{"id":814,"date":"2017-11-15T19:44:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T19:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/?p=814"},"modified":"2017-11-15T19:44:42","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T19:44:42","slug":"questions-to-ask-before-selling-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/2017\/11\/15\/questions-to-ask-before-selling-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions to Ask Before Selling Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Guest Blog by Carol Gresham, Confidential Business Intermediary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the initial conversation, what are the questions to ask yourself before deciding to sell your business?<\/p>\n<p><em>Is my business ready to sell?<\/em>\u00a0 The normal requirement is to have three years of tax returns available which establish an income and expense pattern.<\/p>\n<p><em>What information and professional services do I need as I get ready to sell?<\/em>\u00a0 You may need an appraiser, financial planner, attorney and definitely an unbiased third party to help locate buyers and facilitate the sale.<\/p>\n<p><em>Is the market right for me to sell<\/em>?\u00a0 You know your industry the best for your marketplace. The key is to answer this question from an unbiased viewpoint.\u00a0 A business intermediary has access to local and national sales relative to your business sector.<\/p>\n<p><em>Could my business continue to thrive without dependence on me personally or a key customer?<\/em>\u00a0 A solid business should be able to operate when the owner is away for short periods of time and has a diversified revenue stream not based on one specific contract or customer.<\/p>\n<p><em>Are there any potential \u201cdeal breakers?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Make sure all decision-makers\/owners are open to selling.\u00a0 Make sure your intellectual property and\/or real estate is clear to sell or lease.\u00a0 Try to resolve all pertinent issues before your business goes on the market.<\/p>\n<p>As the business owner, you know your business better than anyone.\u00a0 Because of this, you probably have a laser focus on most aspects of the business.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make the mistake of thinking you can handle a sale transaction on your own.\u00a0 Consulting with a team of professionals can provide you the thousand-foot view as well as focus and analyze your potential sale from many angles.\u00a0 Professional advisors will also be able to be objective and leave the emotions out of the decision making process.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest Blog by Carol Gresham, Confidential Business Intermediary After the initial conversation, what are the questions to ask yourself before deciding to sell your business? Is my business ready to sell?\u00a0 The normal requirement is to have three years of tax returns available which establish an income and expense pattern. What information and professional services [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[201],"tags":[618,619,645],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-focus_smallbusiness","tag-carol-gresham","tag-confidential-business-intermediary","tag-questions-to-ask-before-selling-your-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Voice_of_Business_icon.jpg?fit=450%2C450","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8RhO8-d8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":815,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}