Lift Off: 12 Things to Know Before Selling Your Business

The thought of selling your business has been nipping at the edges of your mind. This may have been happening for several months, or perhaps the thought has recently come to the forefront.

Perhaps you’ve been keeping a file with materials about selling your company that holds information about potential buyers, news on sales in your industry, potential service providers and random Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) facts. Or, you may be the type of person who has already put a lot of time and effort into preparing to sell. You may have already consulted business partners, if you have them, your lawyer, your accountant, your banker or wealth advisor, your wife or husband or trusted college roommate.

You may have had this “Should I sell ? ” question rattling around in the back of your mind for some time, but your business has been your primary attention. Then, out of the blue, someone has approached you with an offer to buy your company. It’s nice that someone’s shown interest, but it’s also caught you off guard. You don’t know where to turn or who you can trust. Even if they’ve given you a written offer, sometimes that’s in the form of a “Letter of Intent” or “LOI,” and even if the offer is acceptable, you worry. Is it a fair price? Should you go ahead? How should you proceed?

If you identify with any of the above scenarios, Lift Off! What You Need to Know to Sell Your Business is the right book for you!

Regardless of the size of your company, where you are located, or what industry you’re in, it is essentially a “machine” that takes in revenue and produces profits. But is the machine you’ve built valuable to someone else? This book will help you determine if your business — your cash generating machine — is valuable and how much it might be worth.

Naturally you want to get the best deal possible and really understand the terms of that deal. No matter how much planning you’ve already done or haven’t done, there are probably aspects of preparing your company for sale, and going through the M&A journey, that you’re unaware of. This book will guide you, explaining in simple terms what you need to do and how you need to do it.

You will:
• Get a general working knowledge of the entire sale process, front to back.
• Figure out if the business you now own — that “machine” that takes in revenue and spins off profit — will have value to a new owner.
• Understand how outsiders would calculate the value of your company/machine.
• Recognize potential pitfalls and tradeoffs ahead.
• Ensure appropriate confidentiality, so that word doesn’t get out to the wrong people.
• And better handle the normal emotions that every owner feels upon selling his or her company, or business “machine.”

Are you ready?

It’s time to sell your business and lift off to your next stage in life.

With more than thirty years of M&A and banking experience as a lawyer, business executive, senior US Senate staff member and founder/owner of her own company, SHARON HEATON has an unshakable conviction about the enduring value that mid-market business owners bring to the economy. Along with her team of experts at LiftOff, Heaton has embarked on a national mission to educate business owners about how to sell their company. Distilling the top lessons she has learned over years of practice, Heaton can help you understand how outsiders will value your company, how to protect your confidentiality while finding the right buyer for you, and how to prepare yourself both emotionally and financially for the sale of a lifetime.