Thinking About Selling Your Business?

Are you considering exiting your business or desire the flexibility to do so at any time? From the moment you open your business, you should be thinking about the day you exit your business. There are steps business owners should take to make sure their business is attractive to buyers. Some common planning considerations include:

1. Decrease the business owner’s participation in day-to-day activities by hiring, delegating, and training others to handle the seller-owner’s operational processes
2. Address customer and supplier concentration issues
3. Increase revenues, positioning, and value by locking down existing customers or suppliers with long term contracts and investing in consultants and salespersons to increase market share and operational efficiencies
4. Execute employment agreements, buy-sell agreements, non-competes, and restrictive covenants with co-owners and key employees
5. Establish or maintain solid and trusting banking relationships to facilitate third-party financing and readying the seller/owner’s personal financial planning for anticipated seller-financing concessions
6. Review business level legal and tax structuring, compliance, and operations. Examples include entity structuring and protecting intellectual property such as core know-how, customer lists, patents, and unique operating capabilities
7. Settle outstanding litigation threats or issues
8. Review personal level estate and income tax exposure as well as asset protection planning
9. Eliminate any potentially suspect or gray area business and tax practices
10. Address accounting practices, controls, and tax records to provide credibility to purchasers by way of audit, review, or compilation attestation services
11. Disengage cash flow drains such as unprofitable or slow-paying customers and address the collection of accounts receivable
12. Document key operational processes and invest in modernized computer systems to better fit potential buyer processes
13. Address business and personal goodwill considerations
14. Secure third-party leases, contracts, and the like
15. Discard useless inventory

Making these desired changes takes time and proactive planning is needed. We can help. We work with some of the best professionals in the realm of selling your business, such as Kelleher and Buckley. Together we can provide you with a comprehensive review of your business to ensure it is sale-ready when you are ready to sell. Don’t wait until the last minute, let’s get started now! Contact us today for a free consultation.