Working out how you’re going to sell your company is a complex, strategic process. There are a lot of different but equally important pieces to the puzzle, and you mustn’t accidentally neglect any of them.
While some general points will apply no matter what company you’re selling, you’ll have to change your focus slightly depending on the kind of business you’re dealing with.
Here, we take a look at how you’d go about selling a B2B company in particular, exploring everything from getting your documents ready to smooth out the handover.
Initial steps
The initial steps of the sale will look like any other kind of business sale. You’ll want to carefully go through your business documents, getting all of your accounts in order along with any other important legal issues.
You’ll also want to put together cash flow predictions for the coming years and start to put together some documents that show how you expect the business to fare in the upcoming market conditions. All of this will need to be shown to interested buyers, and it will also be essential in order to carry out a valuation.
The valuation itself can be tricky for B2B companies, especially because so much of the value will likely be related to relationships with long-term clients. You may need to speak with those clients and get a picture of how many will be willing to stay even if there’s a handover to the new buyer.
Marketing + identifying a buyer
Next, you’ll be ready to work with a business broker like Dexterity Partners to start putting together a marketing strategy and finding potential buyers. With B2B companies, this can sometimes require a slightly more sensitive approach.
It’s often very relationship-based, meaning that you’ll sometimes have to judge whether the new buyer will be an appropriate fit from that point of view.
This will depend on how much you care about the future of the business and your professional relationships.
Ensuring a smooth handover
Unless you’re completely done with your niche and don’t want to maintain any of your contacts, you’ll want to make sure that the handover goes as smoothly as possible.
Due to the nature of the sector, you will likely have developed a lot of industry contacts and even a few friends through your B2B company, and you should make sure that they’re not left in a tricky situation.
Make sure that you’re there to support the buyer where necessary, without remaining overly invested. It’s a fine line, and there’s no real right or wrong answer. You may want to phase the handover process over a longer period as well so that the new buyer and their team have a minute to get to grips with how things work.
Of course, the B2B niche is huge, and there are any number of kinds of businesses that could fit into that category.
You’ll need to base your approach on your specific business and your professional goals, to make it work for you.
