Over the years, I have worked as an entrepreneur, a business broker and a deal maker.
I have worked with hundreds of business owners who were hoping to cash out, to sell their businesses and retire or do something else. The fact of the matter is that most often, the sales of these businesses fall through. Only twenty percent—one-in-five–of proposed deals is successful. Most of the issues that kill these deals appear during negotiations over the terms, or during the due diligence required to check the validity of the details. These undetected and unresolved issues should have been addressed before the negotiations even began. It’s no surprise that the would-be seller had neglected to adequately prepare or plan for the sale. Having witnessed so many failed deals, I decided to write this book to help business owners get properly prepared for their final exit.
Preparing for the successful sale of a company is, no doubt, a challenge, but it is a challenge that must be met. For most business owners this is usually a once-in-a-lifetime event. They probably have never sold a business before. They don’t have the experience to have learned from their mistakes. Every owner wants to sell the business to the right buyer at the right time and at the best possible price. To get to that outcome, the seller has to resolve a myriad of details that would derail the deal. This can cause anxiety, but anxiety is to be expected even in the course of a deal that has been well-planned.
It’s the nature of the beast. The ups and downs of deal-making are to be expected. To have the deal completely fall through should not be. Understanding deal-killers before entering the sales process is critical. What are the deal-killers? Turn the page.
