When the exciting time has finally come and you have settled on the decision to sell your online business, it is imperative that you take care to mind a few steps in the process that will help you to get the most out of the sale and allow the process to run as smoothly as possible. The work doesn’t just end at the decision to sell, and it would be wise for you to consider the items that you need to tend to all the way up until you close the sale itself.
1. Keep Your Data Organized
Before you’re your listing goes live, you are going to need to submit a number of details regarding your company that will then be compiled into a sales presentation. Getting your financial bookkeeping and statistics in order and organized, along with getting together all of the other details like market share and customer demographics, will help you to prepare an accurate and consumable marketing piece that will garner much interest and attention. When you provide these accurate company details at the beginning of the sales process, it will help to gain the buyer’s trust in the material that you provide and will inspire an interest to find out more about the business itself. Alongside that, doing the hard work up front pays off during the stage of due diligence after the offer is accepted to keep things from being dragged out longer than they need to be for all parties involved.
2. Update Your Data
After the initial data has been submitted to your broker, you are going to need to provide updated Trailing 12 P&L Statements and Analytics reports on a monthly basis. Your prospective buyers are always going to want to see the current accurate and updated data for your business, so keeping your financial books current will make it easier to keep your listing updated as well for potential online business buyers.
3. Run Business Operations as Normal
Perhaps the most important thing that you can do while you are listing your business for sale is to keep on operating the business itself as if it were not being sold. Sometimes, business owners will choose to sell because they have lost interest in the online business or they just have other activities or business occupying their time. Unfortunately, if the seller isn’t focused on running the business to keep it stable or even grow it, it can decline in value. Since the selling price is affected the most by the current Trailing 12 Months Net Income, reduced profits will cause the price to drop and all of the work that was exerted into making and operating the online business may be lost in regards to reaping the last rewards of the company. Therefore, it is in your best interest to keep the business operations normal and keeping profits stable to get the best selling price.
4. Answer Any Questions in a Timely Manner
After reviewing your business’ prospectus, buyers who are interested are going to have very specific questions they want to ask before submitting their offer. Answering these inquiries as quickly as you can will help you to keep the momentum with those parties that are interested in your online business and encourage them to move forward toward a real offer. Also, having a solid idea of your business and general operations will show itself as confidence in the business when a buyer looks to you.
5. Get Ready for Due Diligence
Once you have accepted an offer, the buyer is going to have a specified and agreed upon duration of time in which they need to substantiate the data presented initially when the business was first listed for sale. Getting all of your documents together that are required for this process ahead of time and having them ready for the buyer will help push the process forward and allow for a quicker seamless due diligence period. These documents include things such as bank statements, tax returns, merchant accounts statements, financial statements and others. Having this documentation ready to go and provided swiftly can further that sense of trust and security within the buyer. This part, more than any other bit of the process, will secure the sale’s closing after the offer has been accepted.
Are you ready to sell your online business? If so, no matter what stage of the process you are in, whether you are just beginning or are currently going through one of the processes detailed above, an online business broker is ready to assist you from start to finish. Get all of the advice you need and all of your questions answered by contacting one of the business brokers on our team today.
