Selling Your Business? Write Ads That Attract Pre-Qualified Buyers

Step 2. Don't give away your business identity.

Protect your business identity in two ways:

• Place "blind ads" that don't reveal your business name or address, and that camouflage your identity by describing attributes without revealing facts buyers (or competitors) can link specifically to your business. When advertising using online sites, these ads are called "blind listings." Using a broker also solves this problem, as brokers will market your business and have inquiries directed to their office.
• Use the identity-protecting features on business-for-sale listing sites, which allow you to direct buyers to click to "contact the seller," after which they're prompted to enter information required by your listing. For instance, on BizBuySell you can mention in your listing that there is a "Confidentiality agreement required," followed by instructions on how to print and submit the required form. You can also set your inquiry-response screen to read, "The party offering this business for sale asks you to please include the following information," followed by such specific requests as the buyer's preferred timeframe and investment capability.

Step 3. Help buyers self-qualify themselves by providing clearly defined purchase requirements.

State the annual revenues of your business as a way to help buyers determine whether your business is too large or too small to match their interests. Likewise, state your asking price to allow buyers to match their financial capabilities with your offering before responding to your ad. Though it seems counter-intuitive to write ads that narrow the response pool, when it comes to sharing information about your business, the goal is to deal only with those most interested and capable of making the purchase.

Step 4: Request inquiry responses that allow you to prescreen buyers.

Don't limit your response invitation to a simple statement such as "contact the seller for more information." Instead, request and require specific information from respondents, including:

• Why they're interested in purchasing a business like yours.
• Their approximate timeframe.
• Their business experience.
• Their financial capability.

Online sites allow you to require this information as part of your listing-response mechanism in your description of the business, and if you're using a broker, that person will prescreen responses on your behalf. If you're placing your own ads, your email response instructions might read, "Thank you for your inquiry about my business. Please reply with a description of your business background, the type and size business you seek to acquire, when you plan to purchase a business, your investment capability, and your interest in this business." While you may turn off some potential buyers, it is most likely that serious buyers will understand your efforts and reply with the requested information.

Step 5. Include a means to track ad responses.

If you place business-for-sale ads in a number of outlets, be prepared to track which placements draw the greatest number of well-qualified responses. This will help you reword non-performing ads to better reflect the content of well-producing ads. Also, if the identical ad works better in one media outlet than another, the finding may help you decide to concentrate your efforts in the media outlet that performs best. When using newspaper ads and online listing sites you can collect responses through the media channel for easy tracking. Keep in mind that the average business takes 6-12 months to sell, from beginning to end, so you will likely be "renewing" your advertising. For this reason, it will help to understand which advertising outlets have generated buyer inquiries and which have not.

In next week’s installment of “Selling Your Small Business” we’ll discuss some tips to help you create compelling online ads.   

Editor’s Note: This article is the thirteenth 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.