How to Find The Right Experts to Sell Your Online Business

If you are like most entrepreneurs, your business is likely your most valuable asset. Further, a significant portion of the profits you receive from your company come when you sell it. Given this, you must do everything in your power to achieve a profitable exit.

At the same time, selling a business is not a solo endeavor. It requires an extremely wide set of skills and knowledge. This makes it hard for any one person to be a true expert in every area involved in selling an online company. In order to achieve your most profitable exit, you must know how to assemble the right team of experts who can guide you through the process.

In this article, we discuss:

• How the right team can help you achieve a more successful exit
• Why a business broker should be a central part of your exit strategy
• Other key players of your exit dream team

Related Article: What to Look For in a Business Valuation Professional

How the Right Team Can Help You Achieve a More Successful Exit

As a small business owner, hiring the right team to help you navigate the exit process brings many benefits. These include:

• A higher final sale price
• Better deal terms
• Post-sale tax and personal financial planning
• Peace of mind and a smoother selling process

Higher sale price

The most obvious benefit to having an experienced team on your side during the sale process is achieving a higher sale price for your business.

You only get to sell your company once. Building your business likely required a ton of time, energy, and hard work on your part. It likely represents a significant portion of your personal financial assets. Given this, even small percentage differences in your sale price can mean large differences in the final payout you receive for your company.

A highly skilled and experienced team can make a significant difference in the final sale price that you achieve. Some of the things your team can do to achieve a higher sale price include:

• Getting your financial statements in order
• Calculating your add-backs correctly
• Attracting more interested buyers
• Ensuring all potential legal issues are dealt with
• Negotiating more effectively with interested buyers

“The most obvious benefit to having an experienced team on your side during the sale process is achieving a higher sale price for your business.”

Better deal terms

A higher sale price is not the only benefit of hiring an expert team. The final terms of the deal that you wind up with play a significant role in your post-sale experience.

Deal terms are not cut and dry. There is no one-size-fits-all structure for selling a business. Key issues to consider when creating your deal terms include:

• Payment schedule
• Financing terms
• Fractional ownership considerations
• Continued post-sale involvement

For example, you could strike a deal whereby the buyer pays you all cash at the time of closing. At the same time, you transfer full ownership over to them—in other words, a clean break.

Or, you could agree to retain a 20 percent stake in the company for another three years. During this time, you must stay on to manage the company. Payments on the remaining 80 percent of the company could happen in three installments over the course of the three years.

These are just two possibilities out of many. Clearly, these two scenarios lead to much different post-sale realities for you. By having an experienced team on your side, you can be better prepared going into deal-term negotiations. This allows you to have greater leverage, increasing your chances of getting the deal you want.

Post-sale tax and financial planning

Much of the effort to sell your business is focused on preparing your company for market, finding buyers, and achieving a good deal. At the same time, you need to be aware of how the sale will affect your personal financial situation moving forward. In addition, you should take time to consider the tax implications of selling your business.

The right team can help you be better prepared for how your exit will affect your personal financial situation ahead of time. Armed with this information, you will have a clearer idea of your exit goals. This can help you navigate the sales process in a way that allows you to achieve a profitable exit.

“The right team can help you be better prepared for how your exit will affect your personal financial situation ahead of time.”

Peace of mind and a smoother selling process

Selling a business can be a stressful experience. You are navigating a high-stakes situation with long-term ramifications on your personal financial situation. At the same time, it can be an emotional experience as you let go of something that you have worked so hard on.

Navigating this situation alone is daunting for even the most experienced entrepreneurs. Having a highly experienced team on your side can minimize your work, instill confidence, and make a stressful situation a lot less difficult.

Why a Business Broker Should Be a Central Part of Your Exit

Business brokers, or business Advisors, play an indispensable role in shaping a successful exit. They are the team member who helps you direct and execute your strategy. The right Advisor will play a role in many different aspects of your sale. They can:

• Provide an accurate valuation of your business
• Create your marketing package
• Find and screen potential buyers
• Evaluate offers
• Facilitate negotiations
• Assist with the closing process
• Provide referrals to other qualified team members

“Business brokers, or business Advisors, play an indispensable role in shaping a successful exit.”

Provide an accurate valuation of your business

Everything starts with getting an accurate and thorough valuation of your company. As a qualified valuation expert, the right business broker will thoroughly go through your business and create a valuation. The valuation provides you with an educated assessment of how much your company is currently worth.

Your valuation will also reveal your company’s strengths and weaknesses. With this information, you can create and implement an optimization plan prior to selling your business.

Create your marketing package

When it is time to sell, your business broker will put together your marketing package. Your marketing package is the document that is presented to potential buyers in order to inform them of your company details.

Find and screen potential buyers

Finding the right buyer for your business is no easy feat. The more interested qualified buyers you have, the better your chances are of achieving a profitable exit.

Your business Advisor will use their extensive network of buyers and investors to attract more interest than you would likely receive if you sold it on your own. Your Advisor will also help you sort through interested buyers and screen out those who are not qualified.

Evaluate offers

Once offers do start to come in, your Advisor will help you understand the merits of each one. As you go through them, the two of you can compare competing offers in order to weigh the pros and cons against each other.

For example, would you rather accept a lower all-cash offer that allows for a clean break or a higher offer that holds back part of the payment based on future performance metrics being met? By evaluating all offers with your Advisor, you can gain a better understanding of how each one will shape your post-exit life.

Facilitate negotiations with potential buyers

Much of the success of your exit rests on the outcome of negotiations between you and the buyer. As an expert on the matter, your Advisor can help you navigate negotiations in order to achieve a more favorable outcome.

Assist with closing and agreements

Once you and the buyer have arrived at an agreement, all necessary documents must be drafted, approved, and signed. Along with other members of your team, your Advisor will help you successfully navigate this (often complex) process.

Provide referrals to other qualified team members

Business Advisors spend their careers helping their clients successfully sell their business. As such, they have an extensive network of skilled and competent professionals who assist with the process.

Given how crucial it is to get your exit right, it is highly important to hire the right team. Referrals from someone you can trust go a long way toward achieving this. Your Advisor can suggest specific individuals to fill out the rest of your exit dream team roster.

“Given how crucial it is to get your exit right, it is highly important to hire the right team.”

Other Key Players of Your Exit Dream Team

Aside from a business broker, there are several other key players that every successful team should have to achieve a profitable exit. These include:

• A legal advisor
• A business accountant
• A personal financial advisor or financial planning professional

Legal advisor

Having an experienced and skilled business lawyer on your team is critical. There are a large number of legal ramifications that must be considered when selling your business. Inadequately addressing any of them can undo your exit or cause immense problems throughout the process.

Your legal advisor will help you with a range of matters related to your exit, including:

• Ensuring your entity formation documents are filed correctly
• Checking your intellectual property protections
• Navigating the due-diligence phase
• Drafting and evaluating legal documents such as the asset purchase agreement

They may also be able to counsel you on applicable tax laws and how they may impact you. Given their breadth of knowledge, a legal advisor is one of the key people on any strong team.

“By maintaining orderly financial records, your accountant can help facilitate a much easier and more streamlined exit process.”

Business accountant

Your business accountant is another key team member when you decide to sell your business. From organizing your financial data to ensuring your company is in good financial shape, they play an indispensable role in many areas of the selling process.

Any serious buyer will want to see your financial statements when deciding on whether or not to make an offer. By maintaining orderly financial records, your accountant can help facilitate a much easier and more profitable exit process.

At the same time, orderly financials make your business more attractive to potential buyers. This increases your chances of receiving multiple offers and raises the value of your company.

Financial planning professional

Small business owners who are planning to sell their company must first take into account how the sale will impact their personal financial situation. Be sure to work with a personal financial planner from the beginning in order to approach the situation in a more informed position.

The right financial planner can help you:

• Identify tax-saving opportunities
• Take into account other tax considerations
• Plan your post-sale finances
• Understand your financial needs and set clear goals

Conclusion

Selling your company is a momentous and potentially stressful endeavor. The wide knowledge base and skill set required present a challenge for even the most experienced entrepreneur.

By assembling the right team of experts, however, you can increase your chances of achieving a highly profitable exit when selling your company.