Download 6 Tips to Find the Right Buyer for Your Business

When it comes time to sell your business, you have a lot of work to do to make sure you find the right buyer. The right buyer will look a little different for everyone, but generally it will be someone who has the finances and knows how to run a business.

With all the potential buyers you will meet, how do you know which one to choose? How can you identify the right buyer for your business? Keep reading for some tips.

1. Use a brokerage service

The best way to find the right buyer for your business is to use a brokerage service. When you go through a broker in your industry, they will have the experience required to evaluate potential buyers; they know exactly what to look for.

For example, FedEx route brokers prequalify people interested in buying routes and store them in a database. If you happen to sell your FedEx route, a broker will have access to that database and can find a good buyer who can afford to buy your business.

Using a broker is ideal because it eliminates the stress of having to search for and vet buyers without knowing what to look for. When you don’t have experience selling multiple businesses, it’s hard to spot red flags, and it’s also difficult to navigate the sales process when it comes to legal obligations and maintaining confidentiality. These are important things to remember.

2. Look at the potential buyer’s history

A potential buyer may be a first-time business owner, but if not, look at their history to see how successful their previous businesses have been. It is entirely possible that their previous ventures may have failed through no fault of their own. However, it is important to take a look.

If a potential buyer has a strong history of building and running a successful business, that’s a good sign. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the right buyer for your business, but it does mean that if they are, they’re likely to keep your business going.

3. Require a confidentiality agreement

A serious professional ready to buy will understand the need for a confidentiality agreement. Someone who is just curious will not be committed enough to sign such an agreement. So if someone refuses to sign an NDA, take that as a sign they’re not serious and move on to the next potential buyer.

4. Clean up the company’s appearance

First impressions are everything, and good buyers will be turned off by red flags and other things that make your business seem sloppy, disorganized, or frivolous.

Before you even put your business up for sale, you need to clean up anything that will make your business appear less than ideal to potential buyers. For example, if you are selling a business with a fleet of vehicles, get rid of all the broken cars and random parts lying around. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, make sure it’s clean, tidy and organized.

Potential buyers will judge your business by how it looks on the outside, in the physical world, regardless of how much revenue you generate.

5. Screen potential buyers thoroughly

It is important to thoroughly research all potential buyers before discussing the finer details of your business. Start the screening process early because you’re going to attract a lot of people who are just curious, and those people will waste your time.

Those who aren’t serious won’t go through the screening process, so you can eliminate non-serious buyers right out of the gate.

6. Get every agreement in writing

Are you selling a family business that has become a staple in your community? If so, people will be sad to see you go, but they’ll be even sadder if the new business owner doesn’t follow in your footsteps.

If it is important to you that the new business owner continue to operate the business in certain ways, put that in the contract to get it in writing. Depending on your requirements, this type of situation may be a deal breaker for some, but not all. Some people understand that following in your footsteps will actually help them succeed.

Don’t hold out forever

If you don’t find the perfect buyer right away, try not to wait too long or you’ll never sell your business. If you get bites but you reject them all, you may be too picky. You can’t hold out forever. Sometimes the perfect buyer is the person who has the money.