Trio Business Intermediaries Blog

Good to see a few potential sellers putting their noses above the parapet!

If you’re waiting around to see if the business-sale market picks up use the time wisely by making sure:

• Everything that can be documented is documented – procedures, arrangements with suppliers, customer contracts,

• Key staff are happy with life at your business and not about to bolt off – you need continuity below you when you depart

• Marketing is pushing towards clearly articulating your competitive advantage.  Buyers need to feel the business is unique and a cash machine!

• You don’t take your foot off the accelerator – you need to demonstrate the business is full throttle ahead and really going places

• Long serving suppliers are being nurtured but you have new products / services on your radar to show the growth potential.

Confidentiality is a critical issue that influences everything we do in business sales and valuations. 

It’s plays out in a number of ways:

• Ensuring staff aren’t unsettled by tales of a pending sale or change of ownership

• Preventing competitors using news of a sale to undermine existing customer relationships

• Maintaining dealings with suppliers, sure of an ongoing stream of orders

• Customers may become unnerved by rumours of a change of ownership, concerned about continuity of supply

• Professional advisors, whilst likely party to the planned sale or valuation, may leak an anticipated sale to other parties in the hope of securing a buyer

Whilst keeping all of these balls in the air, there’s another side to this whole confidentiality issue that warrants some thought:

How can someone buy the business if they don’t know it’s for sale?

Where do you sit on this vexed question?