Many business owners would like to sell their business one day, but have no immediate plans to put it on the market. This is a great time to start preparing your business for an eventual sale. There are a few things you can do right now, no matter where you are in the sales process, to make your business more attractive to buyer. These changes may even make your day to day operations a little bit better in the meantime. Let’s get started.
Refine your space with fresh eyes:
Look at your place of business with the eyes of a buyer. Just like a house stager may go through your home refining the look to be more spare and generic, consider how you could edit your decore to invite a new owner. Replace or remove all non-functioning clocks, lights, stereo equipment, or other decor. Fix those pesky things that have been on your list – the sticky door, the broken bath tissue roller. Remove unused technology and furniture. Make note of the items you keep at your business that you would not include in a sale, and start replacing them now.
Make a habit to keep clean, sale-ready financial statements
Go through the last three years of financial records, whether you keep them in accounting software, your scheduling program, or in a shoe box, and get it all in order. Begin to create 36 months of clean financial history to share with buyers. Create a system that works for you to keep up these clean records month to month. You may need to start over fresh with a new spreadsheet, or simply adjust the category names in your existing system. However it works best for you, start now. When it’s time to create your sales deck, you will have everything at hand.
Edit your online presence
When it’s time to pass your business on to a new owner, you need to offer them an online presence they can take over from the beginning. You can make this transition easy by starting now. Go your online spaces – website, social media accounts, logins to software and aps, etc. – and detach your personal presence in these spaces. If you use your personal email as your login, change them now to addresses affiliated with the business itself. Clean up galleries and discussion threads, clear out your personal stuff and anything outdated or irrelevant.
These simple projects will go a long way to making your business appealing to buyers, who will be able to see themselves in your role with greater ease. Your clear financial statements will give buyers confidence in your valuation, and build the trust necessary for a successful sale.
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