As a business owner, it’s not uncommon that your business is your biggest asset. You have put a lot of your own time, effort, and equity into growing it to become successful. When the time comes to transfer your business, the most common objectives are to sell your business to the most suitable party, to maximize the value, and to ensure the business continues to thrive.

To accomplish these goals, it takes an expert team of professionals, with specific skills, to sell your business at the right price to the right buyer. The expert team, in most cases, should include: a certified M&A advisor, an accountant, a transaction attorney, and a wealth manager.

Here are the first 6 steps to take once you have decided now is the time to sell your business:

1. Consult a M&A Advisor. A certified M&A advisory team will help you devise a plan to tackle the task of selling your business and maximizing value.
2. Determine Value of Business. A professional valuation will provide a realistic estimation of the market value of your business.
3. Prepare an Exit Plan. Exiting your business at the right time for the right amount of money and for the right reasons requires planning.
4. Set Up Your Business for Transition. Prepare financial statements, business processes, and systems to enable a smooth transition.
5. Improve Value. As a business owner, stay focused on your business and operate it at its maximum potential to avoid any value erosion during the sales process.
6. Go to Market. Your M&A team will prepare confidential marketing materials and strategies for the sale of your business. Confidentially taking your business to market and targeted to the right potential buyers is crucial for receiving a maximum price at the end of a transaction.

After going to market and choosing the right offer and buyer for your business, your expert team of M&A professionals will help you take the deal through the due diligence process. This process includes negotiating and setting fair terms for the transaction between the seller and the buyer. Once all negotiations and terms are agreed upon, the last step is the closing process. The average time it takes to complete the entire sales process is between 6 to 18 months, depending on the complexity of the deal.

About Sun Acquisitions
Sun Acquisitions is a Chicago based M&A firm that specializes in helping people confidentially buy and sell privately held firms. We work with businesses across all industry sectors and sizes.

For business owners, we help you understand the value of your business, the prospective buyer market, whether or not capital can be secured for the transaction, and then we manage the entire life cycle of the transaction.

Sun Acquisition clients understand the importance of having their transaction handled in a manner that ensures a successful outcome. Our M&A team are experts at transactions and know how to help our clients achieve their desired outcome.

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