SELL-EBRATE! Successfully Exit Your Business
At Vantage our passion is to celebrate one of the most overlooked jobs in the world, that of a business owner. If you are one and are just starting to entertain selling, listen to the Vantage podcast, "SELL-EBRATE! Successfully Exit Your Business". We give tips on selling your business and interview business owners about the challenges & successes they had selling. If you have a story and would like to be a guest visit us at TheVantageBrokers.com
SELL-EBRATE! Successfully Exit Your Business
I’m not sure I’m ready to sell yet. What should I do?
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What should you do if you feel that you are just not ready yet to sell? But it's that nagging thought in the back of your mind. Um, well, first of all, I would say and I know I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but you have to get evaluation. There's there's no need to stress about it. If it's this nagging thought in the back of your mind, understanding where you're at is probably going to be the quickest way to add clarity to the next decision. So, you know, your business could be worth a lot more than you expect it to be, or it could be worth a lot less than you expect it to be. So getting just some type of foundation there, understanding, okay, where am I at in the market compared to other businesses my size, and from there, understanding the next steps just can make things a lot easier for you. And so I always hate to sound like a broken record by giving you the same advice, but if you owned a home and you're thinking about selling and it doesn't cost you anything to reach out to a realtor and get some comps and just say, hey, I'm thinking about selling my house, to even begin to look at your next house, you're gonna want to know where is the value of my home now. Now you can try to do that in the real estate market. It's it's difficult in the business market for a couple different reasons. You don't know what attributes your business has that's going to contribute to the multiple that can be asked. You don't know what the going rate is for multiples in your industry. And so as you're struggling through that decision, it's a tough decision all by itself. But it makes it increasingly easier to make that decision when you have some type of foundation in terms of your valuation. So if that's you, if you're sitting there this year, you're looking at the the year ahead, 2026, and either you know you're you're getting closer to retirement, or your enjoyment of actually working in the business is diminishing each passing day, then it's just going to make sense to get that number and know where to go from there. So when you go to a reputable business broker that works with other businesses in your industry and has a record of selling businesses, you're going to have the number that is going to give you that next step foundation. Doesn't mean you have to make a decision, doesn't mean you have to sell it, but it's obviously the next step. And then from there, what a broker is going to do is kind of walk you through what are the best next steps if you're not sure. So typically that's going to be around what will increase the multiple of my business. Or, you know, I'll come across business owners that aren't as concerned about the money as they are about the difficulty of transition. They're aware that they are heavily involved in the business. But what they don't know is what potential buyers are and what are they looking for, and what can they absorb, even though you're the one that's driving most of the labor in the business. When you begin to get that answered, you're much more informed and a much better spot to make those next decisions. So that's what I want to encourage you to do today. If you are struggling, these are conversations that we have on a daily basis with people who have all types of mental hangups on what is going to happen next or what they should do, or, you know, I'll get responses. I know I've mentioned this in a previous podcast, but very common I'll get owners who say my business isn't worth anything, or nobody would want to buy my business because they know that they're the ones running the whole thing. Now, we specialize in businesses that are doing over a million dollars a year in revenue. And that doesn't mean we don't work with smaller companies because we are so niche focused, we have pockets of buyers in all sorts of industries. So if those numbers are less, it's still good to know where you're at. And a brokerage firm like us, we have other brokers that can work with you and the buyer and make those transitions happen and give you clarity as to what the best next steps are. You know, in order for you to run your business properly, you need clarity. And if such a big decision like the pending acquisition of your business or the pending sale of your business is one of those hangups, understanding that it's worth more than you thought or less than you thought, or right about what you thought, is just one less thing to remove. You know, the key in life in any area is to remove bandwidth, unnecessary bandwidth to give you clarity of where you're at. So this decision looming over your head can almost immediately get resolved, at least this big part, when you understand what the value is. Now, obviously, from there you're gonna have all types of other thoughts that a broker can walk you through. Like, okay, um, that price is, you know, more than what I thought. It's exactly what I thought, or it's less than what I thought. What do you suggest that I do next? Those are decisions to walk through. Now, you shouldn't be pressed to make a decision. Here at Vantage, we're not going to press anyone or try to hard sell anyone to sell when they're not ready. But we want you to be as informed as to where you're at as possible. And any brokerage firm in the U.S. should be willing to do the same. And most of them, I would say, that I've interacted with are roughly in the same ballpark as we are. Our job is to educate and motivate you to sell when you're ready. And that's it's as simple as that. But in order for you to be able to make those decisions, the crossroads that you're at right now is understanding the valuation. Beyond that, we're going to have to understand the psychological hangups of you know what is stopping you from making that decision. In fact, some of the time, and I would say I have this probably fit, well, it's a question I ask every single time, but you know, I would say uh not 50%, but 25% of the time, when I ask this next question, the decision to sell is clearly you shouldn't. And so that question is, should you sell? And so I'm talking to people that are in different age brackets and have built a business and they're making, you know, a good income with this business. And I'll look at it and be like, are you sure you should sell? And let's walk through why you're thinking about selling and what you could do to make this a much more enjoyable experience. For instance, how do we afford you the luxury of not being the center point or having to work as many hours? And the the consequence, the good consequence of you working less hours is it increases the value of the business. So sometimes the result, again, it's a question I ask all the time is should you should you sell? And if the determination is, okay, the the real hang up is I'm I'm just sick of working 60 or 70 hours. Well, how do we reduce a little bit of your revenue? Again, I I want to be very cautious with reducing how much you pay yourself. But if we got a little bit more runway, then let's bring in somebody to start to take over that position and require you to work less and less and less and increasing the value and the transferable value of your business because you're not having to run the show day and night. And um, and then from there, uh you have much more clarity on those decisions, you have direction, you have a foundation to make those decisions, and you've reduced some big hangups, mental hangups. The psychology of trying to prepare a decision like this requires you to have that kind of clarity. So I hope that helps. If you're a seller who's struggling to make those decisions, start there, and then from there you're gonna just have more clarity of what's going on in your business right now, and you can make better future decisions in light of those results. So I hope that helps, and we'll talk again soon.