Clean Up Your Books Before Selling

It's best to eliminate the running of excessive personal expenses through the company, or the skimming of cash, several years before selling your business. In reviewing a marketing package for the sale of a business, one of the first things a buyer is going to see is the normalization of cash flow (SDE) that shows those messy personal expense add-backs. First impressions are lasting impressions and messy normalizations definitely create a negative impression from the beginning…

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Ainsley Shea
When is the best time to sell your business? Don’t Miss the Window.

To achieve really perfect timing, the best time to sell is when you are mentally prepared, and your company has had three great years in a row. In addition, perfect timing would include ideal external conditions where interest rates are low, financing is readily available, capital gains taxes are low, and the national economy is humming. However, these external factors are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Conditions for selling are great right now…

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Ainsley Shea
How experienced is the buyer?

After your business is on the market, your broker will handle inquiries from all types of individual buyers. Statistics indicate that approximately 90% of people who inquire about a business never buy one. The lineup of "tire kickers" is endless and can include people without sufficient funds to acquire your business; people incapable of running your business; competitors, customers, or suppliers who are trying to figure out what is for sale; and bargain-hunters with unrealistic price expectations…

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Ainsley Shea
The Importance of Setting a Realistic Offering Price

Buy low. Sell high.

This adage is timeless – and true – but sometimes, like when a business owner is trying to sell a business, trying to ‘sell too high’ can become a problem. When it comes to listing and selling a business, there are many ways to establish value, so a business owner can determine ‘the right price’…

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Ainsley Shea
Why Sell Your Business Now - Capital Gains Update

Capital gains taxes are assessed on assets that are sold at a profit. While this is often associated with stocks, it can also apply to the sale of real estate, a business and other types of assets. Capital gains taxes are applied only to realized gains from the sale of the assets. We’ve talked about this before but here is another update. Read the entire article here, but we will provide you with some key takeaways from the article in this post…

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Ainsley Shea
Confidentially advertising your business for sale

Marketing your business-for-sale is critical activity – Important to the successful sale of your life’s work. Although there are dozens of steps that need to be taken to successfully list and sell a small business, getting lots of genuine interest by potential purchasers is really important…

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Ainsley Shea
Working with a business broker on the sale of a business

Selling a business is usually one of the most complicated transactions that anyone can ever experience in their lifetime. There are – literally – dozens of steps that need to be successfully taken to not only list a business for sale, but to market (promote) the business, take offers, negotiation the sale, and then close the deal. These are all important steps best left to an experienced, licensed business broker…

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Ainsley Shea