you can contact a business broker or use one of the schemes for self-calculation. The simplest valuation method is to multiply the net profit by 12 and add the value of tangible assets. So you will get the average value of the business without taking into account its features.
You can look for buyers through a business broker, on message boards, in social networks, among partners, employees and competitors. In any case, it is important not to disclose all the secrets to potential buyers. It usually takes 1-3 months to find someone who is really ready to buy.
Remember that achieving understanding and mutually beneficial compromise when selling a ready-made business is your main goal.
