Preparing Your Pre-Sale To-Do List

Step 2. Commit to a pre-sale improvement action plan.

Using the Step 1 chart, study each aspect of your business that you indicated needs improvement. If you also answer "yes" to the following four questions the weakness should become a target of your pre-sale improvement plan:

Yes No

Is the weakness in an area of high importance to the success of your business?

Is the weakness likely to lessen a buyer's interest or affect the price a buyer is likely to offer?

Is the cost of improving the condition likely less than the price concession the weakness is likely to force?

Can you implement necessary changes within the timeframe of your sale goal?

Step 3. Create your pre-sale improvement plan.

Create an action plan for each weakness you intend to overcome. Include:

• The necessary steps you commit to take.
• The timeline you'll follow.
• The resources you'll commit to the effort.
• How you'll assign tasks in order to complete improvements by the time you intend to launch the marketing of your business for sale.

Step 4. As you strengthen your business for presentation to buyers, keep your sale plans as quiet as possible.

Share your sale intentions with key staff and outside consultants only as necessary and only when the news is accompanied by a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement. Even when working with your financial and legal advisors, whose professional relationships are committed to confidentiality, stress the importance of keeping your sale intentions private. Should word get out that you plan to sell your business you risk creating uncertainty among employees, customers and suppliers, which can devalue your business at the same time you most need to increase its worth.

In next week’s installment of “Selling Your Small Business” we’ll help you put together the documentation necessary for a sale.   

Editor’s Note: This article is the sixth piece in a series taken from BizBuySell.com’s Guide to Selling Your Small Business. The guide is a comprehensive manual to help small business owners maximize their success when the day to sell arrives. Each Wednesday, Inc.com will publish a new section of the guide outlining BizBuySell.com’s best practices, from the initial planning stages of a sale all the way through negotiations and post-sale transition.