You can run your business or sell your business - but not both at the same time

By Jim Afinowich

One of the biggest things most business owners don’t realize is the amount of time that it takes to sell a business properly. To shorten that time, we take a team approach: We will have four or five people working on a transaction, and, by the time the deal closes, it’s not uncommon for us to have invested a thousand man-hours.

Even if you have the skill and experience necessary to achieve a successful sale, you probably do not have that amount of time to spend. When it comes to selling your business – perhaps the largest transaction of your life – you probably don’t want to learn the marketing and sales process as you go along.

Among the many benefits of having a broker represent you in a sale that is that it keeps you from getting totally distracted. One of the most counter-productive things you can do in selling your company is to put it on the market and then loosen the reins and have the company falter.

Keeping a sale process going is very time consuming. If you have an intermediary, you can focus on doing what you do best: running your business and growing its market value.

Also, most buyers work on acquisitions during normal business hours. It is very hard to maintain confidentiality and not raise the suspicions of your employees talking with buyers at work or running out to the parking lot to take a call. An intermediary will help you maintain confidentiality.

You don’t know that it’s going to sell; there’s no guarantee that any business is going to sell until it’s actually sold. While you’re waiting to find out, you can keep running your business while the intermediary devotes his time and energy to the process. The intermediary is going to know where to find the buyers; he’s going to know the process and how to navigate it; he’s going to know when to advise you not to do a deal because the buyer and the terms may not be the best fit for you. On average, one out of 15 people who inquire about a business for sale end up buying one. A good representative will screen out the time wasting tires kickers.

Finally, do you have the time and resources to identify and communicate with every qualified prospect? Do you have the right connections to the market? In our experience, even when the seller has a short list of good candidates, the ultimate buyer was unknown to the seller when he or she started the process. We have a database of over 55,000 names, including over 3,500 private equity groups, that has taken us years to assemble.

You running the business, and the intermediary putting to work for you his resources and his understanding of the market and the process – that is a winning formula for a successful sale that brings top dollar.